Reflection Four
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 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. 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.” (Luke 3:15-17, NRSV)
I was baptized in the Methodist Church, and most of my childhood and teenage years were spent there. But – as happens in the Methodist Church – our pastor was moved to a new appointment by his bishop, and my parents weren’t happy at all about the change. So, they bounced from one church to another and finally landed – for a time, anyway – in a Baptist church.
I was in high school by that time. So, being Baptist never quite “took”. But the experience did alert me to just how broadly influential the language our Baptist brothers and sisters use (and others like them) has been, even in corners of the world that aren’t Baptist at all.
One of the most influential bits of language is the phrase, “saved from”. We are told that Jesus came to save us from our sins, to save us from judgment, and to save us from death. Now – rightly understood – all of this is certainly true. You will even hear that language in the liturgy, which – with apologies to my Baptist friends – is actually older than Baptists.
But if our understanding of the Christian journey stops with the phrase – “saved from” – that’s a problem. In isolation from the rest of the Gospel, it is far too easily read as transactional. It sounds like an experience that is “once and done”. And when that view of the Christian journey takes root, it is very easy to assume that once this transaction is complete, everything that God has in mind for us — and everything that God longs to give us — has been supplied.
It is not surprising, then, that far too many Christians “camp out” on the experience of being “saved from”, and the practice of their faith fades into the background. Nor is it surprising that a significant number of Christians eventually end up thinking of life in the church as just “religious stuff”.
When the spiritual journey is just about one experience, one transaction, Christians who live there stop going to church, or they go only on a very occasional basis. They live their lives, relying instead on what they hope is their natural sense of right and wrong, nice and mean. They focus on their families and their jobs. But there is no meaningful sense in which it could be said that their faith means anything, nor could it be argued that they are on a spiritual journey that is informed by Christian categories.
But then what could John the Baptist possibly have in mind when he declares that Jesus will come bringing a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire? That certainly suggests an experience that is far more transformative, and – let’s be honest – it also sounds scary.
In Baptist-world this language is often read as simply more “saved from” language. And the images of “winnowing fork”, “threshing floor”, and “unquenchable fire” could certainly be read in that way. But – as with so much we find in the New Testament – it is far more helpful to read these passages with the help of ancient sources, rather than read them unaided and that literature offers a very different picture.
Here, the clue to what Jesus has in mind can be found in the Qumran Scrolls that were discovered near the Dead Sea, one of which reads:
Then [at the season of visitation, when the truth of the world will appear forever] God will purge by his truth all the deeds of man, refining [i.e., by fire] for himself some of mankind in order to remove every evil spirit from the midst of their flesh, to cleanse them with a holy Spirit from all wicked practices and sprinkle them with a spirit of truth like purifying water (IQS 4:20-21).
What does this language actually mean, then?
Well, first and foremost, it means that God’s desire for us cannot be captured in “saved from” language alone. We also need to bear in mind that we are “saved for” a different kind of life. And that life begins in the here and now. It is not just about life beyond the grave.
And that life, which is made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit, is meant to grow in us, transform us. Changing not just the way that we live, but the motivations that shape our behavior.
According to Jesus, who understands himself to be inaugurating the new reality that the scroll describes, that process of transformation takes place through the work of the Holy Spirit. And the work of the Holy Spirit is meant to lead us into what the scroll describes as “the truth of the world”. The truth that the world is God’s creation. The truth that we are made in the image of God. The truth that our own flourishing and the flourishing of everyone around us lies in living out of those truths.
It is clear, then, that God’s desire for us is not exhausted by saving us from disaster but lies in being saved for a life that is larger than and different from anything we might intuitively believe on our own about what is good for us. It also means that living into that life cannot be accomplished in a single moment but is realized, moment by moment, day by day, and over a lifetime, not in just one moment.
The purpose of the church in our lives, then, is not – first and foremost – about supplying religious services or about caring for others. It is about nurturing, strengthening, and living into that transformed life, which is why the Christian tradition calls the church the body of Christ. This isn’t an institutional claim.
Life in the body of Christ is about our transformation. It is about a place where we can be healed. Where we can learn about God’s longing for us. Where we can learn to let that longing heal us. And where – to use language from John’s Gospel – we can learn how to relate to one another in a way that grafts us into a life that we share with Christ and with one another.
One of the things that I don’t think my parents ever grasped, and one of the things that they weren’t helped to understand is that church hopping is fundamentally at odds with what life in the body of Christ is all about. Yes, we need to find a place where that body-life is encouraged or nurtured. But once we do, that life isn’t about a product that we consume, it is a life that we participate in, for our sake and for the sake of others. We are saved from the destructive power of death and alienation from God, but we are saved for life in Christ and that experience cannot take root in us, if we do not open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into truths that we don’t just master but allow ourselves to let that truth master us – day by day, year by year, for the rest of our lives and the life to come.
But what about “fire” and the language of “winnowing”, “threshing floor”, and “chaff”?
What the scroll from Qumran makes clear is that these images are not about separation from God and punishment. They are about “refinement”, “cleansing”, about being “purified”.
If you have ever struggled with old tapes, narratives about your life. You know what this means. Some truths that cannot share space with falsehoods that make the same, all-encompassing claim. Let me give you three examples from the work in spiritual direction that I have done with people over the years:
One: If you were taught to believe that you are alone in this world, that there is no God, that you are on your own to make what you will of life and then die, you will never be able to fully live from a place where you deeply believe that God cares for you and loves you. You will always believe somewhere, deep down, that you are alone, that life is a desperate, empty struggle.
A second example: If you were taught that God does exist, but that you are not lovable. That you have done things that are unforgiveable. That you are a screw-up. Then you will never rest in the confidence that – side by side with the Holy Spirit’s help – you can flourish and know peace. There will always be a voice, deep inside, that whispers, “God’s love can’t be true for you.”
A third example: If you were taught that we are all on our own, that everyone succeeds or fails, that caring for the well-being of others on their journey into God is someone else’s job, then a certain selfishness will always control your life.
All these falsehoods and hundreds of others, are what is burned, or washed away in the images that Jesus uses. His baptism is about ground-clearing, not punishment, about letting his truth grow in your life. And that truth cannot grow in you, if other messages continue to control your life.
The work of the Holy Spirit rests upon a particular understanding of God and God’s love for us. But it is not a finite body of propositions, but as a lived reality. And it isn’t privately held but nurtured in a process of transformation, one with another.
This is why, every Sunday, with some rare exceptions, we confess our sins, receive God’s forgiveness, share the peace of Christ with one another, and then – still together – receive his body and blood. It is why, even when we leave this place, we go out in the name of Christ. We do all this, because we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Returning to our Advent theme – “Normal isn’t coming back. Jesus is.” – the spiritual imperative for us is to remember this truth about our reality. Our normal is not any passing set of circumstances. Our normal is this place, where by fire and the Holy Spirit, we become Christ’s own and welcome others into his hope for us all.
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