Baptism of the Lord and Luke 3

"15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 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. 17 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.’"

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

Introduction

Long familiarity with a subject or theme can deceive us into thinking that we know what it is all about. We learned early about the doctrine of the Trinity, and so we think we understand it, despite the fact that when you sit down to think about three-in-one and one-in-three your mind boggles. We think we understand what the Lord's Supper is all about, until we realize that God's becoming flesh in the meal is quite a fantastic thing to imagine. Even those less-daring Zwinglian Reformed folks who speak only of the Supper as a memorial meal have to ask themselves questions about what truly is happening from a theological perspective in the meal.

Such is the case, I am convinced with the topic for today--the Gospel of Luke's account of the baptism of Jesus. We are so familiar with the text that we have almost memorized it; we know that John has been baptizing in the wilderness around the Jordan; that Jesus comes to John for baptism; that John demurs (at least in one account); that John baptizes Jesus; that there is a voice from heaven pointing out Jesus as God's beloved Son to the assembled multitudes. We speak fluently of Jesus' baptism as his identification with fallen humanity, as his empowerment to serve God, as the seal of his kingship and servanthood. The words rush from our lips like nursery rhymes from the mouths of preschool teachers. We have this subject down cold. We don't even need to prepare our sermon on the subject until the day before it is "due."

On Second Looking Into Jesus' Baptism

Everything really is "fine" until you decide to look closely at the passages in question, and then you realize that you are plunged into comparative darkness. But, I will contend, it is the darkness of a trip up Mount Hood in Oregon. Though the mountain regularly claims the lives of unwary climbers, as it did in Dec. 2006, there is a "right way" to climb it. But, in order to do so, you have to start in darkness. You have to begin about 4 a.m. in July, August or September, and plan to reach the top in the blazing sun of mid-day or even of 11 a.m. Then, you are assured of descent before the heat of the day when the snow begins to melt and landslides can occur. You only can successfully climb the mountain (as a relative amateur) if you begin in the darkness. I think the same is true for studying Jesus's life. You only can make headway in understanding the nature of his life if you realize that the beginning of the journey is shrouded in darkness.

The darkness of which I speak is not the darkness of evil or privation; it rather is the darkness of unclarity or of multiple meanings. Questions about the meaning of these verses leap from the pages. Let's slowly work through some of the questions as the text unfolds. First, we examine the section on John the Baptist (3:15-17).

1. We ought to note that confusion reigns from the beginning. The crowd is standing around waiting, maybe for Godot, and wondering in all (Luke has a penchant for this little word--there is something about the "all-ness" of the Gospel that gets to him) of their hearts whether John might be "the Christ." The first confusion rests with the crowd. They don't know what is happening. What might it have been about John's words and ministry to lead them to think that he was the Christ? Possibly because he was announcing an impending judgment. The Day of the Lord would come with judgment.

2. When John opens his mouth he doesn't dispel the confusion but, in fact, layers it yet more deeply. He speaks of a person who will come and baptize "with the holy spirit and with fire" (3:16). But, in fact, how many baptisms do we have here? I think we have three. We have John's "baptism of repentance." Then we have a baptism of the holy spirit (why capitalize it yet?). Then, we have a baptism of fire. Who is to say that two and three are the same baptism? In fact, when Luke later speaks of baptism, in the Book of Acts, he speaks of a Baptism of the Holy Spirit (e.g., Acts 1:5; 11:16). Does that mean that Luke has collapsed the concept of "holy spirit and fire" just into the concept of "Holy Spirit"? Or, does it suggest that, somehow, fire has "dropped out" of the equation? Maybe these two are to be separated: a baptism of the "Holy Spirit" is of some kind of empowerment, while the baptism of "fire" is some kind of judgment. This would be consistent with the picture in 3:17, where a picture of burning chaff with unquenchable fire stirs up pictures of last judgment. And, this would be consistent also with Jesus' words in the Gospel of Luke where the fire he unleashes is connected with his own baptism of death:

"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptize, and what stress I am under until it is completed!" (12:49-50).

So, before I get up in the pulpit or open the Bible in study class with the confidence that I know what the passage means, I have to ask myself, how many baptisms do I think are in view? And, what is the meaning of each?

Well, we are out of room for this essay, and I am just getting started. I need one more essay to unpack this text.

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