THE SPIRIT BRINGS PASSION

(Preached on Sunday, January 7, 2007)

The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit...                                                                                            -Acts 8:15

 

In Israel, there are at least five locations the tour guides will point out as the spot where Jesus was baptized: four on the lower Jordan river, below the Sea of Galilee, and one on the upper Jordan, near the headwaters.  The guide for the trip I was on last February initially led us to the spot on the upper Jordan, near the headwaters.  It is located in a National Park where the Jordan is a fast moving mountain stream.  In one spot, though, the water slows down and forms a quiet pool, shallow enough to take off your shoes and socks and go wading. It is a beautiful setting where one can reflect and meditate on Jesus= baptism and one=s own baptism.

 

A few days later Jacob stopped the bus stop at another spot on the Jordan river, just south of the Sea of Galilee.  Here the river runs deeper and slightly wider and is not the fresh, bubbly, dynamic waters near their source, but rather the tired, slow-moving waters of a lower river.  At this spot is another of the reputed baptismal sites.  Unlike the first site, this spot has been highly developed, with an entry fee, a gift shop and snack counter, white robes one can rent for wearing in the water for baptism, changing rooms, and a highly elaborate construction of walkways, ramps, railings, even electric chairs for those unable to walk into the river, to facilitate your own baptism or baptism renewal.  It is so commercialized that we dubbed it ABaptism World.@

 

Most of our group preferred the first site we visited where we could take off our shoes, wade in the water, sit and reflect and pray and meditate in the quiet, natural setting.  For most it was a very holy experience.  Not so much for me.  It was lovely, but nothing quite happened to make it a sacred place for me.  For all of us ABaptism World@ seemed like the last place anything sacred could occur.  Yet for some of us, including me, something very holy did happen.

 

While we were wandering about, observing and taking in the location, below us, near the river, in one of the several small amphitheater-like seating areas, a small group of maybe 20 people began singing and praying.  They were participating in a baptismal service for three women.  As we watched, we joked about the arrangement: an older man seemed to be leading the group and then a younger conducted the baptisms.  We joked that he was the Associate Pastor doing the Adirty work@ while the Senior Pastor stayed dry.  The first two women were each baptized.  Then it happened.  As the third woman began to enter the water she stopped, turned back to the group and began speaking.  She gave her testimony.  She told how she had been baptized years before and what she was doing now was a re-baptism, to rededicate her life to God.  She was doing this because of a very serious accident she suffered that involved a long hospitalization, a near death experience, and a prognosis that she would not walk again.  Today she was walking into the water and she was giving God thanks and praise for the healing that she knew could only have come from God.

 

In that moment, ABaptism World@ became a most holy spot for me. I knew the Spirit of God was present.   In fact, it was one of the most sacred moments on the entire pilgrimage for me.  It reminded me of an important lesson.  The Spirit of God is not controlled by us at all.

That is the witness of the scripture, yet we continually forget that truth.  There is no one normative experience in the Bible with regards to the presence and activity of God=s Spirit.  Two of the gospels relate that the Spirit of God descended on Jesus as he was baptized, Luke places some separation between the baptism and the Spirit filling Jesus.  John=s gospel has John the Baptizer giving testimony that he saw the Spirit descend on Jesus, but does not say whether it was while baptizing him or at some other time.

There is no record of Jesus= disciples being baptized, and they receive the Spirit either when Jesus breathed on them after his resurrection or at Pentecost, or both.  In Acts, some gentiles receive the Spirit first and then are baptized, others are baptized and experience the power of the Spirit, and still others, as we heard this morning, were baptized and then later received the Holy Spirit through prayer and the laying on of hands.  We forget over and over again the lesson of Jesus that the Spirit of God is like the wind.  One cannot see it except by its activity, and it comes and goes and one cannot control it.

 

This is most unsettling for us, because we like things settled.  We like to know the plan, the process, the equation, the recipe.  We like to know that you take a beautiful setting, add a little holy water, sprinkle in some prayer and voila! you will have a holy experience.  It is most unsettling when we go to church week after week looking for the presence of God and nothing seems to happen.  And then, in the most ugly of settings, layered in crass humanity, suddenly, out of the blue, the Spirit of God bursts forth and the beauty and glory of God is overwhelming.

 

Our inability to control the Spirit of God is also frustrating because we realize the presence of the Spirit is so vital.

It is the Spirit of God that brings passion to life and faith.

Without passion, there is very little energy and excitement.

The scripture makes clear the importance of the Spirit of God.  For Luke it is clear that the Spirit of God was the power for Jesus= world-changing ministry.  The story from Acts also makes clear the importance of the Holy Spirit.  Peter and John pray for the Holy Spirit to become present in these Samaritans who had embraced the teachings of Jesus, been baptized in his name, but had not yet known the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

 

The process of becoming all that God created us to become involves our whole being.  As the Great Commandment states: ALove God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.@  Many, many times we come to church, and even become very active, for a variety of reasons C social, intellectual, habit.  But the gift of the Spirit, that inner conversion, that passion for the gospel that puts zip in our step and passion into our actions C that is so often strangely and sadly absent in our lives, and in our church.

 

Passion is powerful.  Passion is thrilling.  Passion is frightening.  Passion is dynamic.  Passion is contagious.  Passion is the expression of the presence and activity of the Spirit of God.  Passion is poetry and beauty. As Gerard Manley Hopkins demonstrates in this excerpt from God=s Grandeur:

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs C

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 

Frederick Buechner reminds us that ASpirit is highly contagious.  When a man is very excited, very happy, very sad, you can catch it from him as easily as measles or a yawn ...@

 

Yet, as contagious as the Spirit is, remember we do not control it. 

How then can we bring the Spirit=s presence and activity to bear in our own lives?  The key to that is to remember that when we embark on the life of following Jesus we are embarking on a process.

Some of the clearest teaching on this comes to us from a North African bishop, Cyprian, who lived from 170 - 258 CE.  He became a follower of Jesus at the age of 40 and was martyred at the age of 88.  He came to understand his life as a continuing process of being made more and more holy, more and more what God desired him to be.  He wrote: