Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… Isn’t this the season for nice cozy fires? Not when we let John the Baptist in. The fire he’s talking about, which he says Jesus will bring, is another force altogether, which will do more than warm us:
“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 the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
What kind of good news is this – the ax, the winnowing fork, the unquenchable fire? I only like fire when contained in a candle or crackling merrily in a fireplace. And unquenchable fire? Isn’t that an image of eternal damnation?
Not only – God snared Moses with a bush that was on fire but not consumed. And fire is one of our symbols for the power of the Holy Spirit. Our life in Christ begins with water, the transforming water of baptism by which we are made one with Christ, and members of God’s family. Yet God’s life is released in us as we are baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we get the power by which God works transformation through us. We need water and fire.
Once, while on retreat, I prayed fervently that the Spirit “set my heart on fire with love for you.” A good and holy prayer, right? But God shot right back: “Do you know what you’re asking? My fire consumes everything that is not of me.”
The fire of God is a purifying flame, and if we let it, it will indeed purify us. I’ve heard a story that depicts this process beautifully. I have no idea how accurate it is, but it’s a lovely image of how gold was purified in olden times. The smelter would take the gold and put it into a pot and put a fire under it. As the gold melted, the impurities in it would rise to the surface, all that is known as “dross,” everything that’s not gold, that’s gotten mixed in; all of that would rise to the surface, and the refiner would skim it off.
And then he’d make the fire hotter, and more impurities would rise to the surface, and he’d skim them off. And then he’d make the fire hotter and more elements that were not pure gold would rise, and he’d skim them off. And then he’d make the fire hotter. Until there were no impurities left. Until, when the refiner looked into the pot, he saw his own image perfectly reflected back to him in the gold.
In this metaphor, we are the gold, of course. And you know the Refiner. But there’s something else: the pot which contains us is the Love of God, the One who was called Love. This pot has been fired in the furnace and will not crack. This Love bears the fire with us. This Love contains us as we are purified, and made ready to spend eternity with him.
If we want a deeper experience of God’s love and power, we need to ask for a deeper filling of the fire of God, the Holy Spirit. There may be parts of our lives we don’t want to see scorched - can we offer God access anyway? Can we let him burn away the parts of us that are inauthentic, not true to who God made us to be? Can we let in the purifying flame? Can we become the fire of God, burning bushes that cause the world to turn aside to look?
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