Abstract
Isaiah 43.1–7; Psalm 29; Acts 8.14–17; Luke 3.15–17, 21–22
The purpose of the calendar of Sunday readings, which we call the Lectionary, is sometimes misunderstood. It is not there to prove the ingenuity of biblical scholars to find for each Sunday three readings and a psalm which complement each other. It is devised to allow worshippers over a cycle of three years to hear the most salient passages of the Bible read in public worship. Sometimes all the four texts fit well with each other, sometimes they don’t.
Today we have a lovely example of complementarity.
The Gospel concerns the baptism of Jesus according to Luke. The reading from the prophecy of Isaiah speaks of how God is with us when we go through rivers. This prepares us for hearing how Jesus was baptised in the Jordan.
Psalm 29 refers to how the voice of God thunders over mighty waters. We don’t know if the Jordan was in full spate when Jesus was baptised, but the voice of God is heard declaring, ‘You are my beloved son; in you I delight.’
And then there is the reading from Acts which refers to how Peter and John prayed and laid hands on converts who had been baptised, and they received the Holy Spirit.
The readings more or less cohere; they hang together well.
Two Types of Baptism
But the subject of baptism to which they allude is more of a problem, inasmuch as it has two distinct types: the baptism administered by John which Jesus undergoes, and the baptism which Jesus will administer which John alludes to when he says, ‘I baptize you with water . . . but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’ (Luke 3:16).
Let’s consider these.
The Baptism which John administered was primarily offered to benefit people who were turning their back on their sorry or sinful past. As the Bible says, ‘it was in token of repentance’. John's Gospel indicates that those who came forward were not always the most virtuous individuals—tax collectors, soldiers in the occupying forces as well as guilt-ridden ordinary people. They believed that by going into the water in a spirit of penitence, their slate could be wiped clean by God.
The Baptism which Jesus was to initiate was, as mentioned, a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. This seems to be a quite different experience, and from the New Testament records it seems that water baptism and baptism by the Holy Spirit and fire are not simultaneous. They don’t happen at the same time.
In the book of Acts we read that Peter & John enabled Samaritan converts, who had been baptised, to receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands on a subsequent occasion. (8:12) We also read that Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit and, as a consequence was baptised after that experience (9:17–19). We also discover that an Ethiopian Eunuch (8:39) and the households of a fabric dealer (10:15) and a prison official (16:33) were all baptised in water with no mention of the Holy Spirit.
What complicates our reflection even more is twofold. Although Jesus is baptised, he is not recorded as baptising anyone else, at least not in the synoptic Gospels. St John (4:1) suggests otherwise but the allusion is often questioned by scholars.
Further, although Peter and Andrew, originally John the Baptist’s disciples, may have been baptised, there is no account of the other ten apostles being washed in the water, and yet the Gospels record that all the disciples baptised other people.
In light of this, I want to pose three questions which might just be in our minds:
1) Why did Jesus get baptised?
2) Why should we get baptised?
3) How does the Holy Spirit connect with baptism?
Why did Jesus get baptised?
The first question—Why did Jesus come to John for baptism?—has no immediate answer in terms of his suitability. All the others who were lining the river bank waiting to be pushed under the water were people who acknowledged that they had not been living the best of lives. They needed to deal with the guilt from their past, to have it wiped out. But they also wanted to express their belief and reliance on God to enable them to live a more responsible and godly life.
The Holy Scriptures and the Church have consistently proclaimed that Jesus was the sinless Son of God, the one person in whom the beauty of humanity, honesty, integrity, faith, and every other virtue were exhibited in their apotheosis.
We might conjecture as to whether Jesus had some guilty secret in his past which needed expunging. Was he like a friend of mine, who feared that when he appeared in court on a very minor charge the judge might be informed that he was once cautioned at the age of ten for stealing sweets from Woolworths? I somehow don’t think so.
I tend to believe that Jesus’ baptism was the means by which he voluntarily affirmed his incarnation. That word incarnation is not restricted to the events associated with the annual December babyfest. The incarnation is about God in all God's fullness being present in a human being who enters into total—not partial—solidarity with fallible humanity.
