While
Jesus was in their company he told them not to leave
Jerusalem. "You must wait, " he said, "for
the promise made by my Father, about which you have
heard me speak: John, as you know, baptized with
water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit,
and within the next few days." Acts 1:4-5.
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes down on you; then you are to be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, yes,
even to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8.
From the Apostle Peter's first sermon on the day
of Pentecost: "The Jesus we speak of has
been raised by God, as we can all bear witness.
Exalted thus at God's right hand, he received the
Holy Spirit from the Father, as was promised, and
all that you now see and hear flows from him." Acts
2:32-33.
What is the baptism in the Holy Spirit? It is
an experience of God the Holy Spirit present in
the life of a person to lead and empower their
life as witnesses of Christ. It is an experience
required by Jesus for all of His disciples. The
Sacrament that prepares us for the experience is
Confirmation -- the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
As with all the Sacraments, Confirmation is bestowed
with faith, hope and love. Faith, that in fact
God is acting to impart a special grace to the
person receiving; hope, that the person receiving
will indeed open their heart and mind to receive
all that God would have them receive from the Sacrament;
and love, that entrusts to God the outcome of the
Sacrament. As we look at this question, we pray
that the Holy Spirit will take these efforts in
words, as poor and inadequate as they are, and
use them to bless all of us here this evening with
a deeper experience of the love of God and the
power of God available to each of His children.
This we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Let us begin by establishing the basis of understanding
from what we have been taught in the Scriptures
by our Church over the centuries since the resurrection
of Jesus. God became man in the person of Jesus
in order to pay the price of our redemption from
the hold of Satan. As revealed in Genesis, God
had given the entire world over to the responsibility
of man in the person of Adam. The action of our
first human father caused him to be separated from
God by his own free choice, and consequently all
human children would be born into a family that
was separated from God. But more than that, we
learned that when the separation from God occurred,
we came under the dominion and rule of Satan as
children of a human father ruled by Satan. The
Scriptures put it this way, and our Church has
taught it as the Doctrine of Original Sin: one
person sinned, and many were made sinners, and
yet one Man-Jesus-did not sin. Jesus willingly
laid down His life to pay the penalty for the one
man Adam who did sin. Since Jesus paid the penalty
for Adam, the scale of justice is balanced and
the Devil has no right to hold Adam separated from
God any longer. But then what about you and me?
God's plan for all of us was effective in Jesus.
Since none of us had any choice when we were born
into this world about whether or not we wanted
to be separated from God by our birth into the
family of Adam, God could now open the door for
our free choice in Christ Jesus. So God summed
up all humanity that would ever be born from the
family of Adam into Adam. Therefore when Jesus
paid the penalty for the one person, He thereby
paid the price for all persons. Now God's provision
for redeeming us from the ownership of Satan by
our birth could be received by any human that would
receive the gift of Jesus as our substitute. Jesus
became our substitute in full payment for our life
of sin that deserved the death penalty.
God knew this and so He made provision in Jesus
for us to be able to choose to enter into the death
that Jesus died for us and thereby pass out of
the control of the nature of sin that Satan had
held us under. We see the basic sin with which
we are tempted is that we want to do things our
way in our time and not need to depend upon God.
This is the "pride of life" that ensnared
our first father, Adam, and it lives in us. So
there is a power in our nature that wants to sin;
God needs to provide for us a greater power if
we are going to be able to resist the daily temptations
to live independent from Him. This is God's secret
revealed through the Church by the Holy Spirit-Christ
Jesus will become our life through the ongoing
ministry of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now we need to understand the word "baptism". "Baptism" is
a Greek word that can be understood in this way:
a sunken wooden ship is a baptized ship. The wood
is both completely immersed in the water, and the
water has permeated into the very fibre of the
wood. Not only has the use of the ship been severely
altered, but the very substance of the ship is
transformed. As we begin to understand this word "baptism",
we can see the gift of life that is given in the
Sacrament of Baptism.
