Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Pietro Perujino 1483

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (NRSV)

¹⁵ As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶ John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ 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.”

²¹ Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²² and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 combine two segments in Luke. Luke 3:7-18 presents samples of the preaching of Jesus, while Luke 3:21-22 presents the baptism of Jesus.

The third sample of the preaching of John the Baptist comes from material in common between Matthew and Luke. We have a messianic saying, containing the only implicit denial of messiahship by John in the Synoptic Gospels. ¹⁵ As expectation filled the people, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah. In the final verses, the focus shifts from content of message to identity of messenger. In response to the crowd's surmising, John himself speaks up to clarify his mission and his identity. John's focus was John's successor. In both Luke and John, the crowds that have come to listen and receive John's baptism ask the specific question, "Are you the Messiah?" This was perhaps the most crucial moment in John's ministry.  Could he proclaim preparation for the One who is to come, while resisting the temptation to elevate his own message of what is to come? John the Baptist's words dispel any lingering notions about his possible messianic identity. John lists three crucial distinctions between his own role and the ministry the Messiah will incarnate. ¹⁶ John answered all of them by saying,[1] First, “I baptize[2] you with[3] water;[4] second, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. This Hebraism refers to tasks a lowly, unskilled slave would do for a master.  According to John, not even the disparity between master and slave is great enough to imply the vast expanse that lays between the Messiah and his advance agent, John the Baptist. Once again, John animates his message with a poignant moving picture. Instead of waxing eloquent about the greatness of the One to come, John invokes the image of a relationship familiar to his listeners. In the first-century world of master-teachers, revered rabbis and their schools of loyal students and disciples, a seriously devoted student would literally dog his teacher's steps, following him wherever he went. Every aspect of a great rabbi's life was worthy of observation and emulation by a truly dedicated student. However, a well-known rabbinical saying drew a distinct line in the sand between the actions expected of a zealous disciple and the labors accorded to a common body slave. This saying proscribed that "every work which a slave performs for his lord, a disciple must do for his teacher, except loosening his shoe." John, of course, promptly capitalizes on that very distinction. Third, he will baptize you[5] with the Holy Spirit and fire.[6] The Messiah differs from John by bringing not just a warning, but actual judgment. The idea of baptism “with the Holy Spirit” plays a relatively minor role in the gospels (appearing only in this passage and its parallels and John 1:33). However, spiritual baptism played a significant role in the early Christian church, with baptism with water was the outward sign of this prior spiritual change (i.e., repentance), e.g., Peter’s question concerning the Gentile converts in Acts 10:47: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” The book of Acts is also the only place outside the gospels that refers explicitly to baptism with the Holy Spirit (1:5; 8:16 [by negative inference]; 11:16; compare I Corinthians 12:13). The preaching of John the Baptist proclaimed that the coming Son of Man would baptize with the Spirit and with fire, showing that the work of the Spirit stands related to the executing of judgment. As noted, baptism with the Spirit contrasts with the baptism of John himself, which is with water.[7] ¹⁷ 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.” John takes an unremarkable image - the familiar rural Palestinian scene of a farmer scrupulously winnowing out the chaff from his wheat harvest and burning up that worthless residue - and couples it with a harrowing image of divine judgment that practices the same winnowing technique on the lives of both obedient and willful men and women. In threshing, the threshers toss the grain into the air.  The heavier kernels fall to the ground while the wind blows the chaff away.  This is judgment.  "The fire that never goes out" (Isaiah 34:10, 66:29) fits the last judgment. The reader is to fear the possibility of being chaff. Although the combination of a fierce (and possibly burning) anger and chaff is not unknown in the Hebrew Bible (being found in Zephaniah 2:2), the usual imagery of chaff does not involve burning, as here; it usually involves being blown away by the wind (e.g., Job 13:25; 21:18; Psalm 1:4; 35:5; 83:13; Isaiah 17:13; 29:5; Jeremiah 13:24; etc.). This is the only passage in the New Testament in which chaff appears. The contrasting image of the wheat destined for safe storage with the chaff burned up in the fire is so graphic that we are apt to miss some of the subtlety of this text. First, we should note that the threshing floor is the object of the cleansing John describes -- not the wheat or the chaff. If the floor of the granary is the focus of the Messiah's attention, he has already separated the wheat and chaff. The tool referred to in verse 17, ptuon, is a winnowing shovel--the instrument used to gather quickly the piles of wheat and chaff that workers have separated and left on the threshing room floor. A thrinaz, or true winnowing fork, would have been used previously -- lifting the wheat and chaff high into the air to let the worthless chaff fall free while holding on to the precious stalks of wheat.[8] The image suggests that claiming or rejecting the Baptist’s prior message of repentance has already designated his listeners as "wheat" or "chaff." The Messiah's task, as he clears the threshing floor, is to offer judgment (the all-consuming fire) or salvation (the safe haven of the granary) to those who stand before him. There was another One yet to come. To the listeners of John the Baptist, this reference meant eschatology, promising a time of both cleansing salvation and fiery judgment. The spirit of burning and judgment will cleanse Zion. The Lord will visit Israel like the flame of a devouring fire, their enemies becoming like small dust and flying chaff. The tongue of the Lord is like a devouring fire to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction.[9] In the context of Luke's work, this reference to fire also clearly points to the drama of the Spirit and tongues as of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). John's use of apocalyptic images has led some scholars to suspect John may have expected at this point a fiery "Day of the Lord" as had the prophet Malachi.

