Epiphany I - Peter Tierney

Burning with the Holy Spirit
Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

"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.'"

Here, in the words of John the Baptist, we are first introduced to the difference between the baptism that John administered and the baptism that Jesus administers: the baptism of John is a baptism with water, but the baptism of Jesus—the baptism of the Christian Church—is baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now it is true that Jesus honors the baptism of John by being baptized himself with water by John’s hands, and also by making baptism with water the sign and means of Christian baptism, but make no mistake—even though Christians are baptized with water, the essential part of Christian baptism is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself emphasizes the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit when he teaches, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.”

In the book of Acts, once the apostles hear that the new converts in Samaria have not received the Holy Spirit, even though they have been baptized, they send Peter and John to pray for them and lay hands on them so that they will receive the Spirit. The conversion of the Samaritans is not complete without the presence of the Holy Spirit with them, and the author of Acts suggests that the reason the Samaritans had not received the Spirit was because “they had only been baptized in name of the Lord Jesus.” The connection between Christian baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit is so strong that even though baptism in the name of Jesus alone was permissible in the very earliest days, it came to be seen as deficient, and the practice of baptizing in the threefold name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit became the universal practice of the Christian Church.

So, all of that tells us that Jesus and the followers of Jesus baptize with the Holy Spirit, or call upon the Holy Spirit to complete the action begun in baptism, and it also tells us that Christians should value the presence of the Holy Spirit, but it doesn’t do much to tell us why the Holy Spirit is so important. What’s so great about the Holy Spirit anyway? What has the Holy Spirit done for us lately? I am convinced that one important clue that points us toward the answers to these questions lies in the other thing that John tells us Jesus will baptize with. Jesus baptizes, not only with the Holy Spirit—but with fire!

What does it mean to baptize with fire? Fire is not an element in Christian baptism—we don’t light babies on fire before dipping them in the font. You may have heard the expression “baptism by fire” used to describe the circumstances when someone is thrown into a particularly difficult situation that becomes an extreme test of their abilities. This idea of a trial by fire is one of the most frequent ways that fire is mentioned in the New Testament. Fire as a means of testing the purity of metals, fire that cleanses and cauterizes and purifies, fire that judges whether something is durable and will endure—that is how the New Testament speaks of fire.

Fire is also closely linked with the Holy Spirit and with the presence of God. In the Old Testament, God leads the people of Israel out of Egypt and through the desert in a pillar of fire by night, and when they reach Mount Sinai, “the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel,” and it was out of this fire that God spoke the Ten Commandments to Israel. Again, in the Acts of the Apostles, it is no coincidence that when the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles at Pentecost, it appears in the form of tongues of fire. Fire is a sign and a symbol of God’s presence—which is one reason why we keep a flame constantly burning in our sanctuaries.

So we have these two aspects of fire connected to each other: fire as a sign of God’s presence, and fire that tests the mettle of what it surrounds. The Holy Spirit is a fire that both tests and purifies the people that it falls upon. The Spirit is the spirit of truth, and so it tests and divides truth from falsehood; the Spirit is the spirit of righteousness, and so it tests our actions, revealing what is good and what is wicked in the things we do and empowering us to do the good. Above all, the Spirit is the spirit of love, that burning fire of love that draws us together and tests our bonds to God and to each other, refining those relationships to make them even more truly beautiful and pure reflections of God’s own infinite beauty. The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Elsewhere in his Gospel, Luke records a somewhat cryptic sentence spoken by Jesus, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” The fire that Jesus is speaking of is this fire of the Holy Spirit, a fire that is meant to burn in the hearts of his disciples, a fire that will rage throughout the ages and test the world that God has made, burning away what is false, and wicked, and against God’s will for the world that he made in love. This is a fearsome fire, an awesome and terrible and relentless fire, a fire that Jesus means to share with those who will take up their cross and follow him. Jesus came to set each and every one of us on fire—he wants you to burn with the Spirit of God. There is an urgency and a great power in God’s mission, it is the same urgency that fire has as it latches onto anything that will burn and keep the fire going. This mission, the mission that Jesus shared with his disciples is the mission to love God and our neighbor truly, it is the mission to share the good news of God’s forgiveness in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and this mission that is powered by the burning flame of the Holy Spirit, which is given to us in baptism.

God wants us to burn with this mission; Jesus wants to set us on fire for God’s mission, the Holy Spirit has been sent to reach into us and draw forth our greatest energies and efforts to further God’s work in the world, to light a fire in us that will shine out and proclaim that God is here! God is here in us and between us and around us!

Next week, I will be preaching about some of the specific ways that the Holy Spirit acts in the Church to further God’s mission by granting spiritual gifts to disciples of Jesus, but for now, I want to leave you with one last observation—this time an important difference between fire and the Holy Spirit. Fire, as we know it, consumes the fuel that keeps it burning, until nothing is left. The Holy Spirit is not that kind of a fire—it does not rely on the power and the energy that is within us, but rather unlocks the depths of our energy, focuses it and sets it free. It is not so with other kinds of spirits—we can all think of examples of people who, caught up in a passionate spirit for human endeavors, end up consumed by that Spirit. Think of athletes who focus so much on sport that they destroy their bodies or lose their love for the game, or neglect their other commitments and relationships. Think of politicians who enter public life with the best of intentions, but succumb to the lure of power and influence. Think of financiers and investors who start who start off in business to make a living, but the pressure and the desire to make more and more money takes over and overrides their judgment and their sense of right and wrong. Think of religious zealots, who begin by following the leadings of the Spirit, but come to confuse their own thoughts and prejudices with the mind of God. In all of these cases, people are consumed by the fires of their own passions—but it will not be so if we are burning with the true Holy Spirit of God. Jesus wants us to burn, but he does not want us to burn out. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and acting in accordance with God’s will, the work may be strenuous and difficult, but it will not be draining and tiresome, it will not burn us out.

God promises that when his people walk through the fire, they shall not be burnt, and the flame will not consume them. This is a promise that extends to the fire of the Holy Spirit as well. The image to remember is the image of God speaking out of the burning bush to Moses—what astonished Moses and got his attention was that the bush was not consumed by the flames. So it will be with us, if we have received the Holy Spirit of God—we will burn with a shining light that does not consume us, and God will speak out from us—perhaps in words, but also in our deeds. And in the power of the Spirit, we will find that God has given us the most rewarding work and the most blessed gift we will ever know.