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S. Advent 2.24 Luke 3:1-20

“John answered… I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming… he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So… he preached good news to the people.”

And you wonder what this guy’s idea of bad news would be, right? If the “good news” is a baptism of fire (check out Isaiah 6 where the prophet literally got hisself a taste of that, see how he liked it) and after the fire, the winnowing fork, which serves the same purpose as the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter—but seems not nearly so benign a procedure I would say—winnowing involves first getting beaten(!) and then thrown around a lot, just sayin’) and after the winnowing thing, there’s more burning of the chaff with unquenchable fire. Because Jesus really seems to hate chaff and like fire. I mean, sure, we all do!—but not as much when the fire’s directed at us… 😉

As I was saying, if this is the good news(!) what would the bad news be like, hmm? Well, I can tell you: the bad news: is “No Soup!” uh, er “No Holy Spirit, no Sorting Hat, er winnowing fan for you, buster! Just a powerful lotta burnin’! Burn, baby, burn!”

And you will say, quite sensibly, “But we get the fire and the burning either way, right?! Except, with the Holy Spirit’s fire, we also get winnowed!? How is that fire and winnowing better than the plain old fire of the second option?”

That’s a great question. That was my question too, as a young lad, hearing this lesson on this Sunday in Advent. Honestly, it’s a big reason why I ended up studying theology and philosophy for more years than I care to admit. It took me a long while—I’m a slow learner, actually—to see why you’d want that first fire and the winnowing fan, more than option 2’s plain old burnin’.

But, I think it’s something like the secret of Xnity, so worth reflecting on for a moment…

To see the difference, I think you need to see the difference between the Old Testament (of which John was the last prophet) and the New Testament which Jesus brings. This is a difference that was only recently greatly clarified for me doing research on the liturgy—of all things! It’s why St. Paul tells Timothy to read—all the time!—everything, because you never know when one thing over here will illuminate this other thing over there. So you need to cast a wide net and keep at it. The old dog can still learn new tricks. Encouraging news!

So, this was a footnote on Sheol in an article (on baptism of all things! Theological articles are like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get!) Anyway, I was taught that the only difference between the Old Testament and the New is that the promises of the Messiah and his work are hazy in the OT but made clear in the NT. Luther and the fathers before him saw bigger differences than that…

For them, the difference between OT Judaism and NT Xnity was much greater, two different (though related) religions, two very different testaments. The Old Testament was simply a physical promise that the Seed of Abraham would possess, in temporal peace, the land of Canaan and the tabernacle rites and sacrifices that would purify the Israelites to possess the land. There was also a shadowy hint that the Messiah, the real lamb of God and high priest, would come to this temple in Israel and make a New Testament that involves heavenly things…

The biggest difference the old fathers up through Luther saw between the OT and NT is Sheol. It’s not hell. It’s also not Roman Catholic purgatory. Sheol or Hades was, for them, just a very low-energy holding area, a shadowy sort of existence between life and death, a resting place till the Messiah came and sorted the wheat from the chaff, there…

Which Jesus did—first thing, on Easter Sunday April 8, 30 AD, before he emerged from the tomb as Peter describes in 1 Peter 3:18-22 and as we confess in the Apostles Creed. He descended to Sheol or Hades (not quite hell then, not yet 😉 and preached to the spirits held there.

Luther and the fathers understood this passage as “the harrowing of Hades”—Jesus descending to the dead (not completely unlike Aragorn taking the paths of the dead in Lord of the Rings) to proclaim life and freedom to those who love the Lord’s appearing (faithful Israelites, and the gentiles like the Magi who bent the knee to him) and who were raised Easter Sunday! to eternal life in heaven. Those left behind in Sheol—who hate the LORD—were left to the burning that made them as minimally miserable as it is possible to be—which is now, let the reader understand, hellish… :-(

In short, for Luther and the fathers, being a faithful OT Jew, put you in a good spot in Israel while you lived on earth, and, at death, put you in a prime spot in Sheol, ready, at the Lord’s Appearing, to get the hell out of there with the Messiah. 😉

The OT unfaithful, on the other hand, often enjoyed much bigger, more powerful, and blingy kingdoms on earth than did the Israelites, generally, but (a big ‘but’, I cannot lie! 😉 also got a different, much less posh section of Sheol when they died—one which involved beds of maggots and blankets of worms; see Isaiah 14 for more on that… 😉

John’s baptism is for the OT Jews to loosen their grip on even Israel’s peaceable, earthly kingdom, making them ready to give that up for a better, heavenly kingdom with Jesus. John’s Jordan baptism didn’t appear to work on very many, sadly, but, at least he tried… 😉

Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire can feel like punishment, feel like a loss, because it does involve the loss of a certain kind of worldly ease and peace. Charles Norris Cochrane’s great book “Christianity and Classical Culture” shows how Constantine’s Imperial Roman Church of the 4th century was basically, as Auden said, “trying to use Christianity as a sort of spiritual Benzedrine to pump up a flagging earthly empire—which did no real good either to church or empire, really…”

And yet, we still try to use Jesus for our worldly, selfish ends!

But; Jesus won’t be used to prop up our dreams of earthly peace. Those are the first things the fire of the Holy Spirit burns away! And I won’t kid you: it’s not an entirely benign procedure, ma’am! It hurts like… hell!

But it isn’t hell!—this baptism of fire and the Holy Spirit Jesus brings. It’s the gateway to heaven—like the stable in the Last Battle of Narnia. Looks like a daunting door—feels like The End!

But, aren’t you a little tired of… you, sometimes? Maybe ready for something new? Well, IT’S coming, with peace, surpassing understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Amen.