Luke 3:15-17 have a concern for identity. We can see this as the focus shifts from the content of the message of John the Baptist to who John the Baptist is. He needed to clarify for the people his mission and identity. The people who came to hear him had high expectations. Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to have expectations fulfilled. Many times, our expectations are in the wrong direction, or may even find fulfillment in unexpected ways. In this case, the people wondered if John might be the anticipated Jewish Messiah. He made it clear that he is not. As he stresses, John only baptizes with water, but the one to come will baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire." The work of the Spirit has a relationship with judgment. Luke stresses this by his reference to the winnowing fork and the threshing floor. People are already either wheat or chaff. The task of the Messiah is to offer judgment or salvation. A point we must not forget, however, is that John said he was not worthy to untie his sandals, the task of a slave. He knew that his identity was not in himself, but in the one to come.

John introduces his audience to the center of the universe. How will that message change your life? John admits that he is only preparing the way for the one to come, the Messiah. If we meet Christ, we will change our way of thinking and behaving. We will find a new source of power.

            I wonder how many of them realized how important this proclamation was. It could have been a time to think differently. It could have become an aha moment. New ideas. New worlds. New possibilities. New territory. Yet, I am sure that for many on that day, what John said did not compute.

            Heaven knows terrible things happen to people in this world. The good die young, and the wicked prosper, and in any one town, anywhere, there is grief enough to freeze the blood. However, from deep within whatever the hidden spring is that life wells up from, there wells up into our lives, even at their darkest and maybe especially then, a power to heal, to breathe new life into us. In the thick of joy or pain is a power out of the depths of life that emerges to bless. In this regard, most of us are mystics. John the Baptist promises that the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that “mystical” power to which we must open our minds and hearts and to receive. The Spirit is God with us in our experience. We need to allow ourselves to let the Spirit encounter us, address us, and then we need to respond to the address. We need to move in the direction the Spirit bids us. The Spirits bids us into deeper communion with Christ and with others. The Spirit that engages us from the depths of our souls, and is indeed the source of our lives, seeks to shape us into the image of Christ. However, and this is important, if we do not respond to this invitation, it will be a form of grace that the fire of the Spirit consume (destroy?) us.[10]

Luke 3:21-22 has its source in Mark and is a story about the baptism of Jesus. The descent of the Spirit is preparation for ministry. John the Baptist had succeeded in paving the way for the Lord, as God had intended his ministry to be. Jesus' own baptism is a part of the preparatory ministry and thus fulfills John's ministry.

