The relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus was a subject of deep interest in the first generations of Christianity. John had a movement, disciples, and a prophetic presence that drew people out into the wilderness. He called them to the Jordan River—the place of beginnings—inviting a radical turning of life toward God. Like many of his contemporaries, John imagined a Messiah who would overturn oppression with force, a revolution that would finally cast down empire.
What Jesus brought instead was something far more unsettling—and far more powerful.
At his baptism, Jesus hears the voice that names the deepest truth of his life: “You are my beloved.” That same truth is spoken over each of us. At the center of the Christian life is not fear, shame, or exceptionalism, but this simple and radical confession: I am a beloved child of God.
This moment marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in all four Gospels. Before he teaches, before he heals, before he confronts empire, he is grounded in belovedness. Baptism is not only Jesus’ beginning—it is ours. And if we truly let that truth sink past our heads and into our hearts, everything changes.
Because when we really know that God loves us, we are transformed. And when we are transformed, the world begins to be transformed with us.
Much of Christian history has struggled to live from this truth. John Philip Newell reminds us that the doctrine of original sin, as it developed within empire, often served imperial purposes. If people are taught that they are fundamentally broken, then conquest, coercion, and control can be framed as “fixing” the world. But Newell lifts up another ancient Christian vision: original blessing—the understanding that we are born bearing the image of God, each of us a unique expression of divine love.
Newell recounts an encounter with a Mohawk elder who responded to this theology with tears. The elder said he could not help but imagine how different history might have been if the people who brought Christianity to his ancestors had brought this version of the faith—one that recognized the presence of God in Indigenous peoples and in their relationship to the land. That moment names both the grief of what has been and the longing for what could yet be.
We cannot go back. But we can go forward.
And going forward means learning to live as people who know our own belovedness—and who can therefore recognize the belovedness of others: every person, every community, and the earth itself. This is not an abstract idea. It has real consequences for how we treat one another, how we resist injustice, and how we care for creation.
Jesus’ revolution is not a violent one. Nonviolent resistance is love standing firm against what diminishes life—not to destroy the oppressor, but to convert them. This was the heart of the witness of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King Jr., who understood that violence always creates winners and losers. God’s revolution does not. The Beloved Community does not exclude former enemies of love. Ultimately, it includes everyone.
Martin Luther King Jr. called this vision the Beloved Community: a world where poverty, hunger, and homelessness are not tolerated; where justice replaces exploitation, love replaces violence, and reconciliation replaces domination. It is God’s reign breaking into the present—not through force, but through love.
And here is the good news: we already know how to live this way, at least in part. This community loves well. People who come here for the first time say they can see it. People who have been here for decades say they return because this is where they experience it. We practice noticing one another’s belovedness. We speak it aloud. We remind one another who we are when the world tries to tell us otherwise.
That practice matters more than we know, because its ripples extend far beyond these walls—into our families, our daily interactions, our online presence, and the generations that follow us.
Even now, in the midst of violence and grief, this hope endures. On Wednesday, after the killing of Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Episcopal Bishop of Minnesota Craig Loya wrote, “Our Epiphany joy is the deep, defiant, revolutionary hope we have in the assurance that love is the most powerful force in the universe.”
That hope is not naïve. It is hard-won. It asks something of us. We must let love all the way in—past our defenses, past the distortions of history—so that it can do its transforming work.
So we practice saying the truth, again and again, until it becomes part of who we are:
I am a beloved child of God.
You are a beloved child of God.
We are beloved children of God.
All are beloved children of God.
This is the beginning. And it is how the revolution of love continues.
Deep peace, Amy
PS We’re so excited to have John Philip Newell visit Grace Presidents’ Day Weekend! You can find out more about his visit and register for the retreat he’ll be leading elsewhere on the website.
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