20 days of Lent to go! In this journey toward the resurrection it is good for us to be reminded who Jesus is...
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John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them. Luke3:16-18
The crowds were wondering whether John was the Messiah.
John is quick to straighten their thinking. He's very clear - he is merely a forerunner. There is ONE who will follow him:- SOMEBODY's coming!
What does John have to say about the ONE who is coming?
1. He is much more powerful and worthy than John. John only baptises with water. It's important to realise that John's baptism was one of repentance - it didn't even symbolise everything that Christian baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit represented. (We see this in Acts 19:1-4 where Paul comes across people who have been baptised with John's Baptism but have not been baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit and so Paul baptises them.)
2. The ONE who is coming is glorious - John sees himself as unworthy to unfasten His sandals.
3. The ONE who is coming baptises in the life-changing power of the Spirit.
4. But He also baptises with fire which is the symbol of judgement. When wheat is threshed, it is thrown up into the air with a winnowing fork and the chaff (the husks of the wheat) are blown to one side and burned.
John must have been tempted to let the spotlight fall on him and to become an end in himself, but he resists the temptation. He realises that even the baptism he performs points toward a greater reality.
Sometimes we are tempted to make much of what we do for God. John puts us in our place - for us SOMEBODY whose sandals we can't even untie _has_ come and He is coming again!
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