²¹  Now, when John baptized all the people, and when John also baptized Jesus, a statement that raises a question.  Why was Jesus among the crowds coming to receive baptism?[11]  It could be Jesus that the gospels portray Jesus as a disciple of John in preparation for his ministry.

Further, when Jesus was praying, a reference we find in neither Mark nor Matthew, the Father opened the heaven. This vision of the heavens opening is, like Luke's earlier reference to the unquenchable fire, an apocalyptic symbol.  Note that the miraculous moment of the identification of Jesus does not occur when Jesus comes out of the water. It occurs after the fact, when Jesus is "praying." In Luke's gospel, the most revealing and empowering moments in Jesus' ministry occur during times of prayer (Luke 6:12; 9:18, 28; 22:41-42). During this moment of prayer, Jesus now receives the Holy Spirit, the gift that marks the beginning of his messianic, Spirit-filled public ministry. This differs from the baptism of the Spirit John predicts in Luke 3:16, for in this case the Messiah is the one receiving the Spirit, not giving it out to others.

Further, ²²the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. Luke's account of Jesus' baptism focuses more on the Spirit than on the baptism itself. Note "like" a dove.  Luke knows that any literal rendering of an apocalyptic, and therefore "not-yet" event can only be "like." However, Luke also wants to be sure his readers realize that there is a real, a "now", presence of the Holy Spirit actually with the living Jesus.  The "not yet' was made "now," incarnate in the person of Jesus. The voice that breaks into this event proclaims a final distinction between John and Jesus. Further, a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved (Isaiah 42:1, part of the "suffering servant" songs). Thus, the special tenderness imparted to Jesus by the heavenly voice also introduces the costly nature of Jesus' ministry and mission.  He is not only destined for royal power; he may also expect to suffer and die for the sake of others. The voice concludes that with you I am well pleased."  The declaration at Jesus' baptism combines words from Psalm 2:7[12], a coronation psalm praising the newly anointed King David, and Isaiah 42:1, which declares the Chosen One as God's servant, the one who delights God and upon whom the Spirit of God truly rests. This text uses the moment of Jesus' own baptism to depict his unique identity.

  It seems as if the early church thought of the reception of baptism by new followers of Jesus as a self-evident matter. We need to consider the basis and reason the early church considered baptism as the first step of the human decision that recognizes the faithfulness of God to the individual. Baptism is a sign that the faith of the individual will include obedience and the actual following of Jesus. The simplest answer is that the risen Lord commanded them to do so (Matthew 28:19). The submission of Jesus to the baptism of John may well be an invitation for his followers to repeat it and express their faith and obedience in this act. We note that Jesus freely submitted to baptism with water. He began the fulfillment of His mission as the Son of the Father who had come into the world to reconcile the world to God. John may have the title, “the Baptist,” precisely because he baptized Jesus, just as Judas had the title, “the traitor.” Jesus accepts the announcement of John that a new and imminent act of Gold will radically change the situation of Israel. He submits in advance to what God is about to do according to it. He accepts the implications of this event for humanity. He stands by this event as the act of God. Readiness for this even can only mean renewal. Renewal means conversion and repentance. We also note that Jesus fully identified with sinful humanity. He put Himself under the judgment of God and referred to the divine remission of sin. Because Jesus confessed God, therefore He confessed humanity. Because He submitted to God, He put Himself in solidarity with humanity. With the rest of humanity, He confesses His sins. He did not let the sins of humanity remain with them, but took them upon Himself. He submitted to baptism in prospect of the kingdom of God, judgment, and forgiveness. No one who came to the Jordan was as needy and burdened, as was Jesus. We also note that Jesus undertook to do in the service of God and humanity that which he alone could do. He accepted his election and sending as the Son. He would live wholly for God and therefore wholly for humanity. His act of obedience in the water of baptism will be an anticipation of a life of obedience as he enters his public ministry. He will adopt a particular way of life that became a pattern for those who seek to be disciples of Jesus. The story stresses divine appreciation, acknowledgement, approval, and affirmation of the service Jesus renders for God and for humanity. Yet, all of this still makes us ponder whether the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan is an adequate basis for why the Christian community should invite new Christians to baptism. One can imagine future Christians treating baptism with a neutral attitude. Yet, in reality, God calls Christians into fellowship with Jesus. The beginning of the ministry of Jesus is not merely of historical interest. It became exemplary, normative and binding for future followers of Jesus. Water baptism is a sign of the beginning of a life of fellowship with Christ. Thus, the command of the risen Lord (Matthew 28:19) has its proper basis in the historical baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.[13]

