As you noticed from the litany we recited at the start of
our service this morning, today we are celebrating the baptism of Jesus by John
the Baptist.
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| Image by Davezelenka |
Each of the four gospels tells a version of this story,
although each tends to emphasize a different feature of the event. What we
heard read this morning is Luke’s version. Luke is unique in his telling in two
ways.
First, Luke implies that Jesus was baptized as part of a
larger crowd that came to hear John preach. We can think of John as a kind of
Jewish revival preacher. He preaches judgment and repentance to God’s people.
When I read Luke’s story, I get the sense that Jesus may
have come to the Jordan River to hear John preach just as some of us might
attend a revival meeting to hear an especially gifted evangelist speak. Jesus
may have come not anticipating anything special happening to him. But it does.
As he is baptized, the Holy Spirit falls upon him, empowering him to begin the
ministry that God had planned for him from the day of his birth.
When we read the story of Jesus’ baptism, the question
almost immediately arises: Why was Jesus baptized at all? John’s baptism is a
baptism of repentance. Why was Jesus baptized if we believe he was sinless?
Well, coming with the crowds to be baptized may have been a
deliberate decision by Jesus to identify himself with sinners. We sometimes
talk about Jesus becoming sin for our sakes so that we can be set free from
sin. He does that supremely by his death, but he may have begun that process by
coming with the crowds to be baptized by John.
All this is speculation on my part, but we do have to deal
with the fact that Luke emphasizes Jesus’ oneness with the crowd that John
baptizes.
The second unique feature of Luke’s telling is that he tells
us that the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus while Jesus is praying after his
baptism. No other gospel writer includes that detail. The link between the Holy
Spirit and prayer is a special emphasis in Luke’s writings, both in his gospel
and the Book of Acts. We heard that emphasis in the Acts reading this morning.
There Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit descends upon the new Samaritan
Christians when the apostles Peter and John pray over them.
Luke also tells us the story of Pentecost, when the Holy
Spirit descends upon the infant church for the first time. That event happens,
Luke tells us, after Jesus ascends into heaven. The original disciples spent
the intervening time in constant prayer.
If we read further in Luke’s writings, we find he seems to
regard the Holy Spirit as the supreme gift God gives to his people. But that
can puzzle us. What, after all, does the New Testament mean when it talks about
the Holy Spirit?
One thing the New Testament writers mean by that term is the
power of God, the personal power of God at work in all creation and at work
within us.
When we talk about God as all powerful, I think we tend to
think of God exercising his power like a bull dozer. He moves mountains by
plowing into them with incredible force, almost violent force, and then moving
tons of earth from here to there.
There are indeed times when God does seem to act with such
mighty force. He does so when he frees the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.
And he does so when he raises Jesus from the dead.
And he has done so in some peoples’ individual lives, as
when God seems to dramatically cure a cancer patient of her disease. Or when
God seems to work a transformation in a person’s life that changes that life
almost overnight.
I learned of such a dramatic transformation when I happened
to read the story of the conversion of Bill Wilson, the co-founder of
Alcoholics Anonymous.
Bill W., as he is known to anyone who participates in AA,
was a prisoner of drink. It was shattering his personal life as well as his
relationships with his family. Finally, when it appeared he could fall no
farther, he entered a hospital that treated alcohol addiction in 1933.
There a former drinking buddy visited him and shared how he
had found sobriety through a moral renewal movement. Bill W. was a thorough
rationalist and rejected his friend’s suggestions as irrational. But later a
severe depression descended upon him. In his desperation, he cried out, “If
there be a God, let him show himself.” Suddenly, he said, the room was blazing
for him with a bright light. And he felt an ecstasy like none he had ever
experienced. Then he was seized by the thought, “You are a free man.”
Wilson’s encounter with God’s mighty power was the turning
point of his life. He was sure he would never drink again, and he never did.[1]
In Bill W’s case, God moved like the spiritual bulldozer I
mentioned earlier. God’s power was dramatic and strong and immediate.
But we do a disservice if we present the idea that God
always exercises his power in such dramatic expressions. We overlook the many
other ways God exercises his power in gentle, unassuming ways. And that is part
of what is important to hear as we listen to the story of Jesus’ baptism.
The Holy Spirit, God’s power, descends upon Jesus in the
gentle form of a dove. We think of the dove as a symbol of peace. And it is
this peaceful way of thinking of God’s power that our gospel story sets before
us this day.
This should remind us that the most frequent images the New
Testament writers use to talk about God’s power are not images of explosive
energy, like the energy unleashed by a volcanic eruption. Rather the images we
encounter most often are images of a more gentle force, like breath and wind.
The Holy Spirit is also closely linked to water. Jesus, for
example, talks about the Spirit as the spring of living water that springs up
in the believer’s heart.
Water is one of the most powerful natural forces in the
world. And yet it seems so soft and giving, as when we plunge a hand into a
flowing stream or we dive into a swimming pool. Water does not resist our touch
like concrete. Instead it gives way and receives us in.
Or if you pour water onto a rocky field with no grass, it
does not penetrate the dirt but flows off without apparently making any impact.
But keep up that flow over a course of thousands of years and what do you get?
