I’m
thankful for some essential truths I learned as a child in Sunday School at the
First Baptist Church of Conley, GA, truths so profound that they still
challenge and guide me.  They came in two
songs:

            Jesus
loves me.  This I know, for the Bible
tells me so.
Jesus loves the
little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and
white, they are precious in his sight. 
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
And
in the Bible verse  which I heard more
than any other, John 3:16 (in the King James Version):
For God so loved the
world that he give his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish but have everlasting life.
God
so loved, and so loves, the world—so much more than we can imagine and at a
cost so much higher than we can comprehend. Jesus lived and died and lives
among us to make that love unmistakably clear and immediately near.
Jesus
fed and feeds the hungry, healed and heals the sick, welcomed and welcomes the
shunned, embraced and embraces the shamed, forgave and forgives the guilty,
inspired and inspires hope in the desperate.
In
Jesus, with Jesus and through Jesus, God lavishes tender mercy on all of us: on
every human being, young and old, men and women, friend and stranger, companion
and enemy “red and yellow, black and white.” They are all, we are all, God’s
children, precious in God’s sight.  In
Jesus, God says: “I love you.  Let
yourself be loved. Love one another as I have loved you.”
I’m
still trying to learn what I thought I had already learned, long ago, in Sunday
School.  Of course, I didn’t know then
how much unlearning I would also need to do.
Most
of us feel we aren’t worthy of this love. We know too much about ourselves: our
fears, failures, sins and regrets. 
We
can’t silence the echoing voices of our early years, voices which tell us we
aren’t enough: not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, handsome enough,
strong enough, or cool enough. 
We
know we don’t measure up to what our cultures says a worthy human being looks
like.  The culture says that, before we
can be loved, we have to lose weight, get a better job, move to a nicer
neighborhood, drive a sportier car, get sober, be straight, land the lead role
in the school play, be a starter on the team, fix everything we’ve broken, and
guarantee the happiness of everyone who counts on us.
Despite
our feelings, the good news is that there is nothing we have to do to be worthy
of love. Worthiness isn’t a reward for extraordinary achievement or a bonus for
exceptional performance. It’s not a merit badge we earn or a trophy we get at
the end of a winning season. 
Worthiness
is a gift from God, a sheer gift of identity, a gift we already have.  We are worthy of love because God created and
cherishes us, because we bear God’s image, and because we are God’s
children. 
Jesus
makes it possible for us to enjoy the gift. With Jesus, we experience what he
experienced at the moment of his baptism. 
God immerses us in grace and overwhelms us with mercy. God raises us to
new and radiant life. We see the heavens opened, and we know that there is no
separation between us and the divine. The Spirit flutters around us with bright
wings of energy and hope, then rests on us with promise and peace. And, God
affirms who we are; God says to us what God says to Jesus: “You are my son, my
daughter.  I love you.  I take great delight in you.”