Text: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Focus: baptism by Holy Spirit
Function: To help people see how Jesus and we are baptized by the Spirit
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.”
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;
Happy New Year everyone. Epiphany is past and we are looking forward to God’s blessings in our lives as we struggle to serve God daily in our walk with Jesus. Thanks for the week off last week. The game was exciting, but the outcome was not as good as the Ohio State bowl game.
In one sense, it is too bad that we missed the celebration of Epiphany. The coming of the sages who worshiped Jesus is proof of the fact that God’s salvation is for the world entire. Even in that pagan religion God left a witness to God’s plan to save the world through God’s own flesh and blood, Jesus Christ.
They worshiped Him and presented Him with extravagant gifts. And then we see Jesus become a refugee whose parents love Him enough to flee from their home, risk their own lives to find a place of protection in a foreign land.
It reminds me that Jesus said to welcome even the least of these, including the immigrant. For when we do, we welcome Jesus Himself. And Jesus knew the stories of how His family had to flee to find political asylum in a foreign land. I worry about speech that promotes our prejudice against immigrants, words like “Illegals” when Jesus calls them neighbor. I worry that we place our love for our nation above our love for Jesus and His command to care for the least of these. I worry that that kind of speech will bring the displeasure of God on our land. When we love the least of these, we love Jesus Himself.
Jesus was and is the anointed one who came to redeem the world entire. And in today’s scripture, we learn that Jesus did not change the world, raise the dead, heal the sick, cast our demons, extend mercy to the outcasts, befriend sinners and lead them back to God in human strength alone. Jesus worked in the power of the Holy Spirit. It came that day, and rested on Him.
Today, we celebrate the baptism by the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ .
John the Baptist went around the countryside as a man who was sent to get people ready for the radical nature of Jesus Christ and His ministry.
John preached a radical message as well. He preached the message that people needed to turn around from evil lives, live a life of love for others and get ready for the coming of the Kingdom of God and the time of the Messiah.
John was a bold and stern preacher. He preached what was called a hard word and people listened. And when some came with insincere motives, the motive of looking like the fit in but were not pure in heart, he called them out.
“What shall we do?” People asked John and he replied with a hard statement, if you have two coats, give one to someone who has none.
You know, I found it to be a big sacrifice and very hard to have a wardrobe designed around one coat. He is telling us that we we will have to give up our excess if we want to be participants in God’s coming kingdom.
Jesus didn’t make it any easier for us as well. He told us to put our hands to the plow of labor for the Lord and never look back until we get to heaven. And the Apostles confirmed it with words like “present yourselves as living sacrifices for Christ…”
Boldness and passion are given to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
As we mentioned, John started it with preaching a baptism of getting ready, but he told us that Jesus will baptize us with a baptism of fire that will cleanse and empower us.
And then John baptized Jesus and the Holy Spirit literally came down from heaven appearing like a dove, I imagine a bright white light floating down and resting on His head. Jesus was then filled with the Holy Spirit and even though He was divine before hand, as we saw two weeks ago when we looked at Jesus as a child demonstrating extraordinary spirituality and wisdom in the temple of God, Jesus was now fully empowered to do the work that God gave Him to do.
We have an alternate reading for today if we so choose. Acts 8:14-17
14Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. 15The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit 16(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). 17Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
A little background: The book of Acts starts with Jesus telling us to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:8. Then, in the 2nd chapter it describes the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the 120 gathered in the upper room somewhere and the Church was officially born.
People were believers already. They had already came to the place where they trusted that Jesus was their Savior. And then, at a separate event for most of them, the Spirit of God fell on them. Most often, like the baptism of Jesus which was performed by God’s messenger, John, in this case, and the laying on of hands by the apostles as the case of Peter and John in the text in Acts. This passage is significant because the Spirit of God went beyond the Jewish population to include gentiles like us.
The Church was started by, and designed to be run by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
It will lead us beyond hatred and strife to fulfilling the Law of God by causing us to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.
It was prophesied by Ezekiel in Chapter 36: Vs 25-27. Hear the word of the Lord: 25I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.
He starts out with the power of baptism, the sprinkling of water, the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit which ignites the power of the believer to serve the Lord by God causing them to be re-born, new in Spirit, transformed by the Love of Jesus, New Creatures, us, ready for the glory of God.
May we seek the filling of the Spirit continually in our lives.
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