Acts 1:4b-8

Today we talk about baptism (by water and by spirit), power, and our calling to release ourselves to the Spirit of God. These verses preview the book of Acts more broadly as the disciples get their final instructions from Jesus before he ascends. Pastor Chris Nafis is flying solo today, breaking down the passage in the first of at least two segments addressing these verses. Join us! 

Transcript

Welcome back to “The Current”

Shan says that it’s a great name for a podcast, so we’re going to go with that 

You know, I’ve been getting excited about possibilities with this after getting to invite Shelly Rambo on last week 

And I think I may try to have more guests on here 

Some, maybe, to talk about Acts

Some, maybe, to talk about their interesting and beautiful work in the Spirit

Some, maybe, to do both 

But having an excuse to talk to some of the amazing people I know doing great work in the church seems great to me 

And I’m leaning in that direction 

Video is tough on that front, especially with people who don’t live in San Diego 

So that might mean more audio-only episodes 

Tell me how you feel about that 

But that’s what I’m thinking 

So stay tuned – more guests likely on the way 

(If I can get anybody to sit down with me)

Today you’re stuck with just me 

But today’s passage is a good one

A great one, actually

We may spend a couple weeks on it 

And it happens to fall right into the theme of what we’ve been talking about in Matthew on Sunday mornings 

And even what we’ve been reading in the lectionary passages from 1 Samuel 

Let’s read it first, and then I’ll tell you what I mean 

Acts 1:4b-8

“This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 

Okay, first let’s talk about baptism 

I find this word from Jesus to be really interesting 

John baptized with water 

But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now 

First, Jesus is not slighting John’s baptism 

Jesus and John were supporters of one another 

And Jesus himself was baptized by John, remember? 

So I don’t think we should read this and see John’s baptism as… lesser

We still baptize with water today, right?

It has been one of the primary sacraments of the church since the time we’re reading about 

We’ll see water baptisms in Acts 

But the two things have different meanings 

Right?

Water and Spirit 

I mentioned this last week in talking with Dr. Rambo 

Water represents death

And chaos 

And unmaking 

Water, in the ancient world, is a terrifying thing 

Especially the depths

And there are all kinds of stories in the Old Testament that play on this theme

From the Spirit hovering over the water in the beginning 

(Which seems pertinent to this passage)

To the flood 

To the parting of the seas 

Jonah, crying out from the belly of a whale at bottom of the depths of the sea

And being delivered from there 

A sort of baptismal image if there ever was one 

But water in this world is frightening

Most people can’t swim 

And especially in the ocean, the depths were unknown and unknowable

They are still largely unknown! 

And have you ever seen the creatures that live in the depths?

They are terrifying

And this after we’ve killed off a ton of the life in the ocean 

Even on the surface, we have whales and sharks and giant squid and all sorts of terrifying creatures that we can’t understand

There is a depth of uncontrollable water that swallows people, entire ships whole

That doesn’t just stay in one place 

It rises up in swells and waves 

The currents push boats and people wherever they will 

The tides rise and fall 

And when floods do come,

Like when they truly come 

They unmake most of what’s in their path

Water is a sort of terrorizing, uncontrollable force

There’s a sense that even God’s reign may not quite reach to the depths of the sea

Where there is darkness and unimaginable pressure and mystery and… death 

(now, the stories of the Old Testament say that it does, but that is a sort of surprising, miraculous reality)

The reason they declare that is because that’s, like, the last place that God could reach

If God can deliver Jonah from the depth of the sea, then God can deliver anybody from anything 

So baptism in water 

Brings out all of these images

It’s a sort of cleansing

But not just a bath 

A cleansing from being unmade and remade 

From being dipped into death and brought out again to new life 

Being destroyed

Paul will suggest that this is the death of our flesh

Being crucified with Christ 

That in our baptism, we enter not just into our own death

But into the death of Jesus on the cross 

Where all flesh

Our sin 

The temporal parts of ourselves corrupted by sin 

Are put to death

Unmade

And we rise with Christ as new creation 

Re-made in his image 

This is the symbolism of baptism with water 

And there’s space to talk about the difference between John’s baptism, specifically

And the baptism of the church 

Maybe this is the difference

That the church baptizes expecting not just water, but the Spirit 

When Jesus is baptized by John, a dove descends

And the voice from heaven says – this is my son with whom I am well pleased

The Spirit seems to baptize as well 

And in the church, we expect the movement of the Spirit in our life of re-creation after baptism 

The Spirit, the pneuma 

The wind

The breathe 

We expect not only a baptism of death and unmaking and repentance

But baptism into the life of God 

The Spirit of God 

Into the wind of God 

The breathe of God 

Baptism that doesn’t just put to death the flesh 

But that rises to new life in the Spirit 

An immersion in the Spirit of God that brings power

A certain kind of power – 

The power of life 

The power of creation 

Jesus says – you have been baptized in water

Death, unmaking, chaos 

But wait here 

And in a few days, you will be baptized in the Spirit 

In life, creation

Into the openness, the wild freedom of God 

The baptism of the Spirit has been talked about in different ways in different corners of the church’s life together 

