Acts 19: 1-6a

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them . . .

Sermon Text

"I've got that old time religion in my heart," sings Iris Dement, whose CD I just received by mail from California from John Wilson, a high school buddy of mine, whose basement even way back then was crammed with field recordings of folk music. "I've got that old time religion in my heart," Iris sings; "it's way deep inside. I've got that new kind of feeling in my heart, real love abides."

These words describe very well what finally happened to the followers of Jesus whom Paul met in Ephesus. When Paul first spoke to them he asked, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you were baptized? And they said, "Huh? What's that?" Paul was flabbergasted. "What? You haven't heard of the Holy Spirit? Into what then were you baptized?" And they replied, "We were baptized by John."

Now, this passage is one of several in the gospels and the book of Acts which reveals that some disciples of Jesus were jealous and suspicious of disciples of John the Baptist, because John's disciples were using baptism as a means of urging people to repent, (and that was good, of course) but evidently they were not explaining to people that baptism is about opening yourself to the Spirit that was in Jesus, that is, the Holy Spirit. Baptism is about opening yourself wide open and letting that Spirit go way deep inside.

That's why Paul asked the disciples in Ephesus into what they had been baptized. He wanted to know: Did they understand baptism simply as a self-dedication ritual, something you did to show God that you were turning over a new leaf? Or, did they understand baptism as something wilder than that?

I use the word, "wilder," considerately. The Bible quotes John the Baptist saying, "I baptize you with water, but the one who is coming after me will baptize you with fire!" Maybe John was just a fire and brimstone agitator using fear as a motivator: better get your act together, or you'll be toast! Maybe. But, another way of interpreting his saying is through the hindsight of Pentecost, when tongues of fire danced on the heads of the disciples of Jesus, conferring upon them strange and wonderful gifts. In other words, perhaps John meant more by his talk of fire than destruction. Maybe he meant dynamism, wild dynamism. When you decide to become baptized by the same Spirit that was in Jesus, you're doing much more than taking a step away from evil and toward good. You're subjecting yourself to a wild ride, for the Spirit blows where it wills, not where you will. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus certainly had nothing to do with his self-determination to change for the better. He was seized by the Spirit of Jesus. That Spirit got deep down inside him and changed him radically. He did things afterwards that he never could have predicted, things that he had no intention of doing before.

"Into what have you been baptized?" Paul asked those naīve disciples in Ephesus. Baptism by the Holy Spirit is not simply a baptism of repentance. Some people do seem to be able to take a step on their own toward the good, and that is a terrific self-improvement, but it is not the same as baptism by the Spirit. Paul knew that because of his own experience, and he wanted his fellow Christians to experience more, much more. He wrote to other Christians in Ephesus:

"I pray that, according to the riches of God's glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God?s Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

"I've got that old time religion in my heart," Iris sings. "It's way deep inside. I've got that new kind of feeling in my heart. Real love abides." She understands. She and Paul are talking about the same thing.

So, how do you get this old time religion, this new feeling, way deep inside? The answer is: One asks. Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." That sounds so exasperatingly simple. Maybe you've been looking yourself, and still haven't found. Maybe you're thinking that you must not have been seeking in the right way. But Jesus didn't say that there was a right way to look, a right way to ask. He just said ask, seek.

I'm a lover of sea tales. Last week I downloaded one written by an obscure author, C. K. Ober, who was a dory fisherman in the age of sail. He got caught once in a fog bank off the coast of Connecticut. He and his buddy were adrift with no provisions for ten days. At the end of that ordeal, Ober, who was not a Christian, had a feeling that something or someone was calling him to row in a certain direction. He followed this strange urging. He rowed and rowed in that direction until he could barely sit up anymore. Just as he was about to collapse into the bilge, the fog lifted, and there on the horizon was a fishing ship at anchor--salvation!

Months after this miraculous escape from death, Ober went back to life as usual. He paid little attention to the daily urgings which, you could say, were still urging him go in a certain direction. He paid them little attention, you see, because he was safe and sound now. He wasn't hungry anymore. He wasn't searching anymore. But then, he met someone, a Christian, whom he deeply admired. He saw something in that friend that he wanted for himself, but he couldn't figure out how to get it. The friend told him that he needed to pray, and pray some more. The gift he was seeking would surely come.

Let me finish my sermon with Ober's own words:

I was weary with the effort, and as I thought it over, I said to myself "What are you trying to do?" and the answer was, "I am trying to be a Christian." Then it dawned upon me that trying was not _trusting_; that, if I succeeded in my effort, I should have only a self-made product and not the religion of the Bible and that it was unreasonable for me to expect the results of faith before exercising faith itself . . . I thought of my experience on the ocean, when finally, helpless to help myself, I had left my whole problem with the Pilot and He had taken command and brought us through to safety, and so I deliberately gave up the struggle and said to myself, "It is right for me to serve God and to live for Him, and I will do it whether I have what they call an 'experience' or not." And, having settled the question, I dismissed it and waited for instructions.

And then something happened, for, from without, surprising me with its presence, like the discovery of a welcome but unexpected guest, there came into my life a deep, great, overflowing peace. I had never known it before, and therefore I could not by any possibility have imagined it; but I recognized it as something from God. It was not sensational, it came quietly; as quietly "as the daylight comes when the night is done." It was not emotional, unless it was in itself an emotion. But emotions are transient and this had come to stay . . .

With this deep incoming tide of peace and power came a clearing of the mental atmosphere, and I saw that the fog had lifted. When I saw this, I said to myself quietly, "I think I am a Christian," and almost immediately added, "I am a Christian!"

The fog had passed, and the drifting was over; I had come within sight of land. What land it was I did not then know, but it proved to be a new world. How great it is I do not yet fully understand, but I have been exploring it thirty years and I think it is a continent.