This coming Sunday in the Baptism of the Lord. In our celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, we draw an excerpt from the Gospel of Luke (3:15-16, 21-22) which describes, in quite succinct terms, the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.

¹⁵ Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah.

In describing the expectation of the people, Luke is characterizing the time of John’s preaching in the same way as he had earlier described the situation of other devout Israelites in the infancy narrative. In Luke 3:7-14 Luke presents the preaching of John the Baptist who urges the crowds to reform in view of the coming wrath, and who offers the crowds solutions to their cries, “What should we do?” His responses always center on reforming their social conduct, not as an end to itself, but as evidence of their repentance. It all builds to their wondering if John might indeed be the Messiah. Yet John’s response steers them in a different direction.

 ¹⁶ John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire…….

[verse part of the text, but not the Sunday gospel] “His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but ‘the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.” (v.17-18)

With little other introduction and no indication that Jesus had been among the crowd or that John had seen him, we are simply told:

 ²¹ After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened ²² and the holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

There are two unique aspects to these few verses. You might have noted that Luke has no description of Jesus coming out of the water. In an element of the baptismal account found only in Luke we find Jesus in prayer. Luke will regularly presents Jesus at prayer at important points in his ministry: here at his baptism; at the choice of the Twelve (6:12); before Peter’s confession (9:18); at the transfiguration (9:28); when he teaches his disciples to pray (11:1); at the Last Supper (22:32); on the Mount of Olives (22:41); on the cross (23:46).  Notably, the description here is  similar to the transfiguration (9:28) in the revelatory nature/result of prayer.

The “heaven was opened.” Does Luke intend to imply anything more than as a means for the “coming down of the Spirit” and so that the “voice from heaven” might be clearly heard. 

In one way, heaven was opened earlier in the Nativity scenes when the “multitude of the heavenly hosts” appear and praise God and then return to heaven (2:13, 15). 

The next time “heaven” is used following our current text is in Chapter 4, which is part of Jesus’ sermon in the Nazareth synagogue. Then, Jesus makes reference to the time of Elijah “when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land.” If the “shutting up of heaven” resulted in famine and all that goes along with that: hunger, sickness, death; could not the “opening of heaven” symbolize the coming of plenty, health, and life? The same word for “opening” (anoigo) is used in some manuscripts of the Nazareth synagogue scene. Jesus opens the scroll, reading from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” (Luke 4:18)

Each scene connects an “opening” (heaven, Word of God) resulting in the presence of the Spirit (descended, anointed) – each scene allowing God to make a declaration about Jesus.

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Image credit: Baptism of Christ |Pietro Perugino, 1482 | Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | PD-US