The Holy Spirit in Baptism

Week 5 Lenten Devotions

Lent Day 26: Thursday March 18

Theme for the Week: Holy Baptism--Baptized We Live

Passage for the Day: Luke 3:21-22a

²¹ Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, ²² and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.

Reflection:

One of the things that I notice in this passage, is that Jesus is praying that the Holy Spirit descends on him. Not while he was being baptized, but while he was processing the entire event in prayer with God, his Father. It is while Jesus is in communication with God and open to the impact of this communication that Spirit comes down to him. We don’t know what Jesus was talking about with God, but we are privy to the answer—the descent of the Spirit. The Spirit is quite active in Luke’s Gospel, starting with the promise that John would be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, continuing with its role in Jesus’ conception, and its descent after Jesus’ baptism. It is the Spirit who leads Jesus around in the wilderness for 40 days. At his death on the cross, according to Luke’s account, Jesus gives up his Spirit. In Luke’s book of Acts, the Holy Spirit descends onto the disciples at Pentecost appearing as tongues of fire.

The Holy Spirit, in the event of Jesus’ baptism, has a bodily, presumably visible and touchable form. The form like a dove is reminiscent of the dove that Noah sent out to check if the flood had ended. The dove guided Noah and his family by revealing when it was safe to leave the ark. The only reference to a dove in the New Testament is in all four Gospel writers’ accounts of Jesus’ baptism. The dove, whether seen only by Jesus and/or John or by all the people present, is the means by which God chose to signal the presence of the Holy Spirit with Jesus. This is the same Holy Spirit who enters into each one of us at our baptisms and in whose name we are baptized. This is the same Holy Spirit that Jesus sent to us to guide us and to advocate for us for all time.

Prayer Themes:

Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pray that I may be able to sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. Pray that I will listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Pray for the presence of the Spirit in the lives of people who have become estranged from God.