Fire Power From God

The Sunday After Epiphany

January 9, 2022

M. Anthony Seel, Jr.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

Luke 3:15-22

In our gospel lesson this morning, John the Baptist proclaims, “he who is mightier than I is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Last week in the sermon, Pastor Cory Eckstrom mentioned the new Netflix movie, “Don’t Look Up.” In that movie, 2 astronomers try to warn the president of the United States, NASA, really, anyone who will listen, that a comet is hurtling toward earth that will wipe out humanity. Most government officials won’t listen to them.

At first discovery, there is just 6 months and 14 days before the gigantic meteor hits our planet. How gigantic? It is the size of Mount Everest. It is 5 to 10 kilometers wide.

The president of the U.S. is more interested in her approval rating than dealing with a catastrophic event. The media is fed the story, and they make light of it. This “extinction level event” barely makes it out of one news cycle.

The president’s administration leads a “Don’t Look Up” movement, while the scientists please with those who will listen, to look up and see what’s coming. This brings us to John the Baptist. He was leading a “do look up” movement in his day. Our gospel lesson begins,

v. 15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ,

Why were the people in expectation? It has been over 400 years since the prophet Malachi has spoken to Israel. Could John be a prophet sent by God? Could John be the Messiah?

What are we to think about this John who proclaims “a baptism for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3)? Who is this John?

We know a lot more about him than his first hearers did. We have Luke’s account of his birth. We know that his father was a priest. We know that an angel of the Lord appear to his father Zechariah, and told him to name his son John.

“Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit” and he prophesied that his son John “will be called the prophet of the Most High” (Luke 1:67, 76), but what did the people “in the region around the Jordan” (Lk. 3:3) know about him?

They heard him proclaiming “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” They could see that he was a fiery preacher.

Vv. 7-9 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

They asked him what they should do. He told them some things they could do.

As they wondered whether John “might be the Messiah,

v. 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

John understood his role in God’s work of salvation. He was the forerunner, the advance man, the one called to prepare the way for the Christ, the Messiah, sent by God.

John the Baptist stands between two ages - the age of the law and the prophets, and the age of grace. This is not to say that there was no grace of God in the age of the law and the prophets. It is to say that the time of expectation ended with John the Baptist. John declared that the Messiah is here. The grace of God has come in the One whom John introduces.

As Jesus divides secular time into B.C. and A.D., John the Baptist divides biblical time. Luke writes in chapter 16, verse 16: ““The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.” Those are red letter words - they were spoken by Jesus.

John ends the period of the law and the prophets. Jesus, the One who is mightier than John, whose sandals John is unworthy to untie, He is the One who brings a baptism that forever changes this world. John the Baptist says about Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

Fire can warm us when it’s in a fireplace or fire pit. Or, it can destroy, as it does in the wildfires we’ve seen on our west coast.