Of course, the baptism of Jesus would later become the basis of saying that Jesus “instituted” baptism. It was also a model of Christian baptism, especially connecting baptism with the gift of the Spirit. Baptism into the death of Jesus Christ changes all individual particularities and brings them to a new boiling point, freely establishing them in a new form. The expression of this is the freedom that with the Spirit the baptized received as children of God and that enables them to go their own way, to follow their own specific calling, and to accept the consequences as Jesus did.[14]

In Luke 3:21-22, we can see that the matter of identity rises again in the account of the baptism of Jesus. Why was Jesus among the crowds coming to receive the baptism of John? To ask the question is to raise the question of his identity. He could simply be a follower of John. Yet, we know he was more. John said so. In fact, his baptism testifies to who Jesus is. His baptism was an act of submission and obedience. Yet, his baptism has become the pattern for an understanding of Christian baptism. Look at how much we as Christians borrow from this baptism in order to understand our own.

·         It symbolized the eschatological gift of the Holy Spirit. After all, an important apocalyptic symbol was the heavens opening. However, the “Not Yet” of the heavens opening must give way to the “Already” of the dove coming to rest upon Jesus while he prayed.

·         His baptism identified the moment when Jesus began his public ministry and therefore a new course in his life.

·         His baptism was an act of obedience and identification with the sins of humanity.

·         His baptism identified him as the Son of God. The phrasing here combines two Old Testament passages. One is from Psalm 2:7, a royal coronation in which we hear these words: “He said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’” The other passage is from Isaiah 42:1, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him …” We must not lose sight of these images, that of king and servant of the Lord, throughout the course of the life of Jesus.

As we can see, there is no parallel between this exalted status and that of John the Baptist. This is the one-of-a-kind identity of the uniquely Anointed One, the Son, the Messiah, the Christ.

How can the baptism of Jesus by John be a pattern for our understanding of Christian baptism? Well, maybe we can reflect on that for a moment.

·         For the Christian, baptism is also an act of obedience.

·         Baptism also symbolizes finding identity in union with Christ.

·         To experience Christian baptism is to identify with the course of the life of Jesus, who lived in submission to the will of God to the point of death and resurrection. Christian baptism opens the door to a new way of life lived out of union with Christ as empowered by the Holy Spirit.

·         As Paul will later write of this, even as Jesus finds declared in his baptism his identity as the Son of God, so we find our identity as children of God. Out of this identity, Christians can live out their calling in a new form of life.

As identity is important in this passage, identity is important for us. With good reason, early Christians took baptism seriously as a way of shifting our sense of who we are away from self and toward Christ. Properly understood, our baptism describes the course of a Christian life. Our baptism describes a vision of Christian discipleship that remains meaningful. The question, of course, is whether it is meaningful to you today.

First, identify with the family. The family of which I am speaking now is the family of God. Are we willing openly to identify ourselves as belonging to this family? When you were born into your biological family, you were not born into the family of God. You must respond to the call of God, and thus to the grace of God that you experience. Can you testify to that response?

