Gifted with Spirit
Luke's account of Jesus' baptism de-emphasizes John's role. The gospel records that "Jesus had been baptized", but it does not explicitly mention John. God's role in transforming his relationship with His people is evolving, moving on, with Spirit and fire, into a new era. Luke's gospel seems geared to the future movement of Jesus' future. It is, as biblical scholar Reginald Fuller asserts, that Jesus' ". . . sonship is not an ontological status, but a function that Jesus will embark upon later. The descent of the Spirit and the heavenly voice now inaugurate that function." In other words, Jesus as Messiah was not inextricably linked to his being, but a future mission that he must respond to and cooperate with. Jesus wasn't a GPS guided Messiah drone with God the Father at the controls, but a human with a developing will of his own and, as God's son, a growing and intense relationship with God the Father.
The implications of this understanding of Jesus is profound for me. It emphasizes God initiating action that redefines how he relates to the world, rather than simply call for a greater faithfulness to the old tradition; it was fulfillment rather than addition.
Luke's account of Jesus' baptism de-emphasizes John's role. The gospel records that "Jesus had been baptized", but it does not explicitly mention John. God's role in transforming his relationship with His people is evolving, moving on, with Spirit and fire, into a new era. Luke's gospel seems geared to the future movement of Jesus' future. It is, as biblical scholar Reginald Fuller asserts, that Jesus' ". . . sonship is not an ontological status, but a function that Jesus will embark upon later. The descent of the Spirit and the heavenly voice now inaugurate that function." In other words, Jesus as Messiah was not inextricably linked to his being, but a future mission that he must respond to and cooperate with. Jesus wasn't a GPS guided Messiah drone with God the Father at the controls, but a human with a developing will of his own and, as God's son, a growing and intense relationship with God the Father.
The implications of this understanding of Jesus is profound for me. It emphasizes God initiating action that redefines how he relates to the world, rather than simply call for a greater faithfulness to the old tradition; it was fulfillment rather than addition.
I frequently encounter folks anxious that we need to "preserve" all sorts of things regarding church tradition as if the essentials of God's action in this world is dependent on our propping up structures in a mistaken understanding of the role of tradition in our spiritual journey. The church is NOT the organizational boundaries within which lie the fullness of God's actions and ongoing revelation in our world. This does not mean that God does not work within the Church, but it does mean that God also works outside the Church when the Church fails to accommodate God's will. My former denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, would have me up on ecclesiastical charges for publishing that statement; however, most Christian churches implicitly, if not explicitly, assume they are the sole repository of God's revealing truth. What all these theological views lack is the requisite humility necessary for the Holy Spirit to find an environment hospitable enough to sustain life.
What God sent Jesus was the Spirit, not the answers to a catechism. As fire, the Spirit is a dynamic presence brought into our lives at our baptism, and freely makes dwellings where hearts are open to receive her. As followers of Christ, to imitate the obedience of Jesus is giving the Spirit room to work in our lives with the corresponding willingness to discern God's will by submitting to the demands of love in a community. Our companions in this community, which I call church, should expect less dogmatic pronouncements, and reams of documents declaring God's will, and more of a leadership which fosters respect for dialogue and sensitivity to how the Spirit is working within our lives every day. For the Spirit to dwell in our midst, we must love one another enough to speak in truth and humility and not simply fall back on archaic power structures to do our thinking (and feeling) for us. Like Jesus standing at the headwaters of his journey to Jerusalem, we must live a profound openness to God working in our lives by availing ourselves of our greatest gift of our baptism: the Holy Spirit.
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