Advetn III

Advent III (Luke 3:7-18)

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

Change is never easy.

The prophetic call to repent of sin and prepare for the Messiah to deal with sin is in fact quite challenging. That is why many people who came to John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, came only for the outward and visible sign of baptism. They did not want the inward and spiritual grace.

They wanted to get the credit for being religious and for being righteous. They did not want to make any changes in what they believed or in how they behaved. That is why the prophet John the Baptist warned the crowds in the words: “you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.”

God’s wrath is the way lost souls experience God’s Glory. The prophets all had the unenviable and difficult task of reminding people, religious people, that they were lost and needed to be found. The prophets discovered by experience that the lost stay lost through pride. And, the prophets observed that those who remain lost through pride cultivate a will to power to resist any change.

The identifying motto that defines a lost soul is the phrase: “my mind is made up; don’t confuse me with fact.” My mind is made up therefore I will never compromise, never learn anything knew, and never ever allow faith or science to change my mind,.

This is what John the Baptist learned from the prophets of Israel. This is what he observed and experienced as great crowds came to him to receive the outward and visible forms of the baptism of repentance. They came. They made sure everyone saw them. Had there been news reporters at the time they would have been sure to grant interviews. They would have had their pictures taken with John as he baptized people in the river Jordan. They would have added their participation in the event to their religious resume. And, they would have walked away still feeling righteous and superior. They would have walked away unchanged.

John knew this was happening. He also knew that as the last of the prophets he was called by God to be faithful to his task. He issued the invitation to repentance- to make a life transforming change in the direction people followed. He announced the message of preparation for the coming Messiah. And, he knew that he could only lead people so far. Jesus, the Messiah, the co-eternal Beloved of the Father, would have to do the hard part.

It is Jesus and only Jesus who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. It is Jesus and only Jesus who finds the lost in our pride and self-will and offers us a new life and a new way of living. The new life is his own eternal life. The new way of living is the threefold pattern of love: worship, compassion, and transformation.

Christian Faith is a journey of personal transformation. The Holy Spirit is the Helper who guides us and advises us on that journey. The fire is the fire of sanctification. It is the way Jesus invites us to make the three fold set of personal relationships the Father designed into our species to be our preeminent priorities.

My grandfather used to say: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. The prophets can only take us so far. We need Jesus to take us the rest of the way. The prophets can inform us that we are lost. Only Jesus can find us where we are lost. The prophets can warn us that outward compliance to religious forms and rituals produce no lasting result. Jesus and Jesus only can and does walk with us and help us cultivate a hunger and thirst for grace. Jesus and only Jesus recaptures for us the meaning and purpose embedded in the religious forms and rituals.

Grace is God’s inward and spiritual fire that refines the soul. Grace slowly and steadily enables us to surrender our attachments to false beliefs, destructive behaviors and fatal pride. Grace transforms our desires as fire purifies silver and releases it from being embedded in rock.

To the lost, the prophets preach repent and prepare. To the lost, Jesus completes the process with the word: come. Come and be found. Come and be transformed. Come and enter into a journey of faith that begins in a single moment of time and has no end. Come and become the living temples of the Holy Spirit on earth and the beacon of sacred spiritual fire to help others who are lost to be found in Jesus Christ. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”