Sermon: “A Year of Growth – Holy Spirit and Fire”
January 13th, 2019 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: Luke 3:15-22, Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17
New Year, Fresh Start
All of us have had opportunities to start something new. Maybe for you, the opportunity to start a new thing, to start fresh, came when you finished school and headed out for a new job. Maybe it was a move, to a new home, new neighborhood. Maybe it was a new relationship. Maybe it was a career change that provided a new start in something different. Or even retirement, that allowed for new opportunities, rather than just being the end of something. What comes to my mind is my move here to Delavan in 2016 with the start of new opportunities in pastoral ministry, new relationships with each of you, a new place to call home.
There is something both exciting and intimidating about these fresh starts. There is the hope and eager expectations of new possibilities, but also the fear of failure, of disappointments, of the unknown. The Bible tells us that we are given these new beginnings, these fresh starts, not just once or twice or even a dozen times, but that we are given these fresh starts every year, and every day. The author of Lamentations writes, “The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” (Lam.3:22-23)
This year, 2019, is still new, still fresh. You’re probably still catching yourself writing 2018 on checks or cards or other things instead of 2019. Last week, as we worshipped together for the first time in this new year, Dave Stebnitz spoke about striving for a year of growth. As our Church Board met this past week, I took the opportunity of the new year and the newly added members, to lead us in reflecting on how we might make this a year of spiritual growth for this congregation. Over the next few weeks, the focus of our worship service and of my sermons will be on what is necessary for spiritual growth.
The Baptism of Our Lord
Jesus was starting something new in the story from the Gospel of Luke you heard a few minutes ago. He had been a carpenter, living in Nazareth, but was now starting a new life as an itinerant teacher/preacher. He was getting a fresh start, you might say, and it began by getting freshened up in the waters of the River Jordan. Baptism is a very special kind of fresh start; the beginning of a new life lived in Christ. The person dies to the old self as you go down into the water, and somewhere under the water, mysteriously, you are given a new life to live and you rise up out of the water to start life again.
The story of Jesus’ baptism is told in all four gospels. And all four make a point of differentiating between John’s kind of baptizing (“I’m baptizing you with water.”Lk.3:16; Jn.1:26, Mk.1:8, “I baptize you with water for repentance” Mt.3:11) and Jesus’ kind of baptizing. Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The baptism of John was about repentance, getting cleaned up and turned around in the right direction. It was about getting ready, preparing, like the season of Advent. But then Jesus comes and his baptism is about receiving that new start and that new life. (When we talk about the baptism of Jesus, I don’t mean being baptized by Jesus, like people were baptized by John. As far as we know, Jesus didn’t baptize anyone. Rather than being baptized by Jesus, we are baptized into Jesus!)
That leads me to one of the unique features of Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism. Luke never mentions John, or anyone else, actually baptizing Jesus. Look again, if you want to check. Luke tells us about John’s preaching and baptizing, and then concludes the story of John by telling us of his arrest by Herod. Though this probably happened later, for Luke it seems to serve as a way of emphasizing that the baptism being brought by Jesus is not accomplished by a person, (not by John or any other pastor) but by God Himself. Heaven opens, creating a direct connection between heaven (God’s realm, where God lives) and earth (our realm, where we live), and God’s Spirit and Holy Fire are poured out. God Himself does the baptizing; God speaks the baptismal words. The focus is on God’s work and God’s voice.
Let’s take a closer look at what is involved in God’s baptism and what is necessary for that new life, that fresh start of spiritual growth.
Fire
Baptism in Jesus, involves fire! Not literal fire, of course. So then what does it mean that the new start, the new life in Christ comes with fire? John explains it with the images of farming that would have been familiar to the people at the time, the analogy of what happens to the wheat at harvest time. There is a sifting and separating of the good grain from the stems and husks and other parts of the plant that served a purpose for a time, but are no longer needed for the real purpose of the wheat – which is to be food, to nourish life, or to be seed to create new life again. The parts that are no longer helpful, no longer needed are burned up.
For us today, a more familiar image might be the fire/heat needed to recycle something like a glass bottle. Fire is used in a couple steps: first, burning off old labels and other contaminants, and then the fire of a furnace that burns so hotly that it melts the old glass so it can be poured and remolded into new bottles or other glass products. The fire is necessary to remove what is no longer useful and to give the old glass new life.
