The Professor Who Needed to Be Named

In 1985, Henri Nouwen held prestigious teaching positions at both Harvard and Yale. Students packed his lectures. Publishers sought his manuscripts. Yet he confessed to friends that he felt hollow, constantly seeking approval from audiences and colleagues to fill a gnawing emptiness inside.

Then Nouwen made a bewildering decision. He left Harvard to live at L'Arche Daybreak community in Toronto, where he became the caregiver for Adam Arnett, a young man with severe intellectual disabilities who could not speak, dress himself, or even recognize Nouwen's academic credentials. Every morning, Nouwen bathed Adam, brushed his teeth, and guided his limbs into clean clothes.

It was in those quiet, unglamorous mornings that Nouwen said he finally understood Mark 1:11. When the heavens tore open over the Jordan and the voice of the Almighty declared, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased," Jesus had not yet preached a single sermon, healed one leper, or called a single disciple. His identity was spoken before His ministry began.

Nouwen spent his last decade writing and teaching that this same declaration reaches every baptized believer. The voice of the Father does not wait for our accomplishments. It names us before we perform. At the waters of baptism, before we have done anything worthy of heaven's attention, El Shaddai tears open the sky and says what He has always meant: You are mine. You are loved. That is enough.