Baptism in the Holy Spirit

In a previous blog I looked at the connection between the Jonah story and the sacramental Rite of Baptism. As I lived with this connection I was drawn to explore it in greater depth. Throughout the history of the Christian Church issues around Baptism have been contentious.

 Some people have adopted doctrinal positions where infants are baptised; conversely, others have said that only adult baptism is valid, because a person needs to make an adult informed choice. Some people have said that only a little water is needed, sprinkled on the child’s forehead, because it is a sacramental sign that represents a deeper reality. Others have insisted upon a person being fully immersed in water because that most fully portrays what is happening: being immersed in Christ and participating in His death and resurrection. Through the centuries many people have been prepared to sacrifice their lives to defend their respective positions on these matters.  It is therefore not a subject to be taken lightly; and needs to be treated with reverence and respect for other people’s sensibilities. My own position is that we are dealing with mystery here and only God knows what the answers are. I can only do my best to understand them and follow my heart on the matter. I have to trust that God sees my heart and the depth of my love for, and commitment to Him; and will honour that, even if I don’t get the ritual exactly right. What is ultimately important is not the ritual but the reality that I live out in my everyday life. To put this in theological terms, Orthopraxy (right behaviour) is more important than Orthodoxy (right belief). You can have the right doctrine (and think you are OK) but not live out the reality of it (and are not OK).

In another blog I mentioned that Jesus said, “The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit” (My emphasis) John3:5. We saw that it involved being re-born and starting again to live a new life. This is what the sacramental Rite of Baptism is giving expression to. This is a Baptism of Initiation into the Kingdom of God. This baptism is foreshadowed in Old Testament stories of Hebrew Scripture. We cannot fully understand the New Testament without reference to these Old Testament stories. Jesus said that he came to fulfil them in the incarnate life that he lived amongst us.

 I have come to recognize that the Exodus story we find in the Old Testament that depicts the Israelites being set free from slavery in Egypt and being led towards the Promised Land by Moses, gives an amazing picture of our spiritual journey. In this story crossing the Red Sea provides an image of this Baptism of Initiation. It gives us an image of a threshold being crossed.  I believe this is what Jesus is referring to in this passage.

Yet, there is another image of crossing a river (threshold) given in the Exodus story. The Israelites reach this river only after being led through the desert wastes(wilderness) for many long years by the Spirit of God who comes to them in the form of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (powerful imagery!!). The passage through the wilderness, which involves hardship and struggle, is necessary; and prepares the people for crossing the second river threshold.  This reinforces what I was saying in my last blog post, that there does not seem to be any real change and transformation without some form of suffering taking place.

When the Israelites reached the River Jordan twelve spies were sent across to check out the Promised Land that the Israelites were being led to take possession of. They were confronted with giants and walled cities in this land. Only two of the twelve (Joshua and Caleb) came back feeling confident that with God’s help this land could be taken possession of. God’s response to the people’s lack of trust in his ability to enable and empower them for this task was to be angry and led to him not allowing them to enter into the Promised Land at that point in time. That whole generation of people therefore died in the wilderness without receiving the inheritance that was due to them. Only Joshua and Caleb were allowed to enter into the Promised Land, forty years later. Joshua led a new generation across the Jordan and they appropriated their true inheritance.

  This crossing of the Jordan River is an image of a second Baptism. It is known as Baptism in the Holy Spirit. It foreshadowed the experience that the early believers had at the time of Pentecost which we read of in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. The Holy Spirit came upon the believers when they were meeting together:  “Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty wind storm in the skies above them, and it filled the house where they were meeting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.” Acts2:2-4.

Reading the rest of this chapter and those that follow shows how the believers were transformed by this experience of being Baptised in the Holy Spirit. They were given the gift of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus had previously promised. Jesus had told them that when he left them the Holy Spirit would be given in his place. The Holy Spirit would be, amongst other things, their Counselor, Comforter, Empowerer and Guide; who would lead them into truth. John, Chapter 14.

As I lived with the story of Jonah I became convinced that it foreshadowed and depicted this second Baptism. As a good Jew Jonah had been circumcised as a child and had undergone his Bar Mitzvah at age fourteen (becoming literally a ‘Son of the Law’). Both of these Rites of Passage foreshadowed the Christian Rite of Baptism (that’s food for another blog post.) He was therefore well and truly initiated. What Jonah needed was real transformation; the kind that was depicted before his time by crossing the River Jordan; and afterwards by the Baptism in the Holy Spirit we looked at above in Acts.  

In my previous blog post I showed how transformation takes place through a process. In my next post I will look at how in like manner Baptism in the Holy Spirit happens through a process. The early believers received the Holy Spirit in the dramatic way that Scripture portrays; but the full experience of transformation took place over a much longer period of time.

Questions for reflection:

·         Can you recognize the connection between the Jonah story and Baptism in the Holy Spirit?

·         Have you experienced this Baptism?

·         Is it something you desire?

The Process of Transformation

When Jonah was thrown into the sea and spent three days in the belly of the fish it changed him. It impacted upon him in a powerful, transforming way. There is nothing like a near-death experience to have this kind of effect on a person. Trust me; I have had two significant heart attacks in which I have looked death in the face. It had the result of opening my eyes to see, and very quickly clarify, what is important and what is just useless baggage to let go of. It helped me to distinguish between what was froth and that which was essential to drink in order to sustain me, and give me life.

As I shared in my previous blog the effect this experience had on Jonah was to change him from being resistant to becoming compliant. As I read the rest of the story however, it became clear to me that whilst Jonah was compliant he was still a very reluctant participant. He went kicking and screaming to do what the Lord was calling him to do. Yet, despite his reluctance, when he preached to the people of Nineveh and called them to repentance they responded positively; from the least to the king. The king sent messages out to the people to fast and pray to God for mercy; and to turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence (Jonah 3: 6-9). There was a communal, whole- hearted change in their attitudes and behaviour. The Lord in turn responded by having mercy on them and did not carry out his threat to destroy them.

What was Jonah’s response? He was upset and became very angry because he was hoping that God would wipe out the Ninevites, who were the historic enemies of Israel (the national group that Jonah was a member of). In 4:4 it says that after Jonah had complained to God about this, the Lord replied, “Is it right to be angry about this?”

Meditating on this a few realities emerged. The first was that the Lord used Jonah to bring about change and transformation in a whole city in spite of his reluctance and bad attitudes; and not because Jonah was a ‘perfect saint’. It is evident from the story that this was far from the reality Jonah found himself in. Likewise, I have come to see that if the Lord has in any way used me to touch the lives of other people it is not because I am a perfect saint with the right attitudes; far from it. I sit here writing this blog because I have had two near- death experiences; and have undergone a process of change and transformation. This has happened to me; I did not choose it. I too have reached this place resisting, protesting, kicking and screaming. Moreover, I recognize that there is still a lot of change and transformation that needs to take place within me. If what I have to say touches you in any way it is because of the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit; not because I ‘have arrived’ and have the answers. 

The second awareness I had was that when Jonah had been questioned about his identity he had replied that he was firstly, a Hebrew; and secondly, that he worshipped the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land. The problem lay in the order in which he identified himself. His first priority was his identity in terms of his social group. He was first and foremost a ‘Hebrew’. The needs, aspirations and security of his social group took precedence above everything else. What the Lord was doing in him was working to reverse that order of identity. His first priority needed to be to identify himself in relationship with God. That was his true and ultimate identity. He had to be set free from his connection to his social group as the primary source of his identity. Only then could he fully be who the Lord created him to be and stand free from the mould that his society had formed him in. He would then be able to perceive a higher and more expansive reality. Only then could the Lord effectively use him to mediate the grace of God.

This awareness connects with what it means to live a Christian way of life. A central theme of the public ministry of Jesus was to teach about the ‘Kingdom of God’. The thrust of a Christian spiritual journey is to progressively live more fully in the Kingdom of God; of which Jesus is the king. It is all about who is in control. Is Jesus or my social group in control?  As I showed in my previous blog the only way to enter this kingdom is to be ‘born again’ of water and the Spirit (John 3: 5). It involves starting again and living in a completely different way. It necessitates taking on a new identity; one that is rooted and grounded in Christ and not in my social group. I have come to progressively take my primary identity from being a child of God and not from being a member of my social group.

This brings me to my third realization, that it is not about being religious. You would be hard pressed to find a more religious society than the one which had formed Jonah. Yet, despite their religiosity they got it horribly wrong. Their attitudes were grounded in their own vested interests and they could therefore not see the big picture which God had in mind, to extend his grace beyond the confines of their own social group. I have been forced to look beyond my own security and needs; as well as those of my society.

 Fourthly, what I discovered was that this process has been difficult because old habits die hard. I have had to unlearn patterns of thinking and behaving that have become very entrenched within me over a long period of time. I recognize that is why something extraneous has had to impact on me to shake me out of my comfort zone to enable me to perceive a new reality. I cannot change myself, only God can; and he has used my altered, traumatic, circumstances to do so.  I have also come to see that because of the entrenched nature of my old ways of thinking, believing and acting this change has to take place through an extended process and won’t happen overnight.

The final point is that looking at the story of Jonah, my own experience, and the experiences of many other people, it does not seem as though there is any real change and transformation without some form of suffering taking place. Something radical has to happen to shift a person’s perception of reality. The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr contends that we experience as suffering anything where   we do not have control. I am inclined to agree with him. This suffering can take many forms ranging from physical through mental, emotional and spiritual. As long as we are in control our attempts at change remain ‘ego projects’; which may change the face we present to the world, but do not transform us at any significant depth of being. Real transformation only seems to take place where we are not in control of what happens to us; as in the case of Jonah.

