Baptized by Fire -- Baptism of the Lord

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

January 13, 2019

I didn’t know the term “storm chaser” when I was in high school. To be honest, I could not have conceived of anyone actually wanting to get in their car and follow a storm to see what it would do and where it would go. But had I known about storm chasers, I would have predicted that a good friend of mine would have become one. My friend loved thunderstorms. Whenever there was a thunderstorm while we were in school, she would run to the window of the classroom. If she was home, she would run out on her front porch. She loved to be close to the storm. She confided with me once that the whole world felt electrified and exciting during a thunderstorm. The world came alive in a thunderstorm. The storm’s wildness and excitement exhilarated her, and she wanted to be as much a part of the storm as possible. She wanted to be close to it. That’s why she would go outside when a big one would hit. Like I said, if I had known that storm chasers existed, I would have bet good money that my friend would become one. We’ve lost touch since high school graduation, and I suspect that in the years since, she has changed as much as I have. However some things don’t change. I suspect that she still runs to a window or a front porch whenever a big storm rolls in. I imagine she still thinks the world comes more alive when lightning lights up the sky and the heavens open with a wild frenzy.  

            I consider this person a friend, a good friend, but I was not like her. I’m not a storm person, and I certainly have no future as a storm chaser. I don’t mind rain and even some thunder, but a wild and wooly storm does not motivate me to run to the window or go stand outside on my driveway. A wild and wooly storm sends under the covers. When I was a little girl, a really bad storm sent me under the covers in my parents’ room or my sister’s. The rain would beat so hard on the roof of our house, it sounded like it was going to finally push through the ceiling and flood my bedroom.

            When I read these gospel words describing the heavens opening, this is what I think of – rain and wind and lighting and thunder – all crashing down around my head.  But in this passage from Luke, when the heavens opened something very different happened.  In this instance the heavens opening brought the voice of God, and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. When the heavens opened in this story from our gospel passage, God’s voice spoke to Jesus, confirming his full identity, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

            The heavens opening are actually a familiar theme in Scripture. We read it in those scriptures concerning the end times. The opening of the heavens often signals that God’s presence is near or that angels or other heavenly beings are about to descend. The opening of the heavens signifies that God’s blessings, God’s mercy and God’s power are being unleashed on the world.

            All of this happens around the baptism of Jesus. Luke puts his own unique spin on the baptism of Jesus. In many ways, the baptism is described more passively than it is in Mark or Matthew, while John does not tell the actual baptism part of the story at all.

             Like John, Luke does not offer us a particular description of the baptism itself.  What we do read is that after all the people who came to John the Baptist were baptized, and after Jesus himself was baptized and praying, the heavens opened.  We could assume from what the text says that Jesus waited in line to be baptized, same as the other folks. Something else to consider is that in Luke’s gospel, the story of the baptism of Jesus follows the section where we learn that John has been imprisoned by Herod. Those are the verses left out in today’s story. John addresses the crowds that came to be baptized by him, first by calling them a brood of vipers and relating baptism very distinctly to repentance and forgiveness. Then when the crowds were duly chastised and wondered what they should do, he gave them instruction on how to live as people who have repented and been forgiven.

All of this leads to the statement in verse 15 that the people were filled with great expectation as to whether or not John was the messiah they had been waiting for. Scholars suspect that this might have been more of an issue than we realize, because all of the gospel writers go to great pains to show that John denied this vehemently.

“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 the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

As John said, he was not the one. He baptized with water, but one was coming who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

There are different connotations to the phrase, “baptized by fire,” beyond these words of John the Baptist. Martyrdom, being burned at the stake, was a baptism by fire. From what I have read the Mennonites hearken back to this meaning when they use this particular phrase. But there are other connotations as well. If you start a new job and immediately have to deal with difficulties or emergencies, you are often considered baptized by fire. One definition of the phrase is the first time soldiers face real combat. Another definition I found states that it is “any experience that tests one’s courage, strength, etc. for the first time.”

But what does it mean for us, for us who have been baptized by water, for us who will remember our baptisms a little later in the service? What does it mean for us to be baptized by the Holy Spirit and fire? Is this just a one-time event, or is it something that occurs over and over again, whenever the Holy Spirit blows through our midst? What does it mean for us to have baptism connected to the act of winnowing, of separating the wheat from the chaff?

If one understanding of baptism is that it symbolizes our adoption into the family of God, the body of Christ, the church, then does this mean that our baptisms separate us from others? Does a baptism by fire separate the good from the bad, the believers from the unbelievers? Is that what is happening in the winnowing? That’s certainly what it sounds like.

One commentator wrote that the description of One to come standing with his winnowing fork, separating the wheat from the chaff, terrified and disturbed her. It conjured up images of a “farmer God,” standing on the threshing floor separating the good folks going to heaven from the bad ones going to hell. But I wonder if something else is happening.

I have never seen wheat winnowed, but apparently the wheat is picked up on the winnowing fork and flung into the air. The wind does the work of separating. The wind pulls the chaff away from the wheat, and then the chaff is burned. If this is what happens to us with the coming of the Holy Spirit, with a baptism by fire, then maybe it isn’t so much about us being separated from them; good, saved, baptized ones from bad, unsaved, un-baptized ones. Maybe it is about the chaff within us, within each of us being lifted away, separated out. Maybe the winnowing happens within each of us. Being baptized by the Holy Spirit, baptized by fire, might just be an experience of being shaken up, stirred up, flung into the metaphorical air so that the wind can take away that chaff. Maybe being baptized by fire is about burning away that within us which keeps us from God, keeps us from being in relationship with God and with all of God’s children. Perhaps being baptized by fire is what must happen, over and over again if necessary, to burn away that chaff that exists in ourselves.

I realize that this does not necessarily sound comforting. Being baptized by fire is not a sweetness and light, warm fuzzy kind of thing. But if our baptisms claim us and name us, if they mark us as God’s own, then it seems to me that being baptized by fire, being shaken up by the Holy Spirit, is also a part of the naming and claiming and marking. It seems to me that to be baptized by the Holy Spirit and fire is not about harming but healing. It’s not about separation into eternal categories, but about being made more whole, more complete. It is about being refined and cleansed and burnished and polished until we reflect ever more clearly the image of the One in which we were made. Being baptized by the Holy Spirit and fire is good news. It is good news indeed. Thanks be to God. Amen.