New life in Christ involves a similar kind of purification and reshaping. God’s Holy Fire is needed to burn up old ways of thinking – selfish ways, destructive impulses, negative thoughts. Old patterns of behavior need to be melted down and reshaped into new ways of behaving, being shaped to look more and more like Jesus. Another image might be how fire is used to burn up dead leaves and branches and clear away underbrush. Holy Fire burns up what is dead in our lives and clears the way for new growth.
If we would like this coming year to be a year of growth – in our personal lives, in our life together as a congregation – we need to ask God to send Holy Fire and be willing to open ourselves up to that fire. What is no longer serving a useful purpose but is just getting in the way? What needs to be burned up to make room for the new thing God wants to do? What is taking up time, attention, energy and needs to be removed in order to have room and resources to grow? What must you get rid of in order open yourself more fully to God, to the beauty of nature, and to people in the world around you?
Spiritual growth begins with a willingness to submit to Holy Fire. Let us pause right now to pray.
O God, who makes all things new, new stars, new years, new life. Take our hearts, every hardened edge and broken piece, and create something new in us. Take the rough ways and words, and make them smooth. Take the calloused ways, and make them soft. Stir what is stagnant; free what is stuck; forgive the unkind. We need your newness, God. We invite you, Lord, to send your fire to burn up what gets in the way of our witness to Jesus and our care for the least, the oppressed, the lost, the asylum-seekers. Reshape us to be containers of your love, for the sake of your world and for your kingdom and glory. Amen.
Holy Spirit
Jesus’ baptism also involves the Holy Spirit – that Spirit of God that enters into us and comes to live within us. There’s an odd story in the book of Acts, chapter 8. Just as Jesus had instructed his followers after his death and resurrection, they began to go out to share the good news and make disciples. As people believed, they were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. The original disciples, the apostles, heard of a group of new believers in Samaria, so they sent Peter and John to check it out and to encourage them. When they got there, they discovered that while these new believers had been baptized in Jesus’ name, they had not yet received the Holy Spirit. So they prayed for them and Peter and John placed their hands on them. It says these believers then received the Holy Spirit.
A couple chapters later, Peter is summoned to Caesarea by a man named Cornelius. When he gets there, Cornelius invites Peter share a message with a whole crowd of people that Cornelius had gathered in his house. Peter begins to speak about what God has done in sending Jesus to offer forgiveness and love to all people. No sooner were the words out of Peter’s mouth than the Holy Spirit came on everyone who was listening. The astonished Peter then said, “Are there any objections to baptizing these friends with water? They’ve already received the Holy Spirit exactly as we did.”
In other stories about baptism, like the story of Jesus’ baptism, the action of being immersed in water and the receiving of the Holy Spirit seem to happen at the same time. But what these variations seem to show us is that this is not some religious ritual created and carried out by people, but that baptism is an act of God Himself. Baptism is not just a ceremony about membership to join a church, but it is about a new life, a fresh start, being remade or reborn, by God, with God at the center.
Beloved!
Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and while that process of purification and transformation can be uncomfortable, even painful, it is also true that in that moment God speaks the words each of us so long to hear. God announces, “This is my child, whom I love dearly; with him, with her, I am well pleased!”
God’s love doesn’t start on that day. God’s love didn’t start yesterday, or even in the New Testament with Jesus. God’s love is from of old, from the very beginning. That is what we heard in the reading from Isaiah this morning. The God who created us, who formed us, calls us each by name and says, “You are precious to me; you are honored and I love you.” (Is.43:4) God whispers it into our ears; God declares it to the world. God says it again each new day and every time we come asking for a fresh start.
The bottom line is that baptism is about identity. Baptism is about who you are, who we are, and whose we are. Each one of us is a beloved child of God. So if you haven’t been baptized, perhaps you want to claim that new identity and begin a new life in Christ. I would love to open up this baptistery and participate in God’s baptizing you with fire and with the Holy Spirit and with love! If you have been baptized, then this new start of this new year, may be a time to reclaim and reaffirm that identity. And then to ask God to show you what is the new thing that God wants to bring to birth in you and through you? Who or what does God want you to learn to love next, so God can pour out God’s love through you?
A Year of Growth
There is another unique feature of Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism. It is the little detail: that all this takes place as Jesus is praying. None of the other gospel writers mention this, but Luke writes, “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying,…” I believe Luke included this as a reminder that all this growing, transforming, new start, new life business begins with prayer. Prayer opens us up to God’s work within us; prayer is the invitation to God. “As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy!”
Let us sing a prayer now, inviting God’s Spirit to descend on us now, to enter us and fill us and give us new life.
Closing Song: “Breathe on me, Breath of God” # 295
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