The temple authorities sent a delegation to investigate John’s ministry because they needed to know by what authority he was operating. Having established that he was not an earthly incarnation of a holy figure, they wanted to know, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”
Once more, John does not answer their question directly, saying rather, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal."
It would be easier to grasp if the writer of John’s gospel had used the fuller quote the other three evangelists cite: “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. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
In that version, the water baptism John offered is contrasted with the Spirit baptism Jesus will initiate. In effect, his reply to the questioners is, “It doesn’t matter who I am, really – I’m not the main event. My baptism in water as a sign of repentance is just preparing people to receive the much more powerful, transforming baptism of Spirit – and that will come from someone already in your midst, whom you do not recognize, whose sandals I am unworthy even to untie.”
When we are baptized into the Christian faith, what matters most is the gift of the Spirit. Too many modern baptismal rituals emphasize the water and are weak on conveying the Spirit, which is symbolized by the oil of chrism with which candidates are anointed. In some early Christian rites, the oil was so important, candidates were covered with it. Both elements are crucial to the sacrament of baptism, and our celebration of that sacrament is enhanced when the “sign value” is enlarged, the quantities and gestures expansive enough to convey the power that is being invoked and invited into our midst.
We can feel the water; that’s important. It symbolizes both the cleansing of a bath and a drowning in which our natural selves die, and our eternal, spiritual selves are born as the union of our spirits with Christ’s spirit. The gift of Spirit, though, cannot be felt with our senses, except through that little dab of oil on the forehead, but that is where everything we need to live in God-Life is bestowed on us.
If we were christened as infants, we may not remember our baptisms, but this baptism of Spirit can be relived, re-experienced as often as we’re willing to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit. Fill me. Guide me. Work through me.”
Like John, we point to the One by whom our works are made possible. We are not worthy to untie his shoe laces – yet he has seen fit to stoop to us, to dwell with us, to dwell in us. That gift is forever.
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