Have you ever wondered what St. John the Baptist meant when he declared in today’s scripture about Christ: “I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.” St John was talking about the uniqueness of Jesus’s baptism of the Holy Spirit in contrast to his own baptism of repentance. St. John was a humble man who fully recognized the limitations of his baptism with water that invited people to change through external acts of repentance, like washing in the river Jordan, but it could not change the human heart or the human spirit. Only the baptism of Christ can do this because Christ’s baptism gives us a new spirit, the Holy Spirit. This baptism of the Holy Spirit has the power to overcome the limitations of the human spirit, to change our attitudes, and to make us more Christ-like in our behavior. It has the power to make us more than we are. To appreciate the distinction between John’s external baptism of repentance and Jesus’s baptism of the Holy Spirit is to understand the uniqueness of Jesus’s perfect gift of salvation. Jesus’s baptism can change hearts and overcome the roots of sin that prevent us from entering into union with Him.

In Okeechobee, Florida, where I served as pastor for thirty years, there is a maximum security prison. Each year, a group of Christian men, called Kairos, gives a retreat to the inmates. I participated in several of these retreats. They are the real thing and I was a witness to the inner change that was being wrought in the lives of the prisoners. It was truly remarkable, if not miraculous. It is well known that when inmates are released from prison, many of them end up back in prison. Keeping the rules does not, in itself, guarantee rehabilitation of prisoners and that’s why the recidivism rate is so high. The experience of those inmates who participated in the Kairos retreats was the opposite. The recidivism rate dropped to zero. Why? The change that was wrought in the lives of the inmates was not external. It was internal. The inmates found the key to their rehabilitation, not in rules geared to punish and control, but in the power of Jesus to heal them from within. I’ll never forget what one of the inmates said to me: “If only I had known this earlier, I would not have ended up in here.” He made this remark during one of our group sessions, and it was obvious he was talking for the others as well.

In the Gospel, Jesus says: “unless you repent, you will perish.” (Luke 13:3) But, real repentance starts from within. It comes from a change of heart or attitude that will determine what you do, and, if your heart is in the right place, your actions will bear good fruit. If your heart is in the wrong place, your actions will produce bad fruit. For example, if you are a greedy person, you will do anything to get your own way even if that means harming or destroying others or spreading lies and slander about those you perceive as obstacles to your goals. You need to pluck out greed from within yourself if you wish to follow Christ. Some people think this is acceptable in a competitive culture where winning by any means is touted as success. And so they say: “nothing succeeds like success.” But, is that success if you succeed without integrity? Jesus reminds us of this when he states that “all evil acts come from the deep recesses of the human soul,” from attitudes of hatred, pride, greed, and so forth. To live the baptism of Christ, to follow His example, is to be prepared to abandon those bad attitudes we are born with and to replace them with the attitudes of Christ in the gospel.

You cannot put new wine into old wines-skins, Jesus tells us, for the new wine will burst the old wines-skins. (Mark 2:21-22) In the same way, you cannot possess the Holy Spirit (the new wine of Christ) if you cling to, rather than abandon, selfish attitudes. You must repent of the old in order to put on the new.

A healthy Christian attitude is the best thing you have going for you. So, make it your special project to let go of anything that prevents you from possessing the attitude of Christ which is the Holy Spirit. Without the baptism of the Holy Spirit, how can you possess the kingdom of God within you?

—Fr. Hugh Duffy