A MESSAGE FOR THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD

(a link to a worship service including this message on the YouTube channel is found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FItpQRmxzdA)

Prayer of the Day:

Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit and revealed him as your beloved Son.  Keep all who are born of water and the Spirit faithful in your service, that we may rejoice to be called children of God, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Luke 3:15-22

¹⁵As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶John 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. ¹⁷His 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.” ¹⁸So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. ¹⁹But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, ²⁰added to them all by shutting up John in prison.

²¹Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²²and 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.”

On this Festival of the Baptism of Our Lord, we enter Luke’s gospel in full swing.  In Chapter 1, we go from the announcement to Zechariah and Elizabeth to Gabriel’s visitation to Mary to Mary’s visit to Elizabeth to the birth of John.  In Chapter 2, we go from the birth of Jesus to the visit of the shepherds to Jesus’ presentation in the Temple to the Holy Family’s return to Nazareth to the boy Jesus in the Temple.  Here in Chapter 3, we meet John the Baptizer in full stride with Luke rooting John’s appearance in the wilderness firmly in the history go the world and, especially, the Roman Empire.  John preached a hard message of repentance and life transformation and people responded and committed to his message 

In our passage for today, the people were very excited about John and who he might have been.  As Luke states:

¹⁵As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah…

John had already made clear that he was announcing the coming of another, but the people seized upon the one they could see as opposed to the one that was promised.  And to their expectation and to their question as to whether John was the Messiah, John had a clear answer: No.  No, he was not.  In fact, John makes a distinction between him and the one he announced who was to come.  He also made a strong distinction between his baptism and the baptism of the one who was to come.

John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin was not unique in his day.  The Jews had rituals of cleansing with water as well as baptism as a sign of conversion to Judaism.  These rituals of cleansing did not assume that ritual uncleanness was a sign of sin.  It was simply a fact of life that there were times that one needed cleansing according to the Law.  These rituals were typically steps of preparation for whatever was next in life: re-entering life after illness, childbirth, or other life events.

John distinguished his baptism, this baptism of repentance with water with the baptism of the Messiah which was a baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  This was not a baptism of repentance but a baptism of purification.

¹⁶John 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. ¹⁷His 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.”

This image of the winnowing fork was very stark.  A winnowing fork was used to throw the wheat up in the air, over and over again.  The heavier heads of the wheat would separate from the husk or the chaff which would be blown away from the wheat by the wind.  The chaff would then be gathered up and used as fuel for fires.  And the image was not that the wheat was the saints, and the chaff was the sinners.  All would be subjected to winnowing and their chaff, the things that burdened them, would be separated off and burned, purified. 

This was why all this talk that seemed about judgement was referred to by Luke as good news.

¹⁸So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

There was hope here.  the water baptism of repentance would likely need to be repeated and repentance repeated.  This baptism of purification was more definitive.  It was possible to unburdened.  It was possible to be released from bitterness and guilt and shame and anger through the baptism of the one to come, the Messiah.

When Luke gets to the baptism of Jesus, the actual baptism was almost an afterthought.  For Luke, Jesus’ baptism was not the key moment of the event.  John was not even named. 

²¹Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²²and 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.”

Jesus, like all the people, was baptized.  What Luke pointed out as unique was that, when Jesus came out of the water, he began to pray.  It was in the moment of prayer that the heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like dove. 

The prayer life of Jesus was a key theme for Luke.  He never missed an opportunity to point out that Jesus was in prayer prior to all the great moments of his earthly ministry.  He prayed here before the Holy Spirit sent him out into the wilderness to be tested.  He prayed before he chose the Apostles.  He prayed in the garden before the time of his Passion.

While Jesus was in prayer, the Holy Spirit descended upon him and the voice of God declared him to be God’s Son, beloved, and well pleasing to God.  This seemed to be the main point of this event, over and above Jesus’ actual baptism.

On this Festival of the Baptism of Our Lord, this passage answers some questions and leaves some other questions unanswered.

The first question that comes to mind on this festival is: why was Jesus baptized?  If Jesus was indeed fully human and fully divine, why did he need to go through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins?  on this question, this passage offers no help.  As a ritual of preparation, we can see it as Jesus’ preparation for his testing and public ministry.   But the repentance part?  We are left wondering.

There is then the question as to the connection between the baptism of John and the baptism brought by the Messiah and the Christian Rite of Holy Baptism.  As we have seen, the baptism of John was in keeping with the rituals of baptism for preparation, in this case in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.  The baptism brought by the Messiah, by Jesus, was seen as the once-and-for-all baptism of this death and resurrection which delivered to the children of God the end of the sacrifices, the end of the rituals, and the beginning of life, the redeemed life.  Without entering into a full exposition into the Rite of Holy Baptism, what this passage does teach us is that when Jesus was baptized and as he was in prayer, the Holy Spirit descended upon him.  In the Rite of Holy Baptism, we celebrate the coming the Holy Spirit upon the baptized.  And what we proclaim is that this is the same Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit that descended upon Jesus, who empowered Jesus, who animated Jesus’ life of ministry and life of sacrifice, is the one and the same Holy Spirit who descended upon us, who rests on us, who lives in us.

And, finally, this passage holds up in front of us the question of our own expectations.  The expectations of the people that led to John’s teaching about the Messiah are left unanswered.  Those same expectations followed Jesus throughout his earthly ministry.  They stand before the cross and empty tomb with Jesus disciples.  And the live in us, as we bring our own expectations to our lives of discipleship.  And we too are sometimes left with unresolved expectations as Jesus shows us another way, a new way.  And in keeping with that, we are also offered the purification of the Messiah, the release from our chaff, our burdens, those things that keep us from rising fully into who we have been created to be, full and precious children of God.

Be safe.  Be well.  God bless you all.

Pastor Greg