And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." – Matthew 3:17

 Today's Scripture Reading (October 20, 2020): Matthew 3

On February 21, 1995, Joan Osborne released the song "One of Us." And in the lyrics, Joan Osborne asks a question.

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home?

Christians didn't respond well to her assertion that God was a slob, and I don't think that Osborne thought that she would get cheered from the judgmental Christian Right for her uncomplimentary description of God. But suddenly the question was out there. What if God was a slob like "one of us."

Most of us, and likely all of us, spent our Middle School years in fear about the group with which we might be identified. I think most of us tried to shape our friendships with an eye toward what those friends might say about us and our identity. And we all had some guilty friendships, both friends that we could barely tolerate, but who belonged to the social group to which we aspired, and friends with whom we really loved to spend time, but who could also drag our reputation down. I had a few friends in school that belonged to the latter category, kids who were largely socially ignored, but who, if you bothered to spend time with them, were fun people with whom to spend some time.

In the Baptism of Jesus, Jesus, who was without sin, publicly identifies with the sinful human race. There was no need for Jesus to be baptized. He had no sin from which to be cleansed and no reason to repent. Jesus was the perfect Son of God. And yet, he insists on being Identified publicly as "one of us."

Unbelievably for some, and maybe for Joan, Osborne got it theologically perfect. In the baptism of Jesus, he identified with us. He became "a slob like one of us. Just a stranger on the bus
tryin' to make his way home?"

But more than that, at the moment that Jesus performs this unthinkable act with his baptism, finishing a journey to become "one of us" that began with his birth in a manger in Bethlehem, God proudly announces to all who would listen that "This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." The baptism of Jesus was not a random act; it was part of the perfect plan in which God leaves his throne to become "a slob like one of us." And we need to thank Joan for reminding us of that vital fact. And the reality that even if we were displeased by the comparison of God to a slob like us, God was quite okay with it.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Mark 1