From, like, being slain in the Spirit

Given the gift of speaking in tongues 

Or in some places, entire sanctification 

The cleansing of your life from willful transgression 

I don’t think there is a single story of what it looks like to be baptized in the Spirit 

But it is the re-creation of the Christian 

And of the Christian community 

After the annihilation of the crucifixion 

And it leads to this new life 

Not just new life in terms of life beyond the grave

That, too, I think 

But new life in terms of a new way of living

A new way of being in the world

The book of Acts is primarily about this, I think

Telling us the story of what it looks like when disciples of Jesus are baptized by the Holy Spirit

And it looks like a lot of different things

From preaching the gospel in compelling, connecting ways

That overcome social and linguistic barriers 

Revealing Christ to all sorts of people 

To feeding widows and orphans 

To sharing possessions and making sure that anyone who has need is accounted for 

To healings and miracles

To going out to new places 

Inviting people who you might have thought would be rejected by God 

Inviting them into the work of the Spirit 

To be baptized in water and Spirit 

And become part of this movement

This way 

To confrontation with even the leaders of the empire of Rome 

It looks like discernment – the church spends a surprising amount of time in Acts discerning the will of the Spirit 

It looks like all of these different things

Acts is the story of the outpouring of the Spirit on the first followers of Jesus 

And all of the beautiful chaos that happens as part of that outpouring 

And it is ultimately an invitation for us to come and be baptized 

To come and abandon our flesh

Waiting upon the coming of the Spirit 

And welcoming the new life that comes when the Spirit is poured out 

So here in the very beginning of Acts

Jesus is telling his disciples – wait here 

In a few days, the you will be baptized with the Spirit 

And you will receive power 

Power – we need to talk about the kind of power that the Spirit brings 

Especially in light of these two baptisms that Jesus mentions here 

Let’s go back to the Sunday before last, when we looked at Jesus’ triumphal entry 

We looked at Matthew’s version in Matthew 21

And what we found was a sort of ironic conquest re-enactment

Where Jesus enters Jerusalem in the form of a conquering king 

But without laying siege to the city

With no army or violence

With no sign of earthly power whatsoever

He comes into Jerusalem as if he has just conquered the city

But without actually conquering the city 

And we talked about this as a sort of prophetic act

Saying to the leaders of Israel 

You only know how to see one kind of king

You only recognize one kind of power 

You only know what this looks like 

And look how ridiculous it is 

Look how small it is, really 

And look how awful it is! 

That the only power you know is the power of siege and war and destruction 

Jesus enters the temple, welcomes people who were excluded from the temple worship

And heals 

Does these creative acts of love 

Jesus has come, not with the power of earthly kings 

Not with the power of violence and death 

But with the power of the Spirit 

The power of creation 

The power of the cosmos 

The power of life 

He comes as this… light that the darkness cannot overcome 

And it is this kind of power that will fall upon the disciples when they are baptized in the Spirit 

Not the kind of power that we are accustomed to in this world

Power to kill 

Power to bend someone’s will to your own 

Not the power of darkness

The power of life 

This is clarified again in our passage in Acts

Where the disciples ask Jesus 

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?

God, will you re-establish the Jewish nation of Israel against the Roman occupation and any other challengers there might be?

God, will you restore Israel to power 

Is that what you are talking about? 

This is the kind of power they recognize

The kind that they can see

And Jesus says – it’s not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set 

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you 

Power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem 

In all Judea and Samaria 

And to the ends of the earth 

You will have this kind of conquering power 

But it isn’t power to dominate

To conquer in the worldly sense 

It’s power to witness 

To reveal the truth to the world

That word, witness, in Greek 

Is the word Martus 

It’s the word martyr in Greek

Which, at this point means witness 

Eye-witness

But the life and work of the church will come to re-define the term itself 

To what we think of when we hear the word martyr today

Not just a witness, but a witness willing to testify to the point of death 

That is power 

Isn’t it?

A different kind of power than we see on thrones or in white houses 

But that is the kind of power that the Spirit brings 

Power to overcome even the fear of death 

To be so committed to the light, to the truth, to the hope of Jesus 

That death can’t even stop the message

In fact, the death of the martyrs only comes to scatter the seeds of the gospel

In death, witnesses voices are amplified, not destroyed

So that even death itself has no power over the gospel of Jesus 

That is a different kind of power

Right?

Power that turns evil to good

Death to life 

Power to respond to violence with peace

And still have the victory 

That is power

This is the power of the Spirit 

And it is a stark contrast to the power that we have such an easy time recognizing 

Power that is backed by death and violence 

Alright- what does this mean for us as disciples of Jesus? 

