\nAs 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, \u201cI 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.\u201d\u00a0 (Luke 3:15-17, NRSV)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I was baptized in the Methodist Church, and most of my childhood and teenage years were spent there.\u00a0 But \u2013 as happens in the Methodist Church \u2013 our pastor was moved to a new appointment by his bishop, and my parents weren\u2019t happy at all about the change.\u00a0 So, they bounced from one church to another and finally landed \u2013 for a time, anyway \u2013 in a Baptist church.<\/p>\n
I was in high school by that time.\u00a0 So, being Baptist never quite \u201ctook\u201d.\u00a0 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\u2019t Baptist at all.<\/p>\n
One of the most influential bits of language is the phrase, \u201csaved from\u201d.\u00a0 We are told that Jesus came to save <\/em>us from<\/em> our sins, to save us from judgment, and to save us from death.\u00a0 Now \u2013 rightly understood \u2013 all of this is certainly true.\u00a0 You will even hear that language in the liturgy, which \u2013 with apologies to my Baptist friends \u2013 is actually older than Baptists.<\/p>\nBut if our understanding of the Christian journey stops with the phrase \u2013 \u201csaved from\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 In isolation from the rest of the Gospel, it is far too easily read as transactional.\u00a0 It sounds like an experience that is \u201conce and done\u201d.\u00a0 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 \u2014 and everything that God longs to give us \u2014 has been supplied.<\/p>\n
It is not surprising, then, that far too many Christians \u201ccamp out\u201d on the experience of being \u201csaved from\u201d, and the practice of their faith fades into the background.\u00a0 Nor is it surprising that a significant number of Christians eventually end up thinking of life in the church as just \u201creligious stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 They live their lives, relying instead on what they hope<\/em> is their natural sense of right and wrong, nice and mean.\u00a0 They focus on their families and their jobs.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\nBut 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?\u00a0 That certainly suggests an experience that is far more transformative, and \u2013 let\u2019s be honest \u2013 it also sounds scary.<\/p>\n
In Baptist-world this language is often read as simply more \u201csaved from\u201d language.\u00a0 And the images of \u201cwinnowing fork\u201d, \u201cthreshing floor\u201d, and \u201cunquenchable fire\u201d could certainly be read in that way.\u00a0 But \u2013 as with so much we find in the New Testament \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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:<\/p>\n
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).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What does this language actually mean, then?<\/p>\n
Well, first and foremost, it means that God\u2019s desire for us cannot be captured in \u201csaved from\u201d language alone.\u00a0 We also need to bear in mind that we are \u201csaved for<\/em>\u201d a different kind of life.\u00a0 And that life begins in the here and now.\u00a0 It is not just about life beyond the grave.<\/p>\nAnd that life, which is made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit, is meant to grow in us, transform us.\u00a0 Changing not just the way that we live, but the motivations that shape our behavior.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 And the work of the Holy Spirit is meant to lead us into what the scroll describes as \u201cthe truth of the world\u201d. \u00a0The truth that the world is God\u2019s creation.\u00a0 The truth that we are made in the image of God.\u00a0 The truth that our own flourishing and the flourishing of everyone around us lies in living out of those truths.<\/p>\n
It is clear, then, that God\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
The purpose of the church in our lives, then, is not \u2013 first and foremost \u2013 about supplying religious services or about caring for others.\u00a0 It is about nurturing, strengthening, and living into that transformed life, which is why the Christian tradition calls the church the body of Christ.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t an institutional claim.<\/p>\n
Life in the body of Christ is about our transformation.\u00a0 It is about a place where we can be healed.\u00a0 Where we can learn about God\u2019s longing for us.\u00a0 Where we can learn to let that longing heal us.\u00a0 And where \u2013 to use language from John\u2019s Gospel \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
One of the things that I don\u2019t think my parents ever grasped, and one of the things that they weren\u2019t helped to understand is that church hopping is fundamentally at odds with what life in the body of Christ is all about.\u00a0 Yes, we need to find a place where that body-life is encouraged or nurtured.\u00a0 But once we do, that life isn\u2019t about a product that we consume, it is a life that we participate in, for our sake and for the sake of others.\u00a0 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\u2019t just master but allow ourselves to let that truth master us \u2013 day by day, year by year, for the rest of our lives and the life to come.<\/p>\n
But what about \u201cfire\u201d and the language of \u201cwinnowing\u201d, \u201cthreshing floor\u201d, and \u201cchaff\u201d?<\/p>\n
What the scroll from Qumran makes clear is that these images are not about separation from God and punishment.\u00a0 They are about \u201crefinement\u201d, \u201ccleansing\u201d, about being \u201cpurified\u201d.<\/p>\n
If you have ever struggled with old tapes, narratives about your life.\u00a0 You know what this means.\u00a0 Some truths that cannot share space with falsehoods that make the same, all-encompassing claim.\u00a0 Let me give you three examples from the work in spiritual direction that I have done with people over the years:<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 You will always believe somewhere, deep down, that you are alone, that life is a desperate, empty struggle.<\/p>\n
A second example: If you were taught that God does<\/em> exist, but that you are not lovable. That you have done things that are unforgiveable.\u00a0 That you are a screw-up.\u00a0 Then you will never rest in the confidence that \u2013 side by side with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help \u2013 you can flourish and know peace.\u00a0 There will always be a voice, deep inside, that whispers, \u201cGod\u2019s love can\u2019t be true for you.\u201d<\/p>\nA 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\u2019s job, then a certain selfishness will always control your life.<\/p>\n
All these falsehoods and hundreds of others, are what is burned, or washed away in the images that Jesus uses.\u00a0 His baptism is about ground-clearing, not punishment, about letting his truth grow in your life.\u00a0 And that truth cannot grow in you, if other messages continue to control your life.<\/p>\n
The work of the Holy Spirit rests upon a particular understanding of God and God\u2019s love for us.\u00a0 But it is not a finite body of propositions, but as a lived reality.\u00a0 And it isn\u2019t privately held but nurtured in a process of transformation, one with another.<\/p>\n
This is why, every Sunday, with some rare exceptions, we confess our sins, receive God\u2019s forgiveness, share the peace of Christ with one another, and then \u2013 still together \u2013 receive his body and blood.\u00a0 It is why, even when we leave this place, we go out in the name of Christ.\u00a0 We do all this, because we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire.<\/p>\n
Returning to our Advent theme \u2013 \u201cNormal isn\u2019t coming back.\u00a0 Jesus is.\u201d \u2013 the spiritual imperative for us is to remember this truth about our reality.\u00a0 Our normal is not any passing set of circumstances.\u00a0 Our normal is this place, where by fire and the Holy Spirit, we become Christ\u2019s own and welcome others into his hope for us all.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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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, \u201cI baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":6493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4909,4903,4897,4900,4906],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advent-3","category-baptism-by-fire","category-baptism-by-spirit-and-by-fire","category-baptism-of-the-holy-spirit","category-luke-315-17"],"yoast_head":"\n
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