What if we still only had the baptism of John: A series of anomalies. Rev'd Wendy Gravolin Jan 12th 2015.
Acts 19:1-7 / Mark 1: 4-11
I came across a most fascinating anomaly this week. Did you know that according to the last census there are approximately 370 "adherents" to the Anglican faith living in Winchelsea?
If you don't remember this from school an anomaly is something that is incongruent or inconsistent, a difference, variance or a glitch and this week I seem to have found several anomalies. I don't know about you but I haven't met 370 Anglicans in Winchelsea. And if you take a quick look around you they certainly don't seem to be actually adhering to anything around here. But apparently we are the largest Christian denomination in Winchelsea, which does seem to me to be a bit of an anomaly.
It also makes me wonder just what it is that these people are "adhering to" and just who are these mysterious people who call themselves Anglicans? Perhaps the adhesive with which they "adhere” has become a bit weak!
Or just exactly what is it that these cultural Anglicans adhered themselves onto? Because it seems, that they really weren't adhering themselves to Christ as one of his disciples. Surely, Jesus' true obedient disciples would commit themselves to remaining as part of his body on earth; which is the church. Now I do know a few faithful Anglicans over in the nursing home that are just too frail to be with us each week. But what a strange group these mysterious "adhering Anglicans" represent, I would love to meet and welcome them back.
It seems that Paul came across another strange group of people when he made his visit to Ephesus that we heard about in our reading from Acts 19. Paul came across a mysterious group of 12 people who called themselves disciples. But there must have been some kind of an anomaly.
Perhaps it was something in their behavior like our own non-fellowshipping 'Anglican Adherents'. There must have been something
that had alerted Paul to discern that these so called "disciples" were not really disciples of Jesus at all. And so he slips them a couple of revealing questions, we see them in verses 2 and 3. First “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered no, but not just no, they honestly tell Paul. "We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” This answer they give reveals another anomaly about this group
as their answer is totally inconsistent with belief in Christ. When Christians come to faith in Christ and are baptised. God promises to give them the Holy Spirit. The indwelling Spirit is the mark of true faith.
And the Holy Spirit gives us our assurance of our salvation. He is what takes the words of scripture off the page and writes them in our hearts, bringing faith to life. So what has gone wrong here? You can almost hear Paul's astonishment. I imagine he might have had a quick internal conversation going something like this. ("Spirit less Disciples? It makes no sense it is nonsense! How is it possible that this group of disciples weren't given the Holy Spirit? Believers with no knowledge of Pentecost?
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit that gave birth to the church. How is that possible that they haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit?")
So Paul asked the second telling question, (v3) “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. Now the anomaly makes sense.
These are not Jesus' Disciples at all!
How John the Baptist's disciples ended up in Ephesus (in Turkey) we don't know. Perhaps some were forcibly moved while John was still alive
or were scattered after John was beheaded! We really don't know and probably shouldn't speculate! We know some of John's disciples, like Simon and Andrew became Jesus disciples very early in Jesus ministry (John 1:35-42). So one possibility is that these 12 devout God-fearing men are apparently genuine pre-Christian disciples of John the Baptist. Or and probably more likely their incomplete understanding might just be a consequence of Apollos' earlier misinformed teaching, that is before Priscilla and Aquila corrected him (Acts 18:24-28). What is painfully evident is that this group has a poor understanding of the gospel. So Paul goes onto teach them what they needed to know about Jesus.
Thinking about this, made me consider what we would have to offer if we still only had the message and baptism of John? See John the Baptist had a good and important ministry but his mission was to point people to Christ and prepare for his coming. John called people to repent, to change their ways, to rediscover God's values and get Israel ready for Jesus the Messiah. But even John acknowledged that he must decrease and Christ must increase. John's message was that, "The kingdom of God is near." He told people to get ready, repent & be baptised in water for the forgiveness of sins. John was the last Old Testament prophet. We know that God sent him, but his message had a definite use by date. It didn't have the power of the gospel like Jesus' ministry or even like Paul's ministry. John still preached a legalistic message you could summarize as, "Get your act together, clean yourself up, symbolically wash in this water then follow God's law and change your own life".
