He Will Baptize You With The Holy Spirit

In reading Matthew 3:1-12, I wonder if God might not have selected a better advance man for Jesus’ ministries than John the Baptist. But then, Jesus may not have had a choice; let’s face it, John was his first cousin and who knows what promises Mary made to Elizabeth when either John or Jesus had no say in the matter. Maybe the two sisters were keeping it all in the family? In any case, John was a little rough around the edges and could have used a little advice on dressing for success, or winning friends and influencing people before he began his ministry. Let me ask you; would you have hired him to be your pitch man? He rolls into town from the wilderness all decked out in camel hair and leather while munching on grasshoppers and honey. He was hardly a fashion plate or someone with whom you wanted to share a meal. He was different! 

So what was it that attracted the crowd and kept them coming, not to mention line up to be baptized? While John was inspired, his demeanor and deportment may well have been studied. He dressed like the prophet Elijah, who also ate locusts and honey, the sustenance that God provided to the Hebrews as they wandered the wilderness. So when he preached the coming of the Messiah, the people may have channeled the former prophet and were eager to follow, believe and anticipate the advent of the Lord. Not everyone, however. Two groups of the “elite” Jewish hierarchy, the Pharisees and Sadducees were uncharacteristically united in their opposition to John’s prophesy. After all, weren’t they the chosen people, the direct descendants of Abraham? 

Who is this wild man who comes to baptize and calls for us “to bear fruit for repentance,” the signs of a changed life? John preached the love of enemies and rejected any claim to an elite status as “the chosen” by birth. This clash between heredity, privilege and equality for all in the kingdom caused John to lash out with his customary lack of diplomacy and called the Pharisees and Sadducees “children of snakes.” John invites us to participate in God’s coming kingdom wherever we are and whatever we may be doing. All we need is enough faith in God to help us work through the ordinary and mundane elements of our lives. 

And so in promising the coming of the Messiah John message is powerful but he makes certain to clearly distinguishes his subordinate role as the “one who comes before:”
 
I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Stay Awake

"Be not afraid... Fear not."  People have derived comfort from these words for over 2,000 years, yet we are still afraid.  What's more, we are too frightened to admit our fears, particularly the biggest fear of all - death.  The fear of death overshadows our lives.  We have - or likely have - lived longer than our parents and grandparents.  We are better fed; we lose few babies, and modern medicine protects us from contagion and disease that will lengthen our lives... and yet, we are still afraid.   

Shortly after 9/11 the words Fear Not seemed a little out of place.  Surely we had every reason to be afraid.  I am reminded of Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan priest, who served as Chaplain to the New York Fire Dept., and was the first registered victim at Ground Zero, the sight of the former Twin Towers.  The details of his death are unclear:  some say he was fatally wounded as he administered last rites to a dying firefighter; others recall his being killed while in silent prayer.  Whatever happened, his lifeless body was discovered in the lobby and carried to a nearby church shortly before Tower I collapsed. 

What does this have to do with our gospel (Matthew 24:37-44)?  Who knew how that fateful Tuesday that began with skies so blue and air so clear, would end as it did?  In many ways, Father Mychal lived this gospel.  In many ways this was a man who had arrived at Ground Zero long before 9/11.  He had proved himself ready to lay down his life many times during his career.  For him 9/11 could have occurred on any day or at any time... he was prepared. 

If the thought of finding God amidst such harrowing circumstances seems strange, perhaps it is because we are out of practice looking for Him.  However, we can be certain that Christ's death and resurrection hold the deepest answer to all our fears.  Christ was executed like a common criminal and was totally forsaken by his friends.  By His overcoming death and our sharing in his resurrection, He took away all our reasons to fear forever.  Of course it does no good to recognize this on a merely intellectual level.  Knowing that Christ loves us may not save us from fear, nor will it save us from death.  And so it comes down to this:  The only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to "be prepared" and to live our life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death.  As with Father Mike, it means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves instead of others.  It means being prepared to die again and again to ourselves, and to every one of our self-serving opinions and agendas.                           

