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The Holy Spirit Unfetters Us from the Past
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| 1/11/2009 |
I always feel a shiver when reading about what happens to Lot’s wife in Old Testament, right in the very first book, Genesis. God is raining fire and sulpher down on Sedom and Amora, and Lot and his wife are fleeing, having been warned of the imminent destruction. In a subtle and quick detail, Lot’s wife looks back on from whence she came, and turns into a pillar of salt. While the rabbis have taught that anyone who looks on God or God’s mighty acts will be destroyed, I have always seen Lot’s wife as a warning on looking back. When we look back, when we want to return to things as they were, when we’re fearful of the future before us because we cannot see it, we become salt that preserves the past, just as it was.
The more past I accumulate in my life, the more I like to look back upon it. I don’t blame Lot’s wife. She left home, friends, family and comfort, and all she had in front of her was desert. I would’ve looked back, too.
In this morning’s Gospel, John the Baptizer, in a reprise of his Advent rantings, shouts that he is baptizing with the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In other words, he is helping people deal with their past. He is helping them unfetter from the regrets and mistakes, from the things done and undone that are displeasing to God and the human family. Released from our past, we do not forget it; we find our future far more easily when forgiven.
John’s baptism is about the past, but a baptism is coming that is about the future. He says in his inimitable style: "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."
If the baptism using water is about reconciling with our past so as to not hinder our future, then the baptism by the Holy Spirit is about empowering our journey into the future. So it goes when Jesus comes to be baptized. What does Jesus have to be washed away? Well, he’s fully human. What human life does not have regret, missteps, hurts and mistakes? Jesus brings his human life to John. He is baptized in water, set free from the past. Then, the Holy Spirit descends; the new is inaugurated, and Jesus begins his ministry, propelled into his liberating, tragic, healing, hope-giving and salvific future.
We are baptizing babies today. Though I understand the theology of the forgiveness of sin bestowed in baptism, I far prefer to think of baptism as new life in the Holy Spirit. What baby needs the forgiveness of sins? What is flawed in such a perfect child?
Of course, and don’t tell the parents, but it is certainly the case that as the baby grows, and pursues life with passion and love, he is going to sin. We speak of baptism as forgiveness and as being filled with the Holy Spirit to pursue a future yet unseen so as to remind that forgiveness will always be present as we are guided by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit protects from being a pillar of salt, of living the past, but sends us into the future that God has placed there for us. To do so, we must not forget the past, but let go of the past that fetters.
I have grown quite excited about the upcoming inauguration, and I don’t think of that in such a political way. It strikes me that most people with political differences with Barack Obama are excited, because a part of our racist past is being put away, and new view of non-racial future is being embraced.
To think, that when Barack Obama’s children play in the White House hallways, descendants of American slaves will be living in the nation’s house that slaves helped build.
The baptism of forgiveness has us only look back on the sin of slavery and its long legacy in our nation. The baptism of the Holy Spirit has us wait expectantly for a new day unfettered from a sinful past.
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