Indwelling, Outpouring

Sermon manuscript by Gregory Kaurin, pastor

for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

Baptism of Our Lord, 2010

“Indwelling and Outpouring”

“…and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” –Luke 3:15-17, 21-22.

Today, I’m talking about our Baptism… specifically about the promise of the Holy Spirit in baptism. It is one of the occasional arguments we’ve had with some of our other Reformed brothers and sisters. The scriptures, like the passage we read from Acts, talk about baptisms and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit seems to come on people before they’re baptized, sometimes during or after. Sometimes there are great manifestations like tongues or prophesies… other times it’s more simple: “they received the Holy Spirit.” It reminds me: God is not a formula; this is not incantation. God will use many means and moments, and will work out of sequence if he wants, to get his message across, and to get through and into the people he wants.

First, the Holy Spirit. Before we over-complicate this… As a part of my preparation, I finally pushed my way through this book that I inherited from Pr. Don Melchert, Spiritus Creator; Luther’s Concept of the Holy Spirit. The heady theology was just about to finish me off when I read this gem: “[The Spirit is not] an impersonally conceived medium, but…the living and acting God himself who comes to us and draws us into himself” (p.170). The Spirit is simply God or Christ in action or making himself present to us.

We can get thrown off just by the word, spirit. The Holy Spirit isn’t a disembodied wisp of smoke or an idea. The Spirit is the immediate and active presence of God and Christ in and around us. There might be a feeling you have or get, there could be manifestations, or there might not. The Spirit of God can use the most mundane or even boring times and moments to do his greatest work. He can use a holding pattern in your life to help you struggle through and work out a deeper relationship, or lead you to a new insight. Most of the time we won’t know it’s him… helping us through another letting go, or teaching and showing us that we have no other choice, no better option, than to trust him, …to surrender to his grace.

Another insight from this book is this: “[The Word and sacraments] do not carry the Spirit. It is, however, the Spirit that carries the Word and the sacraments.” Very often we talk of the sacraments like baptism as the “means of God’s grace,” kind of as a vessel to help deliver God to us. But really the work of the Spirit is to bring us to God, and deliver the means to us. The Spirit is God lining things up and drawing us to him.

Second, let’s talk about Baptism. It is Word and Water. The Word is the gospel announcement of God claiming you. Like Jesus on the cross, God promises to put an end to your mortal life, and raise you up with a new and immortal life. That’s the Word. Really the Holy Spirit attaches Christ’s death and life to yours, enters into and literally resides, indwells, as that connection. He indwells, but not just as a passive lump of God inside us.

“Baptism is a covenant in which God promises to drive out all sin in us…The purely sacramental symbolic act is of course quickly over. But God is constantly working on the realization of its significance through his guidance of our destiny in life and in death” (146). Or simply put, the promise of baptism is that God never quits on us; he never gives up; he never stops.

That’s the promise. And God could make that promise without splashing water on you. So, what is the water? Water is not a vessel; it doesn’t hold and deliver the Spirit as it gets splashed on you. But it is a seal on the promise already delivered, the physical thumbprint of God on us. I suppose we could use wax, or brand people. Or, circumcise them, like in the Old Testament.

Instead, Jesus took this Old Testament baptism of repentance, John’s Baptism, and made it into something entirely new… A sign of a new covenant. Jesus needed no repentance; and yet Jesus received the Baptism, and changed it forever. Now, baptism, instead of being our action, our turning over a leaf and coming to God; it became God coming to us. The dove descended upon Jesus. Instead of our declaration to try to be better children, it became God’s declaration that we are his children, like Jesus, his beloved sons and daughters in whom he delights.

And the second important point of Jesus’ own baptism is that it was the start of his ministry. It is an initiation into a new life, and with Christ into a whole body of believers. An initiation into a new life and a new family.

The point is, we are not alone. God as his Spirit, dwells in us. And from there, even when we don’t realize it, he is pouring out of us, connecting us up with others in the Body, and outside. We do matter. And the more let go, and just trust God to work through us, ironically, the more we stop trying to find our significance or win respect and the admiration, or create our place in life, the more God will be able to use us, and give us a place in life. And God can do it.

Psalm 29, one of the most powerful psalms of all reminds us of God as Creator of the universe. When God speaks it shifts continental plates, turns the molten core, ripples through time and space. “Ascribe,” the psalm says, that means to write it down in the highest court, “Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, and the glory due his name… The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory thunders… The voice of the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon, bursts forth in lightening flashes, [and…] shakes the wilderness.”

I mention it because sometimes we get so tied up in all this theology, OR, on the other end, we can get too comfortable with God, and our buddy Jesus, we forget who it really is, whose presence stands in this space as we worship him. Yes, we have a friend in Jesus; yes he is our comfort and strength.

But it all gets it start and it becomes all the more powerful, an amazing grace, when we take a step back and remember that he is God Almighty. That is the Spiritual Presence in this very room. When we run across the command that we are to “fear the Lord,” we are quick to redefine it as “respect,” but that is too tame and passive. If we really could glimpse even a touch of his true glory, his ferocious love for us, and power, joy might fill our hearts, but at the very same time in the presence of God, the hair would raise on our necks and arms, very much like fear, at least overwhelming awe.

This is the God who, if he speaks it… it is done. Light and there was light. Land and life. Icthysaurs and apatasauri, Protozoa and possums. Humankind in his image. …And finally, us, you and me. Out of this huge creation, millions of years, why did God’s Spirit call out my name at Baptism? What put it in his head to think of you?

Our God is an incredibly expansive God, it’s hard to imagine just what it is he is making in this universe, huge but infinitely intricate, and what parts he expects us to play. I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be, what is expected of me, or even how I might matter at all, especially a few decades from now when the world has forgotten my name. Except that this huge God, knows me, knows you, gives us a name in Baptism, assures us that we matter, and we fit. If we never feel like we fit in this world or matter to another soul, we matter to God and his plan, and so his eternal Spirit comes and pours himself into us, finite and small creatures, and dwells… in us… and through us… pours out of us for others.

It feels so good to know that God will always remember my name, and will be able to use me now, and long after I’m gone. But even more, as a collective, as congregation together, how he is lining us up for others to outpour his gospel on to them, in this coming year. I can feel that his Spirit has been preparing, shaping us, helping us focus and build a desire to grow deeper and reach out further. If the God’s Almighty Spirit can build a universe and eternity with a Word, what can he do by the power of his Spirit through us? Well, let’s find out! Pray: Come, Spirit, come.