Acts 8: 14-17
When the Apostles in Jerusalem had heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in there hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of his sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather his wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
The Chaff
The Holy Spirit is the arm of God in this world. His presence, power and priority is acknowledged as center stage in every worshiping congregation. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the church. The Holy Spirit gives the priesthood the power to forgive sin. The Holy Spirit is Christ with us. The Holy Spirit enables speaking in unknown languages. The Holy Spirit is an ethical life enabler. The Holy Spirit is a guide to making right life decisions. The Holy Spirit is the power that draws all men toward God. The Holy Spirit is the executioner in Christian conversion. The Holy Spirit blesses prayer as more than mere words. The Holy Spirit is the giver of Christian assurance. The Holy Spirit is the giver of biblical wisdom and truth. The Holy Spirit is an ally in times of trouble and heartache.
The job description of the Holy Spirit may be extended further and further but does it not seem that we, the church, have become immune or overly familiar with the rhetoric? Every believer in the Christ wants his or her life experience to be impacted by the actions of the Holy Spirit, in theory at least nothing is more important. These two passages this Sunday announce a change, the working pattern of the Holy Spirit is to be different with the arrival of Jesus upon the human horizon. It might help our understanding of the Holy Spirit if we explore these words of scripture.
At it’s best the faith of Israel had a reverence for God and for others to include the forgiveness of spiritual and ethical error but this faith at the time of Jesus had degraded to mere rule keeping. Most of the folk believed that they were incapable of doing these many rules and regulations. They also believed that their disenfranchisement mattered little to the leaders of the Temple. They were correct for the prevalent spiritual motif of the time was the self righteousness of the Pharisees. This sect of believers in the God of Israel were all about rule keeping and not about people. The people, however, flocked to hear the open invitation of John and were eager for a new beginning by being baptized in water. The preaching of John the Baptist was the best of the old way.
John saw into the future and believed that the long expected Jewish Messiah would bring a new way marked by the preeminence of the Holy Spirit. “But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of his sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” This is not to say that the Holy Spirit was not an effective advocate for God in Old Testament times but his actions seemed to be available mostly for the few. The Spirit was directing and leading the people only as they followed those few who were in touch with the Spirit. According to John, the coming Messiah would now make the Holy Spirit available to all seeking believers, who wished to implement the ways and power of the Holy Spirit into their lives.
As the centuries passed in the history of the church this universal availability of the Holy Spirit was at times withdrawn into the hierarchy of the church to be properly dispensed. This withdrawal was always marked by an overwhelming lack of spiritual integrity among the people, some would characterize these times as the church in darkness. The Reformation of the 15th century again gave back to the people the Bible and an awakening sense of the availability of the Holy Spirit. This revival evolved into the understanding to be known as the priesthood of all believers. If each believer is gifted with the Spirit of God, then the priest or the preacher is not the lone spiritual authority in the church. Clearly, Peter and John could not envision the proper operation of the new church in Samaria without the blessing of the Holy Spirit gifted to the people.
Today’s church seems to be in turmoil and loosing credibility with the people beyond the church walls. The secular culture is making new converts everyday. What are we to do? The first step is repentance as in John’s baptism in water. Instead of blaming liberal theology, irreverence for the Bible as we understand it and sin parading through the culture, we should question the language we are sending out. Our impotence is not to be blamed on someone or something else, it rests upon the church to rephrase how the gospel message is communicated to the 21st century. This creeping change will happen but only as the pain becomes unbearable.
If the goodness of God is what the church represents, then that God must be so superficial. Much as was the religiousness at the time of Jesus, today’s Pharisaical church is seemingly content to construct it’s own Christian culture and then defend the walls. Defending the walls means condemning and consigning that sinful world, all those liars, thieves, murders and promiscuous persons to the fires of hell. Of course we tell them about Jesus but do we really care about such people? The bigger question is how does god feel about these people? That question will be answered according to how we understand the mission of the Holy Spirit.
Chaff is the unusable, worthless outer shell of the wheat grain. The old way to separate the chaff from the grain was to throw the whole grain into the air letting the wind carry the worthless chaff away. The grain would fall onto the threshing floor to be gathered for storage. John the Baptist goes on to say that the coming Messiah, who will bring the Holy Spirit, “he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”. Does John equate people with chaff so that this is a warning or a threat of hell toward whomever may be considered a sinner? There is a segment of immature, yardstick Christians who think this way.
They are wrong! The chaff of our lives is the hard outer shell of selfishness and self indulgence that hides the man or woman God intended us to be from the beginning. This chaff, when separated from our lives by the winds of the Holy Spirit, will be burned, never again to cloud our God given dignity. That is what the life, death and resurrection of Jesus accomplished and this assurance of salvation is to be carried to us in our generation by the Holy Spirit. Since and because of our gifted faith in the Christ, the believer has been judged perfect, at least in the eyes of God. The unconditional love of God the father will accept us into eternity.
May those yardstick Christians be carried to hell, if there was such a place.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
