John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a
baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea
and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the
river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair and
wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he
preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose
sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with
water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:4-8 (ESV)
“After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of
whose sandal I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with
water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirt.”
All of Israel is waiting for the man of whom John speaks,
Jesus, the Christ, the messiah. All of Scriptures speak of him. All of Israel’s
history has been one of waiting for him. The one who would come and baptize
with the Holy Spirit as Ezekiel prophesied when he said: “I will sprinkle clean
water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all
your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new
spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your
flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27 (ESV) Then John appears
in the wilderness, baptizing, sprinkling water on people as they confess their
sins, preaching the word of God with a fury of conviction. He lived a life so
harsh it seemed inhuman. It was the kind of life people are prone to expect
from a holy man, one of fasting and seriousness, it was what they expected of
the messiah, a man who as Jesus said came not eating and not drinking. He lived
a life so sever some thought he had a demon. But he wasn’t the messiah, nor was
he like the messiah. The messiah, Jesus, came eating and drinking, and the same
people who said John had a demon called Jesus a glutton and a drunkard, a
condemnation for which Deuteronomy demanded a rebellious son be brought out the
gates and stoned by the elders of the village. Truly these people were as
children calling in the streets, we played the flute for you and you did not
dance, we sang a dirge and you did not weep. (Luke 7:32) But to John, the voice
in the wilderness the people came, they heard him preach, they confessed their
sins and submitted to baptism as the waters of the Jordan pouring from his
hand, and spilling through his fingers.
John’s baptism, was it from heaven or from man? Jesus asks
this question of his accusers in the last days of his life, the ones seeking to
kill him outside the city gates, the ones who condemned him as a glutton and a
drunkard. They refused to answer, afraid the people who held this John to be
the prophet he was would drag them out of the city to be stoned themselves. He
was a prophet, and his baptism, as the word of God for repentance, came from
heaven. Even God himself in Jesus Christ would submit to it, so as to identify
with sinners and fulfill all righteousness, to prepare himself for the baptism
of his death and resurrection of which he likens to fire in Luke 12. But John
himself says curious things about his own baptism. Things that are often
ignored today. It may have been from heaven, but it had its limitations. These
things are even here in our text. It is not the same baptism as that which
Jesus would institute in his resurrection. John himself says that his baptism
is of water. It didn’t have the Holy Spirit, or at least not in the same way as
Jesus Baptism. In the 19th chapter of Acts, we learn that when Paul
comes to Ephesus he meets disciples who had been baptized by John, and did not
know there was a Holy Spirit. So Paul baptizes them in the name of Jesus and
they receive the Holy Spirit. There seems then to have been a difference
between the baptizing John did in the wilderness, and the baptism he
proclaimed, the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, the baptism
with the Holy Spirit, the baptism of Jesus.
See, John could prepare the way with the law, he could show
us our sin, he could demand repentance and confession of sin, but it could not
save. For salvation something more was needed, here was needed the baptism of
Christ, the baptism of fire that Jesus had to undergo, his death and
resurrection. This is the baptism into which he baptizes you. It was this
baptism he had to do in order to accomplish your salvation, this baptism he had
to complete before he could return to His Father, to sit at his right hand from
whence he sends The Holy Spirit to you with the forgiveness of sins. Because
when the messiah comes he doesn’t come with more law, which even John the
greatest of those born of women could not accomplish with a severe diet, a life
time of fasting. No, when the messiah comes he comes with grace and mercy, love
and the Holy Spirit, and he is the one who comes to you in baptism, word and
Holy Communion. He comes to you today, who knows your sin, your unworthiness to
untie his sandal, and washes your feet here, who have been washed in his
baptism, bestowing upon you grace and mercy, the forgiveness of sins in the
sanctifying power of his blood.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep
your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment