Luke 3 Remix in light of shootings

Because yesterday's shooting is on the mind of many as they approach worship this Sunday, I thought I would take a quick venture back into the Luke reading in light of the shooting. My previous blog on the text can be found here. The reading for Sunday can be found here.

I immediately here turn to John's advice on how the various people should live. I turn there because now we see both the importance and the limitation of such advice. We see its importance because we see that the world needs more compassion, it needs more care for each other not damage of each other. The life we are called to live should not, must not look like this. John and Jesus alike both call forth a different kind of living. God's law calls for a different kind of living.

The limitation that such teaching has also comes forth, because we can see how philosophy or teaching or even law does not save us. It does not remove sin or ultimately prevent terrible things from happening. No matter how strict, the law will be broken. But this is precisely the reality Christ is coming to save us from. As I said in my original post on this reading, were it ultimately up to how we change, it looks quite grim. Perhaps that is one of the reasons the nation looks on in shock, it destroys any claim that we have progressed beyond such a history. It means we still need a Savior. Of course that is not the only or even the main reason we are sad and rattled, but it certainly is an unspoken proclamation into our hearts.

And he is coming. One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. As I thought about yesterday's violence, I thought about baptism. I thanked God that it was not just for adults. Whatever people think about decision theology, making decisions for Christ, or using baptism to show your commitment to God, yesterday we saw that children need promises of a Savior too. They need rescue from this world and death itself as well. They need the promise of baptism that they will rise to new life with Christ. All discussions on original sin aside (although I'm convinced by both scripture and experience that we are indeed born in sin) the last enemy to be defeated is death, and baptism has a powerful place in how it ties us to that victory. The declaration that Christ is coming with such a baptism is the greatest message to the ears of us fragile mortal souls. He comes and looses upon society this baptism. Some do it with no real knowledge or commitment, some ignore it completely these days, but when such tragedy strikes there is no promise greater than the promise of one baptism, it removes doubt of what God does for our children. It was spoken, it was done. Luther regularly would lift up how in baptism we have an event, a physical and oral event that all the senses and the records of history could definitively declare that these sacred promises have been given to us without a doubt. We could feel and hold on to the word as we do the water. There is no greater thing than to be able to firmly and without doubt declare God's election of a child, especially when we must bury that child. This was the wonder of Christ's coming, that all he was about to do, it could be summed up in the baptism he brings, because it could be given in the baptism he brings.


Society is starting to get lax on baptism, as the church falls more into obscurity. Parents are deciding to wait and let their children decide for themselves. Families are asking less "will you baptize your baby?" Even pastors are becoming in some circles more lax, trying to find excuses at times to tone down the necessity or importance of baptism. But at times like yesterday, there is no promise we cling to more than the firm promises of baptism, for the justifying faith and the outpouring cross are so intimately connected there. Baptism lets us use the cross to sustain faith in a personal way. Even when people are battling with how to interpret someone's belief or lack thereof there is no interpretation in baptism. And so part of the message of John is Christ is coming, and coming with the unbelievable gift of baptism. A gift given for the most basic of days and the most tragic of days.

The final thought is the expectation of the people. The people were wondering if John was the messiah. We can hear joy and hope in those words, but we can equally hear a desperation. As people are sometime eagerly and other times desperately longing for the messiah, right now some are doing so desperately. We look at this mess and ruin, and with utter shock look about for help. "Are you the one?" Who can offer comfort to such a tearful day? "I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come?" And as the Psalmist continues, "My help is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Past liturgies (and still in some churches today) in the opening part of the service the question would come "From where does your help come?" And the people would reply "Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and the earth." And so as we lift up our eyes, wondering where is our help, wondering who can rescue us from this body of death, looking wherever there may be a glimmer of hope in hopelessness, John says not I, but he. John turned the people's attention towards the One who came, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. As our hearts ache and long for One to turn to amid ongoing tragedy, trauma, and grief - may he point us likewise to Jesus. And the baptism he brings.