Engage 2010: The Holy Spirit and Fire

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Of the three persons of the Trinity—the Christian understanding of God as Three in One and One in Three, Father, Son and Holy Ghost; Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit; Lover, Beloved and Love—the Holy Spirit routinely suffers the indignity of being underrated and overlooked outside the enthusiastic confines of Pentecostal and charismatic congregations. But the Holy Spirit is the constant and continuing presence of God in the world and in the church and in the life of every baptized believer; and it is the Holy Spirit, according to this morning’s Gospel Lesson, that distinguishes John the Baptizer from Jesus the Christ. “I baptize you with water,” John says, “but the One who is coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

Most Protestant churches, Baptists included, have pretty much left the “Holy Spirit and fire” talk to Pentecostals and charismatics. That “Holy Spirit and fire” talk has been largely marginalized by mainstream Christianity as the sort of thing associated with people who speak in tongues and handle snakes. Many of you will remember that some years ago, before Helen Ellis retired from teaching science in our Kindergarten program, our stewardship notebooks went out to the congregation with a wonderful picture in them of a preschool youngster holding a sizeable snake. “Great!” I thought when I saw it. “I can see the billboard on 291 now: Come to First Baptist Greenville where even the children handle snakes.” Handling snakes, speaking in tongues, and the “Holy Spirit and fire” are not characteristic of our congregational identity. But as we Engage 2010, we need to reclaim the biblical image of the “Holy Spirit and fire” because that image represents the empowering and purifying presence of God among us, around us and in us.

The “Holy Spirit and fire” is the empowering and purifying presence of God in Jesus Christ from his baptism on, when Luke says the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus (3:22). Jesus is empowered by the Holy Spirit. In Luke 4:1, we’re told that Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit,” returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. In Luke 4:14, we read, “Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, returned to Galilee,” where he took up his ministry of preaching and teaching in the synagogues and confronting the demons that were destroying people’s lives. The Scripture that Jesus read in the synagogue in Nazareth where he grew up was from Isaiah 61. Jesus read to the congregation gathered that day, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” That’s the empowering presence of God in the life and ministry of Jesus, and it’s the very same empowering presence of God that activates and energizes all of those who respond to the call of Christ to minister in Jesus’ name, every one.

After his resurrection, Jesus said to the disciples in the Upper Room, “Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high,” which is the opening scene in the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost when “they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came the sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues as a fire appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:2-3). And from then on in the book of Acts, individuals who minister in Jesus’ name are said again and again and again to be “full of the spirit,” “full of faith and the Holy Spirit,” “filled with the Holy Spirit,” “full of the Holy Spirit and faith.” They were empowered by the presence of God among them and around them and in them. As we Engage 2010 for worship and for mission and for spiritual growth, there is nothing that we need more as individuals and as a congregation gathered together than the empowering presence of God among us, around us and in us.

It has always been that way for the people of God. In Exodus 33, after the debacle of the golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God says to Moses, “Take them on to the land I promised them, but I’m not going.” To which Moses replies, “Lord, if you will not go with us, do not send us up from this place.” If you are not with us, we are no people. We have no call. We have no mission. We have no reason for being together without your presence among us and around us and in us. The Holy Spirit: the continuing and constant presence of God in the world and in the church and in the life of every baptized believer. The empowering presence of God and the purifying presence of God, the Holy Spirit and fire.

In this morning’s Gospel Lesson, fire is an image of judgment. It is the fire that burns the chaff, the husk, the waste material of the wheat. It is like the refiner’s fire in the book of Malachi in the Old Testament. The refiner’s fire burns the dross, the impurities out of the silver in Malachi 3:3. The refiner’s fire leaves only the pure metal. Most of us who gave up on the Holy Ghost on account of our discomfort with Pentecostals and charismatics also gave up on the refiner’s fire on account of our discomfort with fire-and-brimstone, hellfire-and-damnation preaching. We ran from the fire, but if we are to Engage 2010 in worship, in mission, and in spiritual growth, then we are going to need the refiner’s fire in our lives. The refiner’s fire burns away the useless stuff, the wasteful stuff, the unnecessary and the impure stuff so that what remains is only the necessary and the needful and the pure.

The image of the fire of judgment in this morning’s gospel lesson is a reminder that your “stop-doing list” is every bit as important as your “to-do list.” If you don’t have a “stop-doing list,” you need to start one. I learned the importance of stop-doing lists several years ago from reading Harvard Business Review. Effective companies and organizations—and effective individuals—plan for and implement “abandonment strategies” for their products and services and processes every bit as carefully and thoroughly as they plan for and implement their launch strategies. It’s so obvious we shouldn’t even have to say it but we do. There is a time to abandon the womb and be born. There is a time to abandon high school and your parent’s home and move on to college. And don’t come back! (Just kidding! Come back anytime. Stay as long as you need to. Once a parent, always a parent.) There is a time to abandon the house and move into assisted living. There is a time to abandon the earthly tent we live in to move on to a building from God, a house not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1). Our abandonment strategies are every bit as important as our launch strategy. Start a “stop-doing list” today. The refiner’s fire of the stop-doing list is a reminder of the purifying presence of God among us and around us and in us that burns away the untimely, the unworthy, the useless, the wasteful, unnecessary, and impure stuff that holds us back as individuals and as a congregation from loving and serving God and from loving and serving our neighbor as we ought. Engage 2010 with a stop-doing list so that you can get to the worthy things and the pure things and the needful things on your to-do list for worship and mission and spiritual growth.

May this be the year of your baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire, the empowering and purifying presence of God with you and around you and in you. Amen.


This material is Copyrighted © 2010 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.