Thankfully we have a gospel of grace that offers us so much more than that! While John said, "The kingdom of God is near" Jesus announces the Kingdom of God is here. John says clean up your own act, start sharing, get caring and don't bully others, not a bad message, good values! But, if we still only had John the Baptist's message to offer today if we preached a message of legalistic righteousness, I could understand why so many people like those "adherent Anglicans", wouldn't bother coming to worship with us in Church. If our gospel was just about right values and earning God's favor it would be a burden too hard to bear! So Paul takes these disciples of John and he shows them why they should become disciples of Jesus Christ. After all John was pointing to the one who was to come and that was Jesus!
19: 4 Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”
John's repentance baptism was just in water. Water may be a good sign, but it takes much more than water to wash away our sins.
Something else I find a bit anomalous in the answers of John's disciples is how they could say they hadn't heard about the Holy Spirit. Surely this was a central part of John's message we certainly saw it in Marks account I read earlier from chapter 1:7,
Mark 1: 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
But then perhaps like many ministers since his days I shouldn't be too surprised when those who hear a message don't completely really get it and cling to their own bizarre notions. To illustrate this frequent occurrence, Tom Wright the English Bishop shared a rather amusing story in his Acts for Everyone Commentary Series (Tom Wright "Acts for Everyone: Part 2 Chapters 13-28, p111.), that having acknowledged I am sure he won't mind me sharing with you! Apparently there was an old lady in a church congregation who had some very strange possibly even anomalous ideas. Ideas she had clearly never been taught by any Bible teaching Christian minister. Each week this old lady came to church with her cat. When it came to Communion this dear but muddled lady would take her cat up to the communion rail. Every week when she was given the bread she would break her wafer in half and feed one half to her cat! Over and over and for years, successive ministers would challenge her and ask her not to do this but she always just looked at them and said. "But don't you realize my cat is the reincarnation of my late husband! I have to share my communion with him! I am certain and so was Tom that no Christian minister ever taught her that! Yet many people in churches adhere to many ideas that are unbiblical and inconsistent with being disciples of Jesus.
Sadly many people have a set of beliefs that have a lot more to do with a legalistic John the Baptist version of religion than with being disciple's of Christ. John's message was to get ready for the one who was to come he helped them see that they had a problem but he himself didn't have the power to set them free from that problem. If we are going to adhere to any message today lets adhere to the message that God sent his Son. His beloved and only Son, the one in whom he tells us he was well pleased. And that representative son, our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ offered up the one and only sufficient sacrifice for our sins. Without him we are lost eternally separated from God and without hope. But if we are in Christ we have forgiveness of sins because of his death on the cross, only his blood washes away our sin. John the Baptist died a martyr but his death didn't achieve our salvation! John the Baptist couldn't reconcile us to God because he wasn't God made flesh!
Forgiveness is through Jesus alone we can't earn it thankfully we don't need to earn it, it is a gift from God. He is the one who came to break oppression and set the prisoner free. We don't need to clean up our own act, before we come to him, we come to him and he does it all for us!
And significantly when we truly believe he marks us as his own by giving us the free gift of his Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit begins the work of transforming us into the image of the Father's beloved son. The indwelling Spirit assures us that we are God's children and gives us gifts to contribute to the empowering of Christ's body the church.
Jesus is the only one who has defeated death in his resurrection and he gives us his Holy Spirit. His Resurrection power is available to transform us now when we turn to him in faith.
Now I don't suppose any of you have bought a reincarnated cat with you to church today? No. Good! (Now you can never be too certain my own mother in her old age, took to bringing her dog to church. Which might shock any whose faith leans dangerously towards the legalistic side). But when you come up to the communion rail just bring your faith in Jesus that's all you need. Don't bring any other strange unbiblical ideas. Just bring your empty hands and come as you are. And certainly don't come up here with legalistic notions or misdirected hopes that aren't based on sticking to Christ. If you think you need to be good to earn God's favor, stop right where you are and start trusting Jesus, because without him you can never be good enough! Or if you think you have been good enough to have earned God's favor yourself, don't risk taking the bread! In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul warns us about unworthily drinking or eating God's judgment on ourselves.
When Paul had finished explaining the things about Jesus to this group of John's disciples our passage tell us,
5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all.
Lets pray for Spirit empowered opportunities to share the good news about Jesus with all of those 390 adherents of the Anglican faith in our little town and the rest of our region. So that they might see the superiority of adhering to Christ and becoming his disciples and so the Holy Spirit might come upon them and transform them, our community, nation and world.
Let us pray.
