Ac 19:1-7
12 January 2003
Baptism of the Lord
“Wait! There’s More!”
Have you ever watched an infomercial on television? And when I say “watched,” I don’t mean just glanced at it before changing the channel to something more worthwhile. If you don’t see the beginning of the thing, you might mistake it for a documentary or some investigative journalism, maybe even an interview. But soon it becomes all too clear that somebody’s trying to sell you something.
Often, there’s the character who poses as the disbelieving customer. “Well, that’s all very nice, but it must cost a hundred dollars!” The smooth-talking host then seeks to allay all fear: “Wrong you are, my friend. This gold-plated whatchamacallit can be yours for not $100, not $75, not even $50, but for $29.95!” At this point, the studio audience immediately erupts into applause.
But even that’s not good enough. “Wait! There’s more! Not only do you get the gold-plated whatchamacallit, but you get the matching set of thingamajigs and a year’s supply of doohickeys!” The disbelieving customer no longer disbelieves. In fact, there may be a spot for this customer in the next infomercial—during the testimonial time. “That gold-plated whatchamacallit has changed my life! I feel like a person again! And you know, those doohickeys make great gifts!”
I’ve given you a rather foolish example of how something can carry with it an unexpected bonus. In this case, it’s the gold-plated whatchamacallit, which carries with it the matching set of thingamajigs and year’s supply of doohickeys. Fortunately, not all cases of, “Wait! There’s more!”, are at such a trivial level. Today’s epistle reading gives us a look at a very meaningful case.
Today, the first Sunday after Epiphany, carries with it the theme of the baptism of Jesus, as we see in our gospel reading in Mark. Along with the visit of the Magi, it’s a second theme of Epiphany. The third is Jesus’ turning the water into wine at Cana. Remember the meaning of “epiphany”: “appearance” or “manifestation.” In all three cases, Jesus is manifested to the world. Epiphany says that the light of Christ extends beyond Israel to all the Gentiles. But our focus today is on baptism. That’s why we have this interesting story from the book of Acts. The apostle Paul encounters some Ephesians who present him with a bit of a problem.
Soon after the beginning of what’s usually called the third missionary voyage of Paul, he comes to Ephesus, which is on the west coast of modern-day Turkey. There he meets “some disciples,” “about twelve” in number (vv. 1, 7). When Paul asks them if they received the Holy Spirit when they became believers, they give him this odd answer: “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (v. 2). This does seem a bit hard to believe. Even a casual reader of the Old Testament would have been familiar with the existence of the Holy Spirit. Are they really saying that they’ve never even heard of the Spirit?
One solution is offered by a tiny number of manuscripts of the book of Acts that remove the word “is” (estin, estin) and insert the words “people are receiving” (lambanousin tine", lambanousin tines). The result would be, “We have not even heard whether people are receiving the Holy Spirit.” Maybe there’s a sense of that in what these disciples are saying. But the fact that the overwhelming majority of manuscripts have the more difficult reading suggests that somewhere along the line, during the centuries of copying manuscripts by hand, someone may have been too uncomfortable with the verse and made it a little easier to accept.
A better place to look for the answer is by looking at the next few verses. Paul asks these Ephesian disciples about their baptism, and they respond that they’ve received John’s baptism. The apostle informs them that John the Baptist performed a baptism of repentance, preparing the way for the Messiah, Jesus.
Having been more fully educated, they submit to baptism “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” as verse 5 puts it. And it’s at this point that the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and they speak in tongues and prophesy. (More about that in a moment.) The point right now is that they haven’t experienced the Holy Spirit with baptism. They know about a baptism of repentance, but in this whole question of baptism, as they tell Paul, “we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” They don’t know that there’s a link between the two. This is Paul’s way of saying, “Wait! There’s more!”
But what is that? What is there in baptism beyond repentance? Well, we’ve already heard it—the Holy Spirit. And these disciples display an outward sign when the Spirit comes upon them—they speak in tongues and prophesy. At least once in my life, I’ve seen someone speak in tongues just after being baptized. (Of course, I was in a Pentecostal church at the time!)
But even when there is no ecstatic utterance—no charismatic gift manifested—as there isn’t most of the time, the Holy Spirit is nonetheless given in Christian baptism. 1 Corinthians 12:13 tells us that “in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
While all this is going on, there’s a figure lingering in the background, a figure that might explain how it is that believers who know only John’s baptism could exist in the first place. At the beginning of the chapter, we see that Paul comes to Ephesus while Apollos is in Corinth. That’s Apollos, not to be confused with Apollo, the Greek god, or Apolo Ohno, the American speed skater!
