Jesus came to baptize with the Holy Spirit
Mark 1:1-9 4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
I love the way the gospel of Mark begins. Within the first paragraph, Mark establishes Jesus' deity and then Jesus' purpose. Jesus came to "baptize with the Holy Spirit."
In our culture, we don't really get what it means to be "baptized with the Holy Spirit". Most would say it has something to do with the spiritual discipline of "speaking in tongues". And if you ask the average person what Jesus' purpose was, they will most likely say that it was to get people into heaven. But Mark thinks differently. He sees Jesus as "the Messianic bearer of the Holy Spirit" - fancy words I learned from a book I read in seminary. They mean that all of Jesus' work - his birth, life, death, and resurrection, was so that this followers could be baptized with the Holy Spirit and have the Holy Spirit living within them.
The Holy Spirit is what marks us as followers of Jesus. It is what enables us to be in right relationship with God and in right relationship with one another. It is what sets us aside for holy use. Jesus came to make this possible. Through his death and resurrection, our hearts are cleaned so that when the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit could indwell our hearts joining with believers - to guide them, comfort them, set them aside for God's work.
The indwelling Holy Spirit is what makes Jesus' people a new race - set aside to be the people of God - set aside to become the Kingdom of God. The prophets talked about this new race of people from ancient times. And Jesus came to make it possible. In his death and resurrection, we are cleansed - our brokenness healed - so that the Holy Spirit can indwell us.
Most of us would rather just have a ticket to heaven than to give ourselves over to allowing the Holy Spirit to live within us - to direct us. But a ticket to heaven was not Jesus' purpose. His purpose was to baptize us with the Holy Spirit so that we could live in right relationship with God and each other.
Do we ignore that Jesus came to baptize with the Holy Spirit? How differently would we live if the gospel - the good news - was not about dying with a ticket to heaven, but about living in right relationship with God and others through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit?
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