Today’s chapter is Luke 3

Tom writes:

The message John the Baptiser brought was astonishingly powerful. It shows us the fundamentals of the message of the Kingdom. John headlined with in-your-face demands for repentance. John looked at people’s census responses, John looked at people’s bible reading plans, John heard people talking about their Christian heritage... and he spat half-digested locusts on them. “That isn’t enough” he cried, “you can’t just claim a Christian inheritance or copy certain Christian practices; you have to be cut to the heart, you have to want to kill the sin in you and to live a new life for God.” This was an unadulterated demand to be baptised in the Spirit or to face the coming wrath. Talk about being beaten with a winnowing stick! But John didn’t stop there. He had got in people’s faces once but then he went and got in their faces a whole nother time. He pointed at his hearers and called them serpents and he pointed at the stones and called them children. He railed against the idea that you could presume others out of the kingdom; citizenship was through God’s work alone. God could make citizens out of some ancient pieces of rock if he wanted to and so he could certainly make them out of Gentiles too. Any hint of excluding others from God’s favour just because of their upbringing would make John bite like a camel. So we see in John’s message the mega-themes of the Kingdom; life-change empowered by the Holy Spirit and the mercy of God being poured out on all the nations.

The Kingdom is a life of generosity and integrity only possible with Holy Spirit. And the Kingdom is a life of explicit openness to the whole people of the world. Oh how I want those Kingdom themes to define my life. How does that happen? Luke is keen to show that it doesn’t come by us listening to great preachers. Like a mallet that is used by a chef to tenderise the steak and then is put back into the drawer, John is swiftly sidelined from the narrative. Jesus is left front and centre; the Son who is deeply loved by God. It is only by being baptised by him in his Spirit that we can even begin to live a truly Kingdom Life. So if you want to live a life of generosity and integrity and see a global impact flow out of your fingers, nothing matters more than you coming to the Son.

Question for reflection

Do you feel like Jesus has baptised you with his Spirit?

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Luke 3 - Wednesday 3rd January