Adapted from Johann Chrisoph Arnold, Be Not Afraid, Advent Readings, 2001) "

 

Christ The King

Although his time on earth was short, Jesus created quite a stir during his even briefer ministry (Luke 23:35-43). As a revolutionary he upset Jewish law, tradition and the Roman hierarchy. He consorted with the most unlikely disenfranchised members of society and violated conventional decorum. He upset the “purity code” by proclaiming it wasn’t what went into your mouth that mattered but what came out. He wasn’t a king, a priest, or a prophet. He performed many miracles that included healing the sick and bringing the dead back to life. Yet he was unable to save himself; he was executed with 2 petty criminals. Not very kingly is it? And to compound the indignity, the soldiers kneel at his feet, not to worship, but to gamble for his clothes, while deriding his reign as “king of the Jews.” It amused them because they were Romans and they knew what a real king looked like, and this definitely was not it. A real king had power and arrogance and this Jesus had none of that. So they mocked him. 

 

Yet, for some reason, one of the two thieves also being executed reprimands the other who derides Jesus’ weakness and speaks with compassion and takes pity on another condemned man. Then he does an astounding thing and asks “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Now, where did that come from?  How can he hang there on the cross and look over at a man dying beside him, and see in him as a savior, a messiah, a king with a kingdom? Somehow, the second thief got it; he saw what Jesus was doing; he saw that Jesus refused to swat his oppressors and he died so that they could be forgiven, died so that by his suffering their suffering would be healed. 

We celebrate Christ the King, not because of his regal bearing, but because of his humility; not because of his power, but because of his compassion; not because of his triumph, but because of his travail; not because he fixes our lives, but because he shows us the way to live. 

And what about this kingdom of God? Where is it? Richard Rohr writes that “if we go to the depths of anything, we will begin to knock upon something substantial, ‘real’ and with a timeless quality to it. We will move from the starter kit of ‘belief’ to an actual inner knowing. This is most especially true if we have ever loved deeply; accompanied someone through the mystery of dying, or stood in genuine life changing awe before mystery time or beauty. This ‘something real’ is what all the worlds’ religions were pointing to when they spoke of heaven or the kingdom of God. They were not wrong at all; their only mistake was that they pushed it off into the next world. If God’s Kingdom is later, it is because it is first of all now…In other words, heaven/ union/ love now emerge from within us much more than from a mere belief system and  as Jesus promises the Samaritan woman, “the spring within her will well up into eternal life. (John 4:14)”

 

His Love is Here to Stay

The more I read the papers, the less I comprehend.
The world and all its capers and how it all will end.
Nothing seems to be lasting, but that isn’t our affair.
We’ve got something permanent,
I mean in the way we care.

…And so did Ira Gershwin pen this beautiful preface to his brother, George’s melody. Somehow these words seem to relate to our reading in Luke 21:5-19. Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics to Love is Here to Stay as a loving tribute to his brother who had just died at 39. The song speaks of love’s permanence in an ever changing world. Ira would have no way of knowing how prophetic his words written in 1938 would be for us in 2016, as we witness the passing of what we thought would be indestructible pillars of our culture and society gradually erode like the song’s “passing fancies.”

A few years ago I had the chance to visit the high school from which I graduated. I had attended this newer more “modern” building for the last 6 months of high school, since my school was no longer habitable and had to be torn down. At the time of my visit I couldn’t resist driving by my childhood home and pause for a while and allow the memories to take me back. Only the front door remained the same. While I did not expect to recognize anyone I would have known, I was able to re-create people and places by super imposing my memory on the scene.

Not unlike those who resisted Jesus’ prediction that the temple would one day be destroyed, I too thought these icons of my youth would last forever. Yes, there is an ache that comes from seeing so much of what we thought would always be, be no longer. But I suppose the older we get the more we know that nothing temporal by its very definition is eternal.

Jesus prophetically speaks of unsettling things that we like to think are just spiritual metaphors. But the current devastation from the earthquakes in Italy, the ongoing war in Iraq and genocide in Syria are terrible reminders that the things we hold so close are just passing fancies and in time will go. Even if these words don't resonate in us today, the time will come when they just might. Blessedly then, as now, Jesus’ promise remains, “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”

God is watching out for us and His love is here to stay.