Second, identify with the kingdom. The family of God has business in the world. It has work to do and Jesus identified himself with all who would come to the kingdom, and we must as well. He will begin his public ministry after he receives this baptism. He will live the rest of his life in the light of that baptism. Do our neighbors know that we are Christians? Do our coworkers know it? Do the parents of our children’s friends know we follow Christ? However, beyond just knowing we claim that identity, we need to consider what they learned from watching and listening to us about whom Jesus is. Bear the name of Jesus well among a watching world.

Third, identify with our baptism. The example of Jesus reminds us of what God intends our baptism to be. It is not a hoop to jump through and a box to check. It is not a spiritual security blanket for our children. Baptism is not a religious routine that just goes with the territory. Jesus goes into the waters of baptism to affirm publicly that he identifies who he is with whom God has made him to be. When we baptize people in the church, we recognize their place in the family. We agree with them that they are God’s and God is theirs. We celebrate our destiny as God’s eternal family.
Finally, identify with Jesus. Your baptism means you identify your life with Jesus. You live in fellowship with him. You follow his lead. It leads to the death of simply living for yourself, but also to the new life of living for and with him. There is a call to each of us to remember that God grants us this new identity — we are his beloved children. The name of Jesus is salvation, the beloved son, the Messiah. In following him, you receive his name – Christian, Christ-follower. He is your identity. You unite your destiny to him. Sisters and brothers, rise up and bear the family Name!

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[1] Matthew 3.11b-12 and Luke 3.16b-17 both extend the second part of the sermon of John the baptist by some 28 (Matthew) or 27 (Luke) words, of which 25 are verbatim between them. The theme is the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the gathering of the former into the barn, and the burning of the latter. A major agreement. The issue in scholarship is whether this agreement arises due to Luke having Matthew in front of him or whether they had a common document, Q.

[2] Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 agree in the present tense βαπτιζω against the Marcan aorist εβαπτισα.

[3] Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 each have μεν; Mark 1.7 lacks it.

[4] Both Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 have John the baptist speak of his own baptismal rite in water before speaking of the one to come; Mark 1.7-8 has him speak of the one to come before describing his own baptismal rite in water.

[5] Matthew 3.11 and Luke 3.16 have υμας βαπτισει instead of the Marcan βαπτισει υμας.

[6] Scholars wonder whether the reference to the Holy Spirit in verse 16 could be from John. Matthew and Luke add “and fire” to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which Mark omits, suggesting that the phrase was from the common source on which Matthew and Luke drew in the composition of their gospels. The phrase may be an infiltration from the “unquenchable fire” in the following verse, which is also from Q.

[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 623.

[8] (For more on this distinction, see Robert L. Webb, "The Activity of John the Baptist's Expected Figure at the Threshing Floor," Matthew 3:12, Luke 3:17," Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 43, 1991, 103-111.) 

[9] Isaiah 4:4

4 once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion

and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment

and by a spirit of burning.

Isaiah 29:5-6

5 But the multitude of your foes shall be like small dust,

and the multitude of tyrants like flying chaff.

And in an instant, suddenly,

6 you will be visited by the Lord of hosts

with thunder and earthquake and great noise,

with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

Isaiah 30:27-28

27 See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,

burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;

his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is like a devouring fire;

28 his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck—

to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,

and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.

[10] Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat (Chatto & Windus, 1967), 114.

[11] The question itself suggests that the baptism of Jesus by John is one of the few incidents on which scholars agree that mark the history of Jesus.

[12] Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 305-6. Pannenberg connects verse 22 with the notion of the “generation” of the Son, as we find in John 1:14 and 3:16 from the “procession” of the Spirit, a distinction made in the theology of the East. Such traditional distinctions between begetting and breathing on the one hand and sending and gift on the other, as he sees it, do not find justification in exegesis. Thus, “Today, I have begotten you,” refers to the today of the event baptism. The baptism of Jesus fulfills the saying of Psalm 2:7. One cannot base the idea of an eternal generation of the Son on such a passage.

[13] Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV.4, 50-68.

[14] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume III, 278-283.