January 9, 2022 - Baptism of Our Lord - Baptism with Holy Spirit and Fire

What an extraordinary figure John is in today's Gospel reading, Luke opens his account like this:

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 

John's response to this questioning is what is extraordinary, both in its surface simplicity and with its wisdom that can inspire deep pondering. The timing of when John delivered this answer changes the chronology of the baptism story in Luke but this will be addressed later in this blog entry.   

The Year In Review quote from Anaïs Nin "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” pertains not only to how we see the world but to how we read scripture as well. In Luke 3:16 the translation in our bulletin reads "John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

This could mean the Holy Spirit baptizes the believer with fire for the purpose of purification. Or it could mean He will baptize the unbeliever with the fire of judgment? What exactly is the “baptism with fire?” Who receives it? Is it something good for them or bad? Also different translations use different prepositions including with, by, from, of, and in. Someone being baptized with fire and being baptized by fire have very different meanings for me.

I lean more to the first option but certainly the next verse can be understood to argue for the second option. "His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” has caused some people to believe the separation of wheat and the chaff refers to those who have been baptized and those who are not baptized. Many in the church have believed if you are not baptized you will go to hell and this verse probably encourages that thinking. 

With this in mind,The Message has an interesting translation: 

But John intervened: “I’m baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”

Normally people ask "Are you baptized?" with a yes or on answer expected. The Message suggests another possible answer. There is an aspect of baptism that maybe part continuing process. Cleaning house is not a once and done proposition.

Then the lectionary reading skips verses 19 and 20 but Pastor Janell did not as she read the Gospel:

But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

Why? Luke records here that John the Baptist could not have baptized Jesus because he was in jail. This does not harmonize well with the rest of the accounts, yet it is important information to consider with the verses that follow:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

I love the detail that Jesus prayed during his baptism. That is not recorded in any other gospel. Another detail is that people were baptized without John being present. This is not something that is immediately apparent. Leaving out verses 19 and 20 allow readers to come to a wrong conclusion. Luke should be thanked, however, for correcting his baptism chronology. It only makes sense that John would give his "answer" to the crowd (about John not being the messiah) long before Jesus was baptized. His answer makes less sense if John is about to baptize Jesus.

There is a narrative reason for Luke recording this order as well. John plays a major role in the first chapters of Luke, including the story of John's mother and father, his birth, and his relationship to Jesus. When Jesus is baptized here, it’s just Jesus, and there is no confusing the two. John is not the Messiah and the big clue that distinguishes Jesus and John is, oddly, baptism. Jesus’ baptism will be different and Jesus will baptize differently. We know they are not the same by how they go about baptizing people. John’s baptism is just with water. But Jesus? Well, that’s with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Of course, this anticipates the scope of Luke’s vision of the baptism reaching back to Adam and then forward. This is one likely reason Luke immediately follows the baptism with the genealogy of Jesus. I have been more aware of the lifting of the Holy Spirit recently and the Spirit takes center stage here. This is a reminder of the unique function of the Spirit in Luke-Acts. Reading the Gospel of Luke through the lens of the Spirit’s role generates the following, yet only a sampling, of the Spirit’s presence:

Pastor Janell preached this morning that prayer is an invitation to grow and asked us to be attentive to what God and the Holy Spirit might be stirring in us.