Anticipation
Posted on Jan 06, 2025 by Shari Van Baale
We are about a week into 2025. As with every new calendar year, I find myself filled with anticipation. I can’t help but wonder what the year will hold. Will I look back on it next December fondly, fearfully, angrily, or a mixture of all three?
At the beginning of the year, just like in this week’s Gospel reading, we are filled with anticipation and the unknown. We will celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord at this Sunday’s worship service.
As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’
Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)
You might recall that I wrote about the threshing floor and unquenchable fire in my last Staff Trax. (CLICK HERE to read it.) We did have parts of this Gospel reading on Dec. 15. Back then we read Luke 3:7-18, whereas this week we read Luke 3:15-17, 21-22. So the end of that reading is the beginning of his week’s reading.
This week we begin on a much happier note. The Gospel on Dec. 15 started with John calling the crowd a “brood of vipers.” This week we start with the crowd full of expectation and awaiting the Messiah. They were hopeful, wondering if John was the One they have been waiting for.
This week’s Gospel has beautiful imagery at the end, with the heavens opening and the Holy Spirit descending like a dove.
I don’t know about you, but I feel much more at peace at the end of this reading rather than the one on Dec. 15. The crowd witnesses the baptism of Jesus and immediately after is when Jesus goes into the wilderness for 40 days to be tested by the devil.
After he is baptized, Jesus doesn’t sit around, wondering and anticipating what will happen next. The Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to test his faith right away.
When people are baptized not as babies but older children, teens, or even adults, a lot of the time they, too, are filled with the Holy Spirit and eager to tell others about the Gospel. When you are baptized — no matter what age you are — you are filled with the Holy Spirit as Jesus was. The angels sing and rejoice in heaven and the Holy Spirit comes upon you, though you might not see it as plainly as in this week’s Gospel.
Baptism can fill you with anticipation for what is next, eager to see what God will do in your life. When you celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord at this Sunday’s worship service and renew your baptism, it is like the new year. You have new life in Christ, all of your sins are erased and you are washed clean again.
Shari Van Baale
Salem Communications Coordinator