Luke 3:15-22
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.
21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Did you know that Jesus was baptized? It seems a little strange to think of it, but there it is in the Gospels, staring right at us. Some Gospels even tell us that it was strange for John the Baptist, who said that Jesus should be baptizing him instead of he, John, baptizing Jesus. Or maybe it isn’t that strange to you. Perhaps it makes perfect sense.
I believe that whether or not this passage seems strange to you comes down to your understanding of baptism, what it means and what is accomplished in the act. What I want to do today is to walk through this text, highlight some interesting facts, and then look at a couple of ways to understand baptism. I want to look at what we as Anabaptist/Mennonites do teach and what we do teach. Because I believe that when you understand baptism from an Anabaptist perspective, the baptism of Jesus makes perfect sense, because Jesus isn’t looking to be forgiven. He is making a declaration about his commitment to the Kingdom of God.
Luke makes one thing abundantly clear from the very beginning of our text for this morning: John is not the Messiah. Oh yes, he is a prophet. He speaks like a prophet, calling people to repentance and speaking of the events that are to come. But he is not the Messiah. While John baptizes with water, the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.
One thing that we miss in our English translations is that the Greek word for spirit is the same word used for breath or wind; it is pneuma. And John’s hearers would have been familiar with the practice that he refers to next, winnowing wheat. John says of the Messiah in verse 17, “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Winnowing is a method of separating the kernel of the wheat, which is used for making flour, from the chaff, the husks, and the stalk. I saw an interesting video of threshing wheat online this week, where the wheat was beaten with a club and then dropped in front of a fan. The fan blew away the chaff and the heavier kernels fell into a bucket. You can also see this on a larger scale at the Frontier Culture Museum, where they have a threshing machine, but they will also do it by hand. They open the doors on both sides of the barn so they get a good cross wind and throw the wheat into the air with a pitchfork. The wind and gravity separate the parts of the wheat. The kernels fall to the floor, and it is collected for flour. The stalks of wheat catch on the threshold of the barn, and it will be used for animal bedding. But the chaff, the little pieces of fiber that are between the kernels, they blow out the door. They are not useful and you don’t want them in your barn because they are also very flammable. It isn’t uncommon to hear about grain elevators catching on fire. I may have caught a corn dryer on fire once in my younger age as well. This chaff is not desirable, needed, or even safe.
John doesn’t explain this reference, so we are left to argue about it. Some will say that this is about the final judgment. Others say that it is about our sanctification, or our becoming more like Jesus. I tend to lean toward the second interpretation, not because I don’t believe in a final judgment. I do, and it is clear in passage like Matthew 25, the separation of the sheep and the goats. But with this particular metaphor, there are parts of one item which are separated from each other. When these individual parts are separated out, the useless and undesirable part is burned off. There isn’t separation of the good wheat and the bad wheat. It is separation of the desirable part of the wheat from the undesirable part of the wheat. It is like the refiner’s fire spoken of by the prophet Malachi, purifying the people.
Make no mistake, this isn’t an easy or comfortable process. Ask anyone who has ever tried to overcome addiction. This is what John says Jesus will do, burn up the junk and leave the good stuff.
Then, after a little side note about John’s arrest, we find Jesus himself coming to be baptized. But why does Jesus come for baptism? Scripture teaches us that Jesus was without sin. Yet scripture like Acts 2:38 and other passages seem to suggest that baptism has to do with the forgiveness of sin. “Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.’”
Is the purpose of baptism the forgiveness of sins? If so, why was Jesus baptized?
Some of you may be familiar with the 1990’s movie about the early Anabaptists called “The Radicals.” It is available to rent through Amazon Prime for about $2.00, or you can buy your own DVD for $5, and well worth your money and time. But be aware, there is another movie by the same name that documents the lives of surfers and snowboarders as they work for environmental protection, which may be a good movie, I simply can’t say.
“The Radicals” is the story of the early Anabaptists told through the perspective of Michael Sattler. Sattler was a priest who converted to Anabaptism and later went on to write the first Anabaptist Confession of Faith. The movie shows Sattler, soon after his conversion, in an Anabaptist worship gathering. Sattler still has his head shaved like a monk and is wearing the simple robes of his monastic order. Following the service, the pastor gives an invitation for people to come and be baptized, and a woman approaches with a sick infant in her arms. She informs the pastor that she doesn’t want to be baptized, but for her child, who is dying, to receive the sacrament. The pastor refuses, explaining that they only baptize believers there.
The woman sees Sattler and runs to him, asking him to baptize the baby since he is obviously a member of the clergy. When Sattler refuses, the woman looks at both men and tells them that they have both just condemned her baby to hell.
One of the reasons that some traditions practice infant baptism is because they believe it removes sin. And no, babies have not committed any sin, but the belief that has been taught for years is that infant baptism is necessary to remove the stain of Original Sin, the sin inherited from Adam. St. Augustine even said that without Original Sin there would be no need for infant baptism.
There is no official teaching in the Catholic Church on the eternal destiny of infants who die before receiving baptism, but it is traditionally taught that they remain forever in limbo, a middle ground between heaven and hell that differs from purgatory. So when Michael Sattler refused to baptize the baby in “The Radicals,” the mother understood this as an eternal condemnation of her innocent child.
The Anabaptists of the 16th century, and 21st century, have a different understanding of baptism. If Sattler believed the eternal destination of the baby relied upon his baptizing the infant, he probably would have done it. And if Jesus thought baptism was how sins were forgiven, he had no reason to be baptized. Furthermore, recall that on the cross, one of the sinners on either side of Jesus asked him to remember him when Jesus entered his kingdom. How did Jesus respond? “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise,” Luke 23:43b. We have no reason to believe that thief had been baptized. And to paraphrase Paul from Galatians 2, if baptism is the necessary for forgiveness, then Christ died for nothing.