By faith in the active power of God, we receive
an immersion into the death of Jesus Christ at
the Sacrament of Baptism. The blood that He poured
out of His veins became the substance that washes
away all our actions of sin, and the death that
He dies allows us to be free of the nature of sin
which made us sin in the first place. We are sunk
into Him, into His substitutionary death for each
of us, and we are free to be reconciled with our
real father, God.
In Baptism, we are given new life in Him through
our identification with Him in His resurrection.
We are born again from the dead. All of this happens
in fact at the time of our Sacrament of Baptism,
and it is received by our parents by faith in God
in our behalf. They know that someday God will
bring into our experience that which they had entrusted
to Him by faith. Our full experience of this new
life awaits our willingness to enter into that
death to our own self-centered lives, in order
that we also can experience His resurrection with
Him.
All the facts are now in place in our lives, and
God waits for us to come to Him in Christ Jesus
to claim our new birthright. At this point, we
can see both what the "baptism" in the
Holy Spirit is, and why Jesus would insist upon
the disciples waiting for the empowerment before
beginning their task of being His witnesses. What
about this "baptism" in, or with the
Holy Spirit, or perhaps we could also call it the
Spirit of Holiness? Again, our Father God is so
very thorough in His love for us. God knew that
we would not be able to hold onto this new life
in Christ that He had given us in the death and
resurrection of Christ without the power, or ability,
of the Holy Spirit active in our lives. So God
gives the Holy Spirit to Jesus for Him to give
to all who would come to Him as their ability to
follow Him each day of their lives. To
be baptized into or with the Spirit of Holiness
is to allow ourselves to be completely filled in
our hearts and minds with Holiness, and to give
over control of our lives to the Holy Spirit.
The plan of God in our lives is the same as in
the life of Jesus when He walked the earth in the
limitations of humanity. It was the Holy Spirit
that caused Him to be conceived and was with Him
as He grew and matured in obedience. The Holy Spirit
empowered Him to walk in ministry in Israel, suffer,
be crucified on our behalf, and be willing to die
so that His Father's plan might take full effect
for all of us. This same Spirit of Holiness that
enabled Him is now given by Him to enable us to
walk in holiness of life with Him and in Him and
for Him. Holiness may be understood as single-mindness
in wanting God to have the joy of guiding and enabling
our lives. Now all this is bestowed by faith at
the time of our Confirmation, but few people really
experience this empowering at that time of their
lives. All the things of God are first received
by faith in the facts He has spoken. Our experience
of these facts will follow as we continue in faith
to believe that what God has said is really true.
Over the ages, our Church has proclaimed and continues
to proclaim the personal responsibility of all
human beings to choose for themselves the plan
of God-or the gifts so lavishly given cannot be
experienced. The basic Sacraments of initiation
into our faith have been given to all of us, and
yet without mature adult understanding and acceptance,
we do not experience the full benefit of all that
God has provided for us in the facts of these Sacraments.
Let us not continue in our ignorance that is so
costly to our everyday life of grace in Jesus Christ,
but come to Him from whom all blessings flow-Jesus,
the Christ, the Anointed of God, our Savior, our
Redeemer, and humbly ask Him to immerse us into
His Spirit of Holiness.
During this season of Pentecost may each one of
us experience a new Pentecost, the first-fruits
of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Perhaps you will join me now and let us pray together:
Come, Holy Spirit, replace the tension
within us with a holy relaxation.
Replace the turbulence within us with a sacred
calm.
Replace the anxiety within us with a quiet confidence.
Replace the fear within us with a strong faith.
Replace the bitterness within us with the sweetness
of grace.
Replace the darkness within us with a gentle light.
Replace the coldness within us with a loving warmth.
Replace the night within us with Your light.
Replace the winter within us with Your spring.
Straighten our crookedness.
Fill our emptiness.
Dull the edge of our pride.
Sharpen the edge of our humility.
Light the fires of our love.
Quench the flames of our lust.
Let us see ourselves as You see us,
that we may see You as You have promised,
And be fortunate according to Your word,
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God. Amen.
