Luke 3.15-17, 21-22 (NRSV)

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

The Baptism of Jesus

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

John taught with authority and it was obvious that he was a God ordained prophet. People were attracted to his message because they knew that he was telling the truth. Verse 15 records their response. Everyone became excited and wondered, "Could John be the Messiah?"

John hastens to tell them that he is not the Messiah and gives two important reasons. Firstly, he points out that he is nothing like the Messiah. Verse 16 explains:

‘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. 

In sheer power, Jesus was mightier than John. In addition, John claims that he was not even worthy to untie the Messiah's sandals. We know that this task was usually reserved for the lowliest people of society. In this way therefore John makes it clear that the Messiah is far greater than he. Secondly, he points out that his baptism is with water and the baptism of the Messiah is with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The baptism of the Messiah is therefore more than just a cleansing ritual; it is also like fire which purifies precious metals. The Holy Spirit transforms people and deals decisively with the sin in their lives. In addition, the Holy Spirit empowers and strengthens people to fulfil what they are called to do. Miller explains:

Water cleanses the outside alone. Fire penetrates to the deepest recesses and purifies the inner life.

Verse 17 is John's warning. The Messiah also comes as a judge. Those who refuse to obey and turn to God and allow themselves to be used by God will be discarded like the useless outer husks of grain because they are worthless. On the other hand, those who turn to God, believe and accept the Messiah - Jesus Christ - into their lives by faith, have great worth because they begin a new and productive life working for God's glory on earth. In verse 18 Luke records how in this and 'in many different ways John preached the good news to the people'.

John told the truth and invariably, when one tells the truth, somebody is going to rebel against what they hear. He rebuked Herod for his sin and told him to repent. Herod refused and had John imprisoned and finally killed.

Have we all turned back to God? Or are we only going through the motions. Are our lives worthless husks that will be destroyed by the fire of judgement or will they be purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit?

I do not think there is any need from the context to think of the fiery judgement in literal terms, as this seems to be typical ancient hyperbole. It is also an utterance of John and not Jesus, but the metaphor of destruction or purification is a lovely challenge similar to that of St Paul when writing in 1 Corinthians 3 where he refers to our lives being like buildings we construct:

¹⁰ According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. ¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. ¹²Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. ¹⁴If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.

Earlier in the Gospel we are reminded that John was baptising people as a sign of repentance. Being baptised was therefore the people's way of saying that they had turned away from their sin and had turned to God. But we all know, because the Scriptures leave no room for doubt, that Jesus was completely sinless. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read simply yet unequivocally that 'Christ never sinned! ...' In 1 Peter 1:19 we read: 'You were rescued by the precious blood of Christ, that spotless and innocent lamb.' In Hebrews 7:26 the author states: 'Jesus is the High Priest we need. He is holy and innocent and faultless, and not at all like us sinners ...'

Jesus must therefore have been baptised for some other reason because he definitely did not need to be baptised because he was completely and utterly without sin - he was perfect in every respect because he was no mere man - he was God who had taken on the form of a man.

Jesus was baptised for the sins of others. To stress this point, Luke couples Jesus' baptism with that of the people in verse 21:

After everyone else had been baptised, Jesus himself was baptised.

This truth is linked to John's use of Isaiah's prophecy about Jesus and specifically to verse 6. Jesus' life, including his baptism was so that '... everyone will see the saving power of God'. Jesus, through his baptism, therefore identified himself with sinful people. He was baptised for our sake and not his own. It is therefore plain to see, right from his baptism, the beginning of his ministry, that Jesus was headed for the cross - that Jesus was the 'Suffering Servant' who had come to provide a solution for the sins of all people of all time. What Jesus did symbolically in this act of baptism, he did in reality on the Cross.

Verse 21 continues, 'Then as he prayed, the sky opened up ...' It was the experience of Jesus that great and wonderful things happened when he prayed. Prayer was a central feature of our Lord's life - how much more should it be a central feature of our lives. When Jesus healed people he prayed. In Luke 5:16 we read:

But Jesus would often go to some place where he could be alone and pray.

Before Jesus chose his Apostles, he prayed. Luke records:

About that time Jesus went off the mountain to pray, and he spent the whole night there.

Before asking his disciples if they realised who he was, Jesus prayed. Luke writes:

When Jesus was alone praying, his disciples came to him, and he asked them, "What do people say about me?"

The true glory of Jesus was revealed in prayer. Luke records:

About eight days later Jesus took Peter, John and James with him and went up on a mountain to pray. While he was praying, his face changed, and his clothes became shining white.

These are but a few examples. Suffice it to say that Jesus prayed and when he prayed, God did fantastic things. When Christians pray today, God still does fantastic things. When Jesus was baptised and prayed, the heavens opened up. Verse 22 continues:

... the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove.

We know that Jesus had the Holy Spirit before his baptism because he was born of the Spirit. Remember Luke 1:35 where the angel said to Mary:

"The Holy Spirit will come down to you, and God's power will come over you. So your child will be called the holy Son of God."

We know that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are inseparable - a mystery that we know is true even though we will never fully comprehend it. On the relationship between the Holy Spirit and Jesus, Luke writing in Acts indicates their closeness by referring to the 'Spirit of Jesus'. Paul also explains:

The Lord and the Spirit are one and the same, and the Lord's Spirit sets us free.

The Spirit coming upon Jesus in this special way at his baptism can possibly be God's way of showing us, mere mortals with finite understanding, that the Son was being empowered to go forth and fulfil his ministry as the 'Suffering Servant' in obedience to the Father's will. He must go forth from this point, being strengthened by God's Spirit, to bear the sins of many upon himself, so that those who believe in him might be saved. Verse 22 continues:

A voice from heaven said, "You are my own dear Son, and I am pleased with you."

Jesus, unlike the rest of humankind, was acceptable to God. Jesus was unique because he was the only one that the Father could say that he was 'pleased with'. These words are taken from Psalm 2 and Isaiah 42. Psalm 2 proclaims the accession of the anointed King who is to rule the nations and Isaiah 42 is the first in a series of prophecies about the servant of the Lord who was chosen to carry true religion to the gentiles. At this point, if not before, Jesus must have realised the significance of what the Father was calling him to do. Throughout his childhood, Jesus would have progressively come to realise who he was and what his mission was. His baptism marked the end of a long period of preparation and development and of study and meditation upon the Scriptures. And Jesus could achieve the salvation of the world, because he was the only person in all history, of whom the Father could say 'I am pleased with you.'

What is wonderful to realise is the fact that because God the Father was pleased with Jesus; this means that He is pleased with us too, because we become acceptable to God because of all that Jesus achieved for us on our behalf. This is most beautifully expressed in Romans from 3.21 – 5.5 and beautifully summed up in the first verses of Chapter 5 where we read: 

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

This wonderful teaching, what theologians refer to as Justification by Faith has been central to our Church’s teaching since the Wesley’s revived it in the 18^th Century, because it had been forgotten yet again since the 16^th Century after Martin Luther had rediscovered it. I believe it has been forgotten yet again. Simply put: we are declared right with God by faith in Jesus. And we are left with the challenge: We need to devote our lives – with the aid of the Holy Spirit transforming our lives from sin to holiness – to becoming what God has declared us to be.