The Mennonite Church and our Anabaptist forbearers have always rejected the idea that there is anything salvific in baptism. So what do Mennonites believe baptism is? I want to read you a couple of sentences from the most recent Mennonite Confession of Faith and lift out a few words to further unpack. “We believe that baptism of believers with water is a sign of their cleansing from sin. Baptism is also a pledge before the church of their covenant with God to walk in the way of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The first thing that jumps out of that quotation is the word “believers.” The Mennonite Church practices believer’s baptism. There is no magical age when we believe a person can receive baptism. I usually aim for double digits in age, those early tween-teen years. It is necessary for a person to be able to articulate and understand faith in Jesus and a desire to be a disciple. A five-year-old can say the words, but I’m not sure that they really understand what they are saying. And the age isn’t the same for all people. Some kids seem to understand at an earlier age, while for others they don’t get it until they are adults. I was in my early twenties when I was baptized, and I’ve baptized people well into their 70’s.
The next word I believe to be helpful is “sign.” While we don’t really believe that the water takes away a person’s sins, it is a symbol of God’s forgiveness, washing us clean. Signs are helpful to us, but they are also there for others to see.
Baptism is one of those weird things that we Christians do that those outside of the church may not understand. That is why baptisms are usually done in public places, like in a lake, stream, or open worship service. One of the most meaningful baptisms I ever took part in was two years ago at Todd Lake, where we waded out in that murky water, dunked some friends under the water, and then took communion on the beach. There weren’t other people at the lake that day, but the idea is that this isn’t something that we are trying to hide. This is a public proclamation of our faith in Jesus Christ. This is our statement to the world that we are a part of God’s kingdom.
I’ve never been asked to do a baptism in a private home, in a bathtub, or swimming pool. I’d have to really think about the individual’s situation before committing to something like that. If someone was dying and couldn’t leave the hospital, I’d probably do a private baptism in that situation. But baptism is a sign meant for the watching world to see and hear us proclaim that we belong to Jesus and his kingdom.
I like to compare baptism to marriage. I loved Sonya on July 18, 2003 and I loved her on July 20, 2003. Our love didn’t change when we said “I do” on the 19th. But we made a public statement of our love and our intention to be together for the rest of our lives. God doesn’t love us any more before or after our baptism. You aren’t any more forgiven the day after your baptism than the day before. The difference is the public declaration, the sign for the watching world, that says I am a child of God.
The final word I want to look at is pledge. This word probably makes you think of the household cleaner, or maybe the Pledge of Allegiance. The second one is close, because this is a pledge of allegiance to the kingdom of God. The Confession of Faith says that baptism is a “pledge before the church of their covenant.”
The language isn’t entirely clear, though. To whom is the “their” referring? Is it the covenant of the person being baptized, or the covenant of the entire church? This is one of those situations where I like the ambiguity, because I believe the answer is, “yes.” Baptism is about the covenant between God and the Church universal, and in the Mennonite Church, baptism is a method for recognizing a person’s place in the Church as a member. This pledge is to God, his kingdom, and to the Church to work together for the greater good. To work together for the sake of the Gospel.
We live in such an individualized world. We order our hamburgers how we want them, watch our own movies on our personal electronic devices, called iPads and iPhones. We worry about being individuals and self-made men and women. But our baptism is communal. Our baptism is a pledge, our initiation into something bigger than ourselves. It is our pledge of allegiance to the Kingdom of God. In this kingdom we seek to end hunger and poverty, warfare and violence. Love is our guiding principle. We love our families, our spouses, our children, and we love our enemies. That is why this passage begins with the imagery of the winnowing fork and the threshing of wheat. In this community of believers known as the kingdom of God, we seek to help one another burn that chaff off. All the things that are unnecessary and dangerous to the Kingdom of God need to be removed. It isn’t comfortable; it isn’t pleasant. But we work together with one another and the Holy Spirit to be formed in the image of Christ.
But there is one more aspect of baptism that we cannot skip over. It doesn’t get attention in our Confession of Faith, and that is a sad thing. Verse 22 says, “And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’”
Baptism is a reminder of our beloved-ness.
We know little about Jesus’s first 30 years. He made some trips to the Temple, his parents forgot him there once, and that’s about it. Even as a 12-year-old he seems to know that he is the Messiah, referring to God as his Father. But I am pretty sure he questioned his calling, his relationship to God, and his beloved-ness. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus experienced all we have experienced, so I’m sure he had his doubts. What human wouldn’t? But when Jesus takes that step of faith into the Jordan River, he is affirmed. God says, “You are my Son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased.”
We in the Mennonite Church do an excellent job of emphasizing the communal aspect of baptism, but never forget that baptism is an affirmation of your beloved-ness and your status as a son or daughter of God.
And no, this doesn’t mean that you weren’t loved or that you weren’t a son or daughter of God before your baptism. Again, it is like our love before or after the exchanging of our wedding vows. God doesn’t love us any more and God doesn’t love us any less on either side of our baptism. But baptism is a celebration, surrounded by our family and friends, of our sonship and daughter-ship, our status as beloved children of God. And it is a reminder to those who gather around us that they too are beloved children of God.
Baptism is this strange reminder that we all have chaff in our lives that needs to be burned off and that we are God’s beloved children. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need that reminder.
Staunton Mennonite Weblog 