Second Sunday in Lent - Mar 5, 2023; Feb 25, 2024; Mar 16, 2025
As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” -Luke 3:15-16
There is - and it is important that we make the distinction - a difference between the baptism John offered and the one that comes to us from Jesus. It is important because some folks make too much of John’s baptism. It was a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). It was a key part of John’s ministry that would prepare the way for Jesus. The forgiveness it offered was truly God’s forgiveness in Jesus. The message it proclaimed was the time had come (the Messiah was here). And it prepared you through repentance.
Sometimes people look at that and say, “you need to be able to repent to be baptized” or “Jesus was baptized as an adult, therefore you must be baptized as an adult too” (although usually they don’t insist that you be “around thirty,” which was the age Jesus was baptized. See Luke 3:23). I’ve heard those arguments, and they understand baptism especially according to the baptism of John. But John is clear - and later Jesus is too (Acts 1:5) - that their baptisms are not exactly the same. What made them so different?
John tells us that Jesus “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” and this makes all the difference. The giving of the Holy Spirit reminds us: 1) baptism is primarily God’s coming to us, not our coming to God, 2) Christ will gift you with the Spirit through baptism and 3) if the Spirit is a feature, baptismal faith is not just something we find in adults. John the Baptist actually bears witness to this too when he was just a babe in his mother’s womb (see Luke 1:39-45).
The Holy Spirit works the gospel into all our hearts. Along with the forgiveness of Jesus, it is the greatest gift a person can have for a life of faith and repentance (Acts 2:38). By the promise of Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit, then from your baptism onward you can seek, ask, and believe in the Spirit’s working on you.
But what if I don’t have the Spirit? Did I not receive Jesus’ baptism?
After Philip baptizes a series of Samaritan believers (Acts 8:12) the church sends Peter and John to them. When they arrive it said that the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on them, but they had been baptized in the name of the Lord (Acts 8:16). In response, the apostles laid their hands on them and prayed for them and then they received the Spirit (v17). They were not rebaptized, rather they were prayed for according to the promise baptism laid upon them.
And God answered that promise for them, dare to believe he would for you too.
Holy Spirit, come. I pray that ancient prayer, trusting that you have been promised to me. And so I ask for eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to believe. And I thank you for what you have begun in my baptism and will no doubt carry on to completion by the Day of my Lord Jesus. Amen.
This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.
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