To find out who Apollos is, we need to look at the last five verses of chapter 18. We learn from verse 24 that he comes to Ephesus from Alexandria, which is in Egypt. It was the home of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the library of Alexandria—at least, until it was destroyed by fire. Anyway, Apollos is described as “an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures” and a fiery preacher, well-accomplished in what was called the art of rhetoric.
There’s just one problem, though: he knows only of the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila, that first-century clergy couple, recognize this deficiency in Apollos’ theology. And as verse 26 puts it, they take “him aside and [explain] the Way of God to him more accurately.” Afterwards, he wants to go to Achaia, the province in Greece where Corinth is located. So the church sends him on, complete with letters of recommendation.
There’s the possibility, at least, that the disciples Paul encounters at the start of chapter 19 are the result of Apollos’ teaching. Luke, the writer of Acts, certainly leaves that impression. In any event, the disciples Paul meets move from the baptism of John to baptism in the name of Jesus. I think it’s safe to say that Apollos makes the same movement, probably after the meeting with Priscilla and Aquila. They all move into a deeper experience of the Spirit.
Another way of understanding the experience of the Holy Spirit the disciples have is by visualizing a journey…or an entrance into a majestic realm. Stopping at repentance and not continuing into the depths of the Spirit would be like halting at the edge of a lush oasis in the desert—not enjoying the wonderful scent, the delicious fruit, the refreshing water of the garden within. Or like having front row tickets to a play or a playoff basketball game and staying in the lobby, trying to follow what’s going on way down there by looking through the doorway.
In reality, repentance means that we will go forward. There’s really no standing still in the spiritual life. Dead things remain still. We can be as accomplished as Apollos, doing truly great things. We can be like the disciples Paul encounters, numbering as they do at “about twelve,” like the twelve apostles. We can be at any level of experience in the Spirit of God, and there still remains the voice saying, “Wait! There’s more!”
In a few moments, we as a congregation will reaffirm our baptismal covenant. That’s the covenant—the bond, the promise, the contract—that’s made between ourselves and God, and among each other, at baptism. Whether we’re baptized as infants, or at age 21, as I was, we begin a relationship. And like any relationship, if we want it to flourish, we can’t neglect the other party.
There’s an interactive part of reaffirming the covenant called the “renunciations.” I’m reminded of the classic scene in “The Godfather” in which Al Pacino, playing Michael Corleone, attends the baptism of his sister’s son. He’s standing in as the baby’s godfather. As the priest is asking him if he renounces Satan and all his works (to which he agrees), the scene keeps switching from the church to various enemies of the family meeting violent ends. (By the way, our Presbyterian liturgy doesn’t mention Satan by name!) Anyway, we go from the waters of baptism to some guy getting strangled or shot. I trust that no one here has some hitmen taking care of business even as I speak!
Michael Corleone, besides being guilty of insincerity during baptismal vows, as well as murder, is guilty of something else. It’s something I spoke about last Wednesday night—one of the seven deadly sins of the medieval church: sloth. It comes from the Latin word acedia, which literally means “without care / caring.” It’s a dangerous illness of the spirit.
We tend to think of sloth as laziness, but as Kathleen Norris reminds us, it’s “much more than laziness. It is an inability to concentrate on serious matters, and profound weariness of soul.” In some ways similar to despair, sloth prevents us from caring about what really matters. Norris goes on, “As a Benedictine oblate, I should take sloth seriously, for at the very beginning of his Rule Benedict asserts that it is only when we give up ‘the sloth of disobedience’ that we can begin turning to Christ.”[1]
When confronted with evil running rampant, with broken-hearted people, here’s the reply of sloth: “Who cares?” When confronted with the reaffirmation of our baptismal vows, sloth yawns and responds, “Okay yeah, whatever.” We can chose between the voice of sloth and the voice that says, “Wait! There’s more!”
A good way to do that is to remember the power of one. Our Moderator, Fahed Abu-Akel, has been suggesting a way to double the size of the PC(USA) by Pentecost. If everyone brings just one person to church, that would do it!
One person can change a life. One person—one church—can be the voice that says, “Wait! There’s more!”