Not a Cause, but a Person

I baptize you with water, but One more powerful than I will come.....He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3:16)

 

Every Christian life must move from the Old Testament, through Pentecost, to the New.  The aim of the Christian life is not "to be a good person" through obeying the Law -- for at some point each one of us will fail.  Rather, the aim of the Christian life is the Life of Christ continued in the world today through our persons, our characters, our bodies, our minds, our souls.

 

Water baptism is not enough to make us Christians -- unless it leads us to the baptism with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  Only the Person of Jesus Christ can set us on fire with the love of God and the love of neighbor.  It must be Him living in us that continues to do the work of God on earth.  Water baptism is the Promise of God that He will lead us to His Son, through transformation of our personalities, into the character of Christ.

 

Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Jesus Christ.  It means trusting that He will do the work in us that pleases the Father.  This is the difference between the Christian life and devotion to principles or to a cause.  This is the difference between the Old and the New Covenants -- In that day, declares the Lord, I will pour out my Holy Spirit, and I will write my Law in their hearts....

 

Only the Holy Spirit can impart to us the burning love for God and others that Jesus exemplified on earth.  It is no longer a matter of "imitation" of Christ, but rather of doing what the Spirit puts in our hearts to do.  The first is a matter of personal discipline and will; the second is a passionate love that impels us forward.  Someone once asked Mother Teresa why she ministered so passionately to the wretched poor.  Her answer:  "I like doing my own thing." 

 

We may admire Jesus; we may respect Him and reverence Him, but we cannot love Him like this until we are "baptized" with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  And the love of God is indiscriminate -- it is poured out upon all who will, "worthy" or not.  On the day of Pentecost, 3000 were baptized into Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.  Confessions may have come later, but on that day, the fire touched all who heard the message.

 

I think the story of Jacob, whose name means "cheater, grabber, usurper" might illustrate the "normal" pattern of the Christian life.  Jacob leaves home, fleeing in fear of his brother's anger.  The first night, he dreams of a ladder ascending into heaven, realizes that "God is in this place," and he makes a covenant with God:  If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I may return safely to my father's house, then Yahweh will be my God (Gen. 28).

 

During the ensuing years, we see Jacob's character being transformed by his trust in the God of his fathers.  Though his uncle tries to cheat him in every way possible, Jacob gradually learns that Yahweh is his source and his strength.  On the way back to his father's house, Jacob encounters the living God -- not just His angels --- and is filled with love of God and the brother he has wronged.  Now he is determined to make amends and to be reconciled with his brother.  One could say that his wrestling with God was a kind of "baptism" with the Holy Spirit.  His name is changed from "cheater, grabber" to "One who has prevailed with God and man"  -- Israel.

 

Our baptism is a covenant with God -- if you will go with me, and provide for me, and teach me your ways, then you will be my God.  But our God will not stop there; He will not stop until we have been transformed into His image and likeness, until we are reconciled with our enemies and complete in love for our brothers. He will not stop until we are on fire with His love.  He will not stop until we look like His own Son, until we "are in fact, children of God," as St. John writes in his Gospel.

 

Our baptism is His promise to do all in us that is necessary to bring us to the Spirit that is in Christ Jesus and to the fire that burns away the dross of our "old man" -- the cheater, grabber, usurper that is our Jacob.