“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”” (Mark 1:9–11, ESV)

This brief scene captures the essence of what is so good about the good news. Here is the Son about the Father’s business, serving in joy. Here is the Father delighting in His Son and making that delight seen, known, and felt. Jesus is the beloved son, with whom God is pleased. And this relationship is the desire of all mankind—to be not only accepted, but delighted in by God, at peace with Him, motivated in work and productivity under His blessing and for His glory. In this exchange, all is right with the cosmos.

It is this perfect relationship that is precisely what is offered to us who kiss the Son. Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John 17 is an insight into what Jesus desires as the reward for His work, that “they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (Jn. 17:23). Again from John 15, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn. 15:9-11).

The good news is that God so loves the world that He gave this only begotten and beloved Son that whosoever believe in Him may not perish but have eternal life—a life under the delight of God the Father, a brother to the Son, and filled with the Holy Spirit, sharing in their joy of each other. For so many of us, we yearn to hear the words that Jesus heard—the pleasure and comfort and security that would come from our father’s delight. And in Christ, this is precisely what we get. That same pleasure bestowed upon the Son is now bestowed upon us, the adopted. Those who get the good news of salvation are those who also receive the good news of adoption, and whose hearts cry out without fear, Abba! (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).