Let me make a curious analogy. One day an American Roman Catholic priest whom I know found himself listening in the confessional to a fifteen year old boy whose relationship with his parents was less than positive. Whether in compensation for a lack of love, or whether to deliberately upset them, he had got in tow with a group of dissolute teenagers who were keen on sexual experimentation, as a result of which he had become infected by a venereal disease. He did not want to consult the family doctor who was a family friend, and was beside himself as to what to do.
The priest, realising that this boy was both guilt-ridden and worried, did two things. First, he counselled him and pronounced absolution. Then he drove him to a Sexual Health clinic and stayed with him for two hours until the boy was called to see a clinician.
Anyone who recognised that priest in that place would have presumed that he was living a profligate life. But the truth was that empathy required him to show solidarity with the boy, careless of what might be rumoured about him.
Jesus goes down into the water with the poor, the destitute, the rough necks, the adulterers, the swindlers, the guilty men from the military, because he sees himself as one of them, not one better than them. He is being utterly incarnate—flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone.
The second question is,
And the answer is simply because that’s what Jesus did. He allied himself with the rest of humanity with all its failures, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies and yearnings for a changed life. And, as with the others queueing up in front of John, he made a mark of commitment to be fully part of God’s purpose, enabling God's will to be done.
As he, by choice, entered into solidarity with us, we by choice enter into solidarity with him and with all in his body the church who believe in the forgiveness of sins and yearn to be better servants of God’s purposes.
Baptism indicates that water is thicker than blood. It is not our genes or our pious ancestors who incorporate us into the Body of Christ. It is through the water of baptism that our identity as co-equals in God’s family is sealed. Baptism opens us up through our commitment and the promise of God to the possibility of a fuller and richer life.
Whether with young offenders in a List D school or with unsuspecting adults, I sometimes ask people to pick a stone from a bundle collected in my garden. Not granite or marble, but dull stones. I then ask them to put the stones into a bowl of water and watch what happens. The transformation is not magical, it is natural. The water washes away the grime and reveals the colours, the contours and the potential which have been hidden. This, I suggest is a fair analogy for the sacrament of baptism.
The third question:
How does the Holy Spirit connect with baptism?
I want to suggest something which might seem rather heretical, namely that the experiences of baptism and of receiving the Holy Spirit were never intended to be simultaneous. Baptism is a physical experience which is entered into with the consent of the ones to be baptised (or their parents in the event of infant baptism). It requires serious intention, an acknowledgement of penitence and commitment. For many people it may be an occasion of high emotion. It also involves a ritual or formula which the Church requires to validate baptism as a sacrament.
But, as the late Scottish theologian, Donald Baillie indicated, the Holy Spirit is not implicitly restricted in operation ‘to certain ecclesiastical rites which it is the privilege of the hierarchy to bestow’. Nor is the presence of the Holy Spirit synonymous with a feeling of deep emotion. 1
As Jesus indicates, we do not know from where or when the Spirit will come to bless, enthuse, enable or direct us.
George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community, was baptised as a baby in a Presbyterian church, and confirmed in his teenage years as an Anglican. But it was one day, returning from service in the first world war confused, guilt-ridden and alcohol dependent, that he felt compelled to kneel on the floor of a railway carriage and give himself wholly to God. 2
Whether it is a natural reticence to speak of our own spiritual experiences, or a fear of being regarded as unduly pious, many Christians find it difficult to acknowledge publicly the moments in life when they have felt a particularly strong sense of intimacy with God. It is not something we can manufacture or something which can anticipate will be a recurrent feature of our discipleship. But if we acknowledge that God is not essentially an intellectual conjecture or an emotional feeling, we should be open to the possibility of an unpremeditated inner stirring which humbles, assures, directs or even contradicts us. And that in fulfilment or in anticipation of our baptism.
For Christians, baptism is not a destination to be reached, but a milestone on a journey which opens us to greater intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit, as day by day we articulate in speech or speechless yearning the ancient invocation: ‘Maranatha. Come, Holy Spirit.’