Baptized in Water, Fire, and Wind (January 12, 2025)
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
John the Baptist told the crowds, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
It is hard to watch the news this week and conclude anything other than that fire is scary and devastating and that water is salvation. The scenes out of Los Angeles this week are frightening and heartbreaking, and we are just beginning to learn the extent of what has happened and in fact is still happening. But of course it was just a couple of months ago that we saw, especially in the mountains around Asheville, that water can be just as frightening and devastating.
Both water and fire are necessary for life. We need water to drink, to wash, to give life to plants, and to put out fires. We need fire to cook food and to keep warm in the winter. In their proper place both fire and water are good gifts from God. Yet, out of control, both fire and water kill and destroy.
Our psalm today, Psalm 29, is a very ancient poem about the majesty and awe we feel when witnessing a thunderstorm. It’s very similar to poems that were sung by the Canaanite inhabitants of Israel about their gods while the Hebrew people were still in Egypt. In the mighty waters, in the flash of lightning, in the roaring of the wind, in the crashing of thunder that shakes everything around us, the glory of God is visible, and we are reminded of who we are: small and vulnerable and fearful. In the face of such awesome and powerful forces well beyond our control, we know we are in the presence of One who is well beyond our powers to comprehend, and all we can do is pray for strength and for the return of peace. The mighty and even destructive power of water and fire and wind is one way people have always experienced God – our Jewish and our pagan ancestors alike.
But in our reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, announcing the return from Exile, we have a description of another and quite different way of experiencing God. Do not fear, the Lord says through Isaiah, do not fear because I have called you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Because I am the Lord, your Savior. Because you are precious in my sight, and I love you. Do not fear, for I am with you.
The psalm says God is in the rain and the lightning and the shaking, so be afraid and know that God is God and you are not. Isaiah says that when you are in the flood and in the fire, don’t be afraid because God is with you, and God calls you by name and loves you and delights in you and saves you. These are two different ways we can experience God. Both are real, both are found in Scripture (both in the Old Testament and the New), and it is one and the same God whom we experience in these different ways.
Baptism is a place where these two ways of experiencing God come together. The experience Jesus had at his baptism – of the descent of the Holy Spirit in visible form, of a voice of the same God who spoke to Isaiah: You are my child, my beloved, in whom I delight. You have passed through the waters, and I was with you – you will pass through wind and flame and I will be with you. This also what happens to us at our baptism – a visible manifestation of the Word of God that says to each one of us: You are my child, my beloved, in whom I delight. You have passed through the waters, and I was with you – you will pass through wind and flame and I will be with you.
And yet we know that just because the Father and the Spirit are with Jesus throughout his life and especially throughout his ministry, we know that this does not mean Jesus will be spared all pain and suffering. Just because we are God’s beloved children in whom God delights, we are not spared pain and suffering. The people who lost everything in the fires of Los Angeles and the floods of North Carolina are also God’s beloved children, and God delighted in them, and God was with them in the waters and in the flames, and God is their savior just as much as everyone else’s savior; yet they were not spared. In the end, of course, God’s salvation had the last word for Jesus who died but then was raised; and we know in faith that somehow God’s salvation will have the last word for everyone whom God loves. But the water and the fire still continue to exist and to threaten harm.
In his baptism Jesus embraces the waters; he goes down into the waters with all of us who are vulnerable and fearful of the water and the fire and the wind. He is submerged into everything that makes us fear, but he is not overwhelmed by the waters that frighten us. Instead he makes the frightful waters holy, makes them into a source of life for all those who accept it in faith. He takes on everything that makes us afraid of God so that we can know that we are God’s beloved children in whom God delights and that God will be our savior.
And when Jesus emerges from the water, he goes on to live a life that is truly free from the fear of what the water and the fire and the wind can do to us. Water and fire and wind can take a lot away from us, can seemingly take everything from us – but they cannot take away the fact that God loves us and delights in us and promises to save us. Jesus lived his life and ministry out of faith in God’s love that is not threatened by fire and water; and in baptism he calls each one of us to live in that same faith. For our sakes and for the sake of our neighbors for whom God’s love burns with the same passion. May the faith of our baptism keep us in the knowledge of God’s love and care for us and for all God’s beloved people.