Questions for reflection:

·         Can you think of a difficult experience where you did not have control?

·         In light of what you have read here has your perception of that experience changed at all?

·          What is the Lord inviting you to?

·         How do you respond to this?

In the Belly of the Fish

In previous blogs I looked at how Jonah was thrown into the sea from the boat he had boarded to try and flee from what God was calling him to do. The Lord arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah and he was inside of it for three days and three nights. I also explored some aspects of the images that this story evokes. There is another crucial image that I want to look at now. As I lived with the image of Jonah being thrown into the sea I was reminded of the sacramental Rite of Baptism.

When I asked the Lord to give me insight into this image I was led to read the story of Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to speak to Jesus at night. (Pointing to him doing it surreptitiously, so that it would not be obvious to those who knew him)(John 3:1-13). He acknowledged Jesus as a teacher who had come from God because of the public miracles that he had performed. (He rightly surmised that only someone sent by God could perform such miraculous acts.) Jesus got right to the heart of the matter by throwing out a provocative statement: “I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus was bemused and asked how someone could go back into his mother’s womb and be born again. In reply Jesus said, “The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit” (My emphasis). Jesus went on to say that humans can only give birth to human life, but the Holy Spirit gives life from heaven. He also said that just as you can hear the wind blow but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit. Jesus was clearly indicating that this was a mystery and needed to be treated as such.

 Nicodemus then asked what Jesus meant by this. In reply Jesus chided him for being a respected Jewish teacher and not understanding this. He told Nicodemus that if he could not believe him about this that happened on earth how could he believe him if Jesus told him about what would happen in heaven. Jesus said that he was speaking about what he knew, for only he had come to earth and would return to heaven again.

Meditating on this I was reminded that ‘being born of water and the Spirit’ was reflected in the Rite of Baptism. The water here represented being washed clean. The imagery of Scripture has layers of meaning. In a previous blog I showed how the water of the sea had represented a chaotic situation over which I had no control. That same water had the effect of washing me clean because it linked me to the experience of Baptism. I recalled the words from the Rite of Baptism: “Buried with Christ, raised to newness of life!”  This gives expression to what the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans in 6:3-4, “Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.”

The image of Jonah being thrown into the sea and being swallowed by a fish pointed forward to both the death and resurrection of Jesus on the one hand, and on the other, the Sacrament of Baptism that would mirror it.

In Jonah 2:2, whilst in the belly of the fish, Jonah reflecting on what he has been through said:  “I sank beneath the waves, and death was very near. The waters closed in and around me, and seaweed wrapped itself around my head.” (What a powerful image!!) He went on to say in verse 6: “I was locked out of life and imprisoned in the land of the dead. But you, O Lord have snatched me

from the yawning jaws of death!”  Throughout his ordeal Jonah was kept alive by the Holy Spirit. Yet, while he did not experience a physical death, some kind of death did take place. It was the death of a destructive state of being. Through this he experienced a shift in attitude within himself. It was however not something he freely chose; it had to happen to him to bring it about.

Turning to Jesus, I saw that he was put to death on a wooden cross and his body was placed into a tomb which was in the form of a cave (much like the form of a womb). This mirrored Jonah being in the belly of the fish. Another obvious link between the two images is that they both remained in their respective wombs, awaiting re-birth, three days and three nights.

I saw that both the images of Jonah and of Jesus represented death. However, in both cases there was an experience of re-birth.  It was the Holy Spirit that gave them new life. They were re-born of the Holy Spirit. They both experienced transformation, but of different types. In the case of Jonah he experienced a transformation of attitude; from resistance to compliance. He had been running away from what the Lord had been calling him to. However, after his ordeal the Lord caused the fish to deliver Jonah to the shore closest to where Nineveh was. This time Jonah decided to carry out his calling.

Looking at Jesus, he was compliant to his calling out of free choice. Jonah had resisted bringing a message of repentance to Nineveh because he knew that if the people chose to do so then God would have mercy on them and not destroy them. He was trapped in the attitudes of fear and hatred towards the Ninevites that were endemic to his social group. In contrast Jesus knew that members of his own social group were going to torture and kill him, yet he chose to give his own life so that his Father would have mercy on them, and all of humanity;  sparing them from destruction. The re-birth that Jesus experienced was that of resurrection from death, to eternal life. He also received a transformed body. In doing this he paved the way for all of humanity to follow, if they believed in Him. He also broke the power of death over all of humanity. This is clearly expressed in John3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.”

