Luke 3:22 “A voice come from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’”

None of this was news to Jesus. It is not as though he doubted any of it. We see him as the 12 year-old boy in the Temple telling Mary and Joseph he had to be in his Father’s house. He knew he was God’s Son, and that in a special way.

Jesus understood that God loves him. Was God’s love not the special emphasis of all his preaching and teaching? He didn’t come to give great advice, or new rules. “The law came through Moses,” John writes in introducing Jesus to us. “Grace (that’s God’s undeserved love) and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Think of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Think of the way he dealt with the woman caught in adultery. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you,” he told the disciples in the upper room hours before his death. The most famous passage in the Bible, “God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son,” is Jesus talking about love. God’s love for him, or for us for that matter, was not a new revelation for him.

Jesus understood his whole life and work pleased his Father. “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life,” he said when he described himself as the Good Shepherd.

Jesus knew all this. But he came to be baptized and to hear it anyway. He came to hear his Father claim him as his own. Is that hard to understand? Don’t we all want someone who claims us? When we are children, don’t we want a mom or dad who will proudly say, “That’s my boy!” or “That’s my girl!” when we are running around on the soccer field, or acting in the school play?

When we find a love interest, and we start to meet their friends or family, doesn’t it make your heart swell when they can’t wait to show you off to the next person, and they are quick to claim, “This is my boyfriend,” or “This is my girlfriend” and later “This is my husband” or “This is my wife”? Wouldn’t it be disappointing, even heartbreaking, if they were trying hide the fact, or seemed embarrassed to be associated with you?

For someone to say, not just to us, but for everyone else to hear, “You are mine. I love you. You make me happy in every way” may be the highest compliment, the ultimate expression of affection, the greatest thing we can hear from someone who cares about us, and someone we care about in return.

That’s what Jesus was getting from his Father when he was baptized. He was claimed by God. Now here’s the reason you should care: that is what you are getting from the Father at Jesus’ baptism and your own. Remember, Jesus is your substitute in life and in death. By faith God has made you a little Christ. If he says this about Jesus, it applies to you as well. Hear him say it now, “You are my son, or daughter, whom I love. With you I am well pleased.”

And at your own baptism, your heavenly Father was laying his own claim on you. In those waters he put his name on you, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He was saying, “You belong to me now. I have called you by name. You are mine.” Maybe that’s not news to you. I hope it’s not news. But for these few moments, I hope that you can simply bask in the comfort of knowing you are claimed by God.