Before Anything Happened

"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Take this sentence slowly, because it is built out of older Scripture.

"My beloved Son" echoes Psalm 2, where God says to His king, "Thou art my Son." It is a psalm about God crowning His king: "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." "In whom I am well pleased" echoes Isaiah 42: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth." The first line belongs to a king on his throne. The second belongs to God's servant, the one Isaiah later describes as "bruised for our iniquities." Both land on the same man, in one breath, beside a river. Anyone on the bank who knew the Scriptures heard a crown and a cost announced together.

Then notice when God says it. In Matthew, Jesus has not yet preached a sermon, healed anyone or called a single disciple. All anyone has seen is about thirty years of ordinary life as a carpenter in Nazareth, the town that later made Nathanael ask, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The Father's "well pleased" is spoken over a life with no public ministry in it yet.

Then notice what happens next. The Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, and after forty days of fasting the tempter comes with these first words: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." The attack goes straight at the sentence God spoke from heaven. Hearing the truth from God does not stop anyone from being pushed to prove it later. Jesus answered with Scripture and went on trusting what His Father had said.

Now hear that voice over your own life. In Christ, the Father settled His pleasure in you before you had done a single thing, for Paul says God "hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world," and has poured out His grace on us "in the beloved." You do not have to spend this week earning what He has already said.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 69 is Resurrection Power (Romans 8:11).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two