We are constantly tempted, I think

To grab for the kind of power that would… restore Israel 

The kind of power that wins wars 

And elections

The kind of power that guns provide 

We are constantly tempted, I think, to grab for that kind of power

There are politicians who promise to give that kind of power to the church 

There are church leaders who are trying to rally troops to fight culture wars

Or even real wars

There are needs that we have that drive us to seeking power so that we can have our needs met

Injustices that we see that we want power to address 

Fear within the hearts of Christians

Especially as the church loses influence and power that it once had 

Driving us to pursue the kind of power that Jesus exposes in that triumphal entry 

The kind of power the disciples are requesting here 

The kind of power that is ultimately rooted in the flesh

In darkness and sin 

In violence 

The church has had this power many, many times throughout history 

Almost always choosing it over the power of the Spirit when given the option 

Almost always losing itself to a sort of idolatry in trying to cling to its power 

Rather than releasing it 

Maybe more – rather then releasing the church itself to the movement of the Spirit

That does not cling to power or possessions

But to the way and the will of God 

We are invited into a different way 

To embrace a different kind of power 

The power of the Holy Spirit requires faith

You have to be willing to let go of your life 

Of your desires 

Of “winning” in the short term 

You have to let go of controlling others 

Of controlling culture 

Of defending a nation-state

Of your very life 

You have to let go of it all! 

To embrace the power of the Holy Spirit 

Because the power of the Spirit never belongs to you 

You can never hold it in your hand 

It’s like the wind 

It can drive you 

Move you 

Accomplish great things in you 

But if you try to grab hold of it

It just goes right through your fingers

The power of the Spirit is only anything if we can loosen ourselves from the things of this world 

That would hold us down

Hold us in place 

That let us think that we are on firm footing

Let go, and let the Spirit sweep you away into his power 

If you can

If you do 

Then you find this creative power to be more significant than anything this death-dealing world could come against it with 

Then you see the power of a God who doesn’t bow to kings or armies 

Or even death itself

But brings new life from tombs and ashes 

If you actually have faith

Trust in God 

In the way of the Spirit 

If you actually believe in the resurrection 

And you can actually embrace your baptism 

The death and unmaking of yourself and your world 

Then you can embrace the baptism of the Spirit 

The new life 

The new way 

The new power of God 

That death can’t overcome 

This all sounds very cryptic, I think 

But in very real ways – it means that we should be skeptical of opportunities to grab for material power or wealth

Skeptical of leaders, politicians, pastors, others 

Who are goading us to try to grab worldly power

Who promise us – if you were in charge

If you had more influence

If you were making the decisions 

Think of what good you could do 

I’m not saying that there is never a time to make a decision or step into opportunity to lead

But we need to approach those opportunities with great caution 

And humility 

And prayer 

And if we find ourselves gaining power that we are not prepared to let go…

There’s a red flag 

And we should not be willing to compromise our calling

Our way 

The way of peace, hope, and love 

For the sake of power or security 

We should not sacrifice our calling or witness for political victories 

We should not try to force people into our way 

We need to live our lives

Bear our witness 

With an openness 

A gentleness 

A willingness to sacrifice ourselves 

Especially before we ask the sacrifice of others

We live our communal life with an eye toward the creative, generative power of the Holy Spirit

Not with a posture of war and battle and always coming up against everyone

Honestly- this has been a tool of manipulation in evangelicalism for a long time 

To convince Christians that we are at war with the world 

That they are coming for us 

That they are going to break our families and corrupt our kids 

There’s a way that our fear of being victimized 

Is used to get us to reach for

Cling for 

Political power 

To elevate leaders that do not exemplify the way of Jesus 

To circle the wagons and grab for anything we might use as a weapon to defend ourselves 

Evangelicals have been convinced, time and time again

That grabbing for these little kinds of power 

Will save the church

Or save the country 

Or save… whatever

Forgetting that the death-dealing world has nothing that can come up against the movement of the Spirit

That the power we experience in the Holy Spirit 

Is the kind of power that walks to the Sanhedrin, ready to be crucified

The kind of power that preaches as the stones come flying in 

The kind of power that says, like Paul 

I know my calling is to go to Rome

And if I have to go in chains, that’s how I’ll go 

Appealing to the emperor, knowing that execution is almost certain 

It’s power that doesn’t fear the world

Doesn’t need to fight with weapons of war 

Doesn’t need to have seats of power 

Doesn’t seek that kind of power 

Because that is the power of death

The power of darkness

And the darkness can never overcome the light 

The power that the disciples receive in the baptism of the Spirit 

Is not the kind of power that we are used to seeing in the world

It is the power of resurrection

The power of forgiveness

The power of grace

The power of healing 

The power of creation 

The power of hope

The power of righteousness

It is the power that has nothing to fear from this world

That can only threaten death 

When we are a people or resurrection 

Alright – there’s plenty more to discuss here 

We’ll see where the Spirit leads us next week 

But we’ll call it a day here for now

Pray, this week, about the ways the Lord may be inviting you to invite the power of the Spirit

And release the power of the world

About ways that you may need to remember your baptism 

Both the unmaking 

The repentance

The death of the flesh

And the new creation 

The way of the Spirit 

The way of the wind

The breath

Pray about the ways that the Lord may be calling you to trust

To have faith 

To open yourself up to the true power of this world

The power of the Spirit of God