The death and resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Good News of the Kingdom of God. It highlights the paradox inherent in spiritual reality. The Son of God being put to death by men was the very worst thing that could happen in history; yet it brought about the very best outcome for all mankind. The linkage that is apparent with the story of Jonah in the Hebrew Scriptures showed me that the Jonah story provides an essential pattern of spiritual transformation.

Some questions for reflection:

* Can you recognize the connection between the story of Jonah and the death and resurrection of Jesus?

*Does this story speak to anything in your own life?

* How do respond to what you hear?

What’s In a Name?

In a previous blog I said that Jonah seemed to have a hidden agenda which led him to resist God and run away from what he was being called to do. To reach some understanding of what that was I had to dig a little deeper into his overall situation and influences.

 I have come to realize that the information which is given in Biblical stories always has relevance beyond what immediately meets the eye.  I had to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and play at being a detective. The first clue that was given in the story was that Jonah was the son of Amittai. In Scripture the name of a person often represented their character or some other significant reality of their life. By looking in reference books I discovered that in Hebrew Amittai means “Truth”. So Jonah was literally the “Son of Truth”. After praying into and reflecting on this I saw that Jonah had been formed by the truth of his father. He had taken on the values, beliefs and worldview of his father. That had happened through a natural process of socialization; and he had taken this aboard in most part unconsciously. Through this Jonah had developed various take-for-granted attitudes. To recap from a previous blog, attitudes can be seen as predispositions to behave which affect the way we think, feel and act. I came to see that herein lay the problem.

The problem was that the ‘Truth’ which Jonah was formed in through his father was that of his social group and their values and beliefs. This social group, like any other, had a particular perception of reality; which defined reality for him. Apart from this social definition of reality he had no way of knowing what was true or untrue. A complicating factor was that this group perception of reality was a mixed bag of true and distorted understandings of reality. How could Jonah therefore tell what was truth and what was illusion?

There was however a solution to his dilemma. Like a good Hebrew (and indeed a Prophet), his primary education consisted of learning the Hebrew Scriptures by heart. His Hebraic social group had been given these Scriptures by God for instruction, guidance and correction. The problem was their interpretation. This was influenced by the fact that there was conflict between, on the one hand, the aspirations and fears of his social group; and on the other hand, the message that was contained in these Scriptures. Invariably, in this conflict the aspirations and fears of the group took precedence over the message that was given to them by God to embrace. That was the reality that Jonah was confronted by.

Nineveh, the city that the Lord was sending Jonah to call to repentance, was the capital of Assyria. There was a history of Assyria dominating and oppressing the nation of Israel that Jonah was a member of. The ‘Truth’ that Jonah had taken on from membership of his Israelite social group was to both hate and fear the Assyrians. Jonah therefore wanted Nineveh to be destroyed and not come to repentance and be spared by God from its impending destruction. Jonah later went to Nineveh and his call to repent was taken to heart and Nineveh received God’s mercy and was spared from destruction. Jonah was angry and disappointed about this. This response revealed the hidden agenda that Jonah harboured. This is given expression by Jonah in Chapter 4, verses 2-3: …”Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people. Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive because nothing I predicted is going to happen.” I saw here how the agenda of hatred and fear which Jonah had taken on from his social group took precedence over the compassion and mercy that the Lord was inviting Jonah to embrace. The Lord’s response is given in 4:4, “Is it right for you to be angry about this?”    

Jonah was prepared to literally die rather than let go of the hatred and fear that his social group had instilled in him. He had been formed in the mould of his society; which acted like an injection mould which forms a durable, unchangeable, plastic object.

Contrary to this social mould the Lord was calling Jonah to adopt a higher, more expansive, perception of reality. A clue to this reality is given by the meaning of Jonah’s name. His Hebrew name means “Dove.”   The image of a dove points both backward and forward. Looking backward it points to another maritime story; that of Noah and the Ark.  This is a story of new beginnings, hope and a Covenant of Blessing. In this story when the flood water was subsiding Noah released a dove to establish whether it was safe for all who were the seed of new life to disembark from the Ark.   

The dove image also projects forward to Jesus, the incarnate, visible image of the invisible God. At the Baptism of Jesus, whereafter he began his public ministry, the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove. The dove is an accepted image of the person and work of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God.

 I believe that identifying with the image of the dove which his name depicted was the true identity that the Lord was leading Jonah to live into. This was his true identity which was buried beneath the mould that his society had formed him in. His society pressurized him to be a hawk; God was calling him to be a dove. Yet it is clear that he strongly resisted this. The Lord had to do something drastic to move him beyond the false reality he was trapped in. As we saw in my previous blog, Jonah had to be thrown into the sea for this to take place.

Some questions for reflection:

·         Are you aware of the mould that your society (social group) has formed you in?

·         Do you experience a conflict between the expectations of your social group and what you sense the Lord is calling you to?

·         How have you resolved this tension?

·         Are you ready for a swim in the sea? (Ha, ha, ha!!)