The Grand Canyon. In this respect, water can literally move mountains. The
gentle impact of repeated rainfall can erode the heftiest mountains of rock and
carry their soil into the sea.
We have a good example right here in our neighborhood.
Scientists say the Blue Ridge Mountains were once as high and rugged as the
Rockies. But repeated rain and snowfalls have eroded them down into something
much gentler.
It is this gentle exercise of God’s power that I would like
us to focus on this morning as we read the gospel story of the Spirit
descending upon Jesus at his baptism. For example, when we baptize an infant,
we may be inclined to think: What impact does such a baptism have on an infant?
He or she will probably never remember it directly.
Well, for one thing, it brings that infant into the circle
of this church, this community where the Spirit is at work among us. As the
child grows up in this circle of faith, we can never know how much God will use
the faith and service and teaching of each one of you to spiritually shape and mature
this new child of God.
When we think about this exercise of the gentle power of
God, what does it do for us? Many things, but it particularly empowers us to do
the work of Christian service and compassion in the world.
It is important to notice that Jesus does no work of
ministry until after his baptism. We have no stories of Jesus casting out
demons or healing the sick before his baptism. Instead all of those miracles
come afterwards.
Could Jesus have done any of those miracles before he was
filled with the Holy Spirit at his baptism? We don’t know for sure. But I
suspect he could not have. He, like us, had to wait for that special time when
God called him to begin his ministry and then gave him the power to do it.
And so it is, I believe, with the ministries of the church
today. Sometimes we ask, “Why does the ministry of our church seem to have so
little impact in the community where we live, despite our many active efforts?”
Could it be that we are trying to accomplish God’s work solely by our own
determination and will power? I compare that to a motorboat, which we drive
full speed ahead, trying to overpower all the circumstances of life.
But that is not how ministry works when it is done in the
Holy Spirit. Instead it is more like sailing a sailboat. We remain alert to the
winds of the Spirit in our lives and world, shifting our sailing as the winds
shift.
In such ministry, we are never completely in control. Rather
we seek out the Spirit’s leading so we can move with where the gentle power is
moving.[2]
Maybe that is why Luke links the work of ministry so closely
to prayer. Prayer can support the work of ministry in a number of ways. Let me
just suggest two that we can easily overlook.
Everyone who works with the needy in a community, whether in
a church, a social service agency or a medical setting, encounters the constant
danger of emotional and physical burnout. If we try to solve everyone’s
problems, we will find that we dig a deep hole for ourselves and fall into it.
We need ways to replenish our energies by taking breaks from
the service we do. And in Christian service, one of the breaks we need to take
is setting aside regular times for prayer. It is through prayer that we
replenish the spiritual energies that can empower us for the works of care and
compassion we do for others.
Prayer can also help us develop a greater sensitivity to the
real needs in our community. For example, I have a great respect for the work
of food banks and other services that distribute food supplies to the needy.
And in no way do I want to devalue that service. But how many of us can look behind
the distribution service to see an even deeper need. That is, how can we help
address the situations that cause that hunger?
How can we, for example, help unemployed people find jobs to
support themselves and their families? How may we help them develop the job
skills they may not have? Maybe that means volunteering in literacy programs to
help people learn to read.
Or maybe it means helping young mothers and fathers learn to
cook so they can serve their families more nutritious meals than a McDonald’s
Big Mac and fries. I was once talking with a worker in one of the food banks.
He mentioned that many of the fresh vegetables that the service distributed to
the hungry got thrown away because people did not know how to cook them. Many young
adults, it seems, have grown up today without learning how to cook.
The question here is: How can we help people learn to fish
in addition to providing them with fish? I am suggesting that we make some of
our prayers the request that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes to deeper needs
we easily overlook.
A second thing I want to say about the Holy Spirit is that
the Holy Spirit is God’s power of transformation in our lives. He is the one
who takes the base metal of our lives and turns it into gold.
That is something I think John the Baptist was trying to get
at in our gospel reading this morning when he talks about the one coming after
him who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. He links that with
separating the wheat from the chaff in our lives.
The apostle Paul will talk about the ways that the Holy
Spirit will bring such wonderful gifts into our lives like love, joy, peace,
patience, generosity, gentleness, and self-control.[3]
The Spirit brings those gifts often through experiences of
changing our attitudes and mindsets. How much more peace there would be in the
world today if more of us really put into practice Jesus’ counsel to love our
enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
It is not easy to put such counsel into practice. And that’s
one reason why Luke encourages us to pray for the Holy Spirit. As we open our
lives to the Spirit, we open our lives to the Spirit’s transforming power.
The God we worship as Christians is fundamentally a God, I
believe, of gentle power. And as we open our lives to the Holy Spirit, we are
inviting that gentle power to work in us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
preached January 10, 2016, by The Rev. Gordon Lindsey
[1]
The story of Bill Wilson is one included in a collection of conversion stories
recently published: John M. Mulder, editor, Finding God: A Treasury of
Conversion Stories. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Willam B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 2012. Pages 215-221.
[2]
I have adopted the metaphors of the motorboat and the sailing boat from Father
Carl J. Arico, “Spiritual Companioning,” published in Contemplative Outreach
News, Vol. 29, No. 1, December 2012. Page 4.
[3]
This list of the fruits of the Spirit comes from Galatians 5:22-23.
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