A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at
Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields, 12th January 2025
Isaiah 43: 1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8: 14-17; Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
Watch the whole service on YouTube
John the Baptist told the crowds who were flocking to hear him and to undergo his ‘baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Luke 3:3) that, ‘I baptise you with water, but one who is more powerful than me is coming … he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’ (3:16)
Water is important – essential – stuff. We need it to keep ourselves clean and healthy, and we need to drink it. Around 60% of our bodies are made up of it. Given that we constantly lose water from our bodies in various ways we need to replenish it all the time. That said, I’m amazed that I survived my childhood and youth. Back then there were no constant exhortations to “keep hydrated” nor were there any fancy water bottles available to carry around all the time, and to sip from at every opportunity.
Seriously though, water is essential to life. If I stopped eating I would still probably live for weeks. On the other hand, if I stopped taking in water I would probably at most last a week, but only if I also stopped any physical activity, and if the weather was not hot.
It’s no surprise then that water features prominently in religions which ponder the meaning and purpose of our lives; “holy water” one might say. Not only Christianity, but also Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, and several other religions feature ritual washing. Stories of floods or deluges of water feature not only in the Jewish and Christian faiths (Noah and his ark), but also in other religions of the ancient world such as in Babylon, and other cultures around the world too, such as the Cheyenne and Puebloan Native American peoples.
In the Bible, in today’s readings, we hear of God accompanying the people through waters and rivers so that they are not overwhelmed (Isaiah 43:2), which in turn recalls the Hebrew people in the Book of Exodus crossing the Red Sea to safety, whilst a pursuing Egyptian (43:3) army perished in the flood behind them. To take another example, for the writer of the psalms God was glorious and worthy of our praise because it was God who controlled the waters of creation: ‘the LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits as king forever.’ (29:10)
It’s no wonder then that John the Baptist was known for … wait for it … baptising people with water. He did so in the River Jordan, where centuries before, in crossing it and coming into the promised land, the Jewish people had come through the waters, their status as slaves washed off, now a free people in a new land. With John’s watery ministry drawing so many people, it was no wonder that some were thinking John himself might even be the Messiah – the Christ – anointed by God for the task of freeing the people them from all that oppressed them in their day. (3:15)
Yet essential though water is to life, and even taking into account the importance of being baptised in water, something even more significant was coming along. And John the Baptiser’s job was to point to that, not to his own ministry: ‘I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’ (3:16)
That significant something was, of course, that most significant person: Jesus the Christ; Jesus the Messiah; God’s anointed one for whom the Jewish people and the world were waiting – though at the time, at first sight, you would not have known it. In his Gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus appeared as just one of a crowd of people who were drawn to his cousin John out there at the River Jordan. He tells us that it was ‘when all the people were baptised’ (3:21) that Jesus himself was baptised.
Given that this was a baptism which was advertised as being for repentance and forgiveness of sins Jesus did not need to be baptised. It was an act of solidarity with a suffering people who did need this significant water-based experience; he became one of us so that he could help all of us. Although Jesus is one of us, one of this great crowd of humanity, one of that even greater crowd of living creatures on this planet, he, at the same time, was and is not “just one of the crowd.”
As John the Baptist declared, Jesus came not just with a water-based baptism, but with a baptism that involved the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. This was the case with his own baptism and it’s the case with Christian baptism ever since. Memorably, the Holy Spirit made an appearance at Jesus’s own baptism: ‘when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.’ (3:21)
Later, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the early days of the Church, the presence and role of the Holy Spirit in Christian baptism was non-negotiable. This comes across in our reading from the Book of Acts. The church leaders in Jerusalem hear that some people in Samaria – people up North – ‘had accepted the word of God.’ (8:14) They despatch Peter and John on a visit to them. When they arrived there they prayed for these new believers ‘that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them [we are told]; they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus).’ (8:15-16)
This was an easy fix, however, because after prayer and laying on of hands by Peter and John, ‘they received the Holy Spirit.’ (8:17) As Jesus is reported as instructing his followers at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, ‘make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ (28:19)
As I pointed out towards the beginning of this sermon you might last a month without food. You might be able to go for a week without water. I wonder how long a Christian can last without the Holy Spirit. That’s a tough one to figure out. Food and water are material things. By and large you can see when someone is taking in food or water, and you know it for yourself. The Holy Spirit is a different thing. Although Luke’s Gospel mentions that at the baptism of Jesus the Spirit appeared ‘in bodily form like a dove’ (3:22) that’s very much the exception rather than the rule.
We see the Holy Spirit, we discern God’s presence and action indirectly for the most part. In my experience, awareness of God’s presence and work is most clearly perceived in retrospect. It’s when you look back on things that happened in life, including in the life of the Church, that you feel more confident about saying that God was present and at work here. That doesn’t mean that we can’t see the Holy Spirit in action in the here and now though.
The Apostle Paul is helpful here. He says we should look out for evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in human lives – what he calls ‘the fruit of the Spirit.’ (Galatians 5:22) When you see people’s lives increasingly displaying ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’ (5:22, 23) then you’re seeing evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in them. Such good habits come easier to some of us than others, or, to put it another way, such good habits come harder to some of us than others. So we would do well to do as Peter and John did for those new believers in Samaria, and pray that the Holy Spirit would work upon us and upon our lives.
On this Sunday we celebrate the way in which through the Holy Spirit God revealed how special Jesus was and is at the moment of his baptism: ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ (3:22) And we also give thanks that Jesus’s ministry – his work on earth – would involve making that Holy Spirit’s power for good available to others: ‘he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire, ‘ as John the Baptist put it. (3:16) So let us pray that today and in the days ahead God’s Holy Spirit will be with us and to work within us, so that we will know God better and live lives marked by the presence of God’s Spirit. Amen.