Leopoldo Sánchez on Preaching the Holy Spirit at Advent and Christmas

Leopoldo A. Sánchez is professor of Hispanic ministries and systematic theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. His many academic interests include pneumatology (Holy Spirit), Spirit Christology, and Global South Christianity. He also plays double bass in the St. Louis Civic Orchestra. Sánchez’s most recent books are T & T Clark Introduction to Spirit Christology (2021) and Sculptor Spirit: Models of Sanctification from Spirit Christology (2019). In this edited conversation, he explains how highlighting the Holy Spirit during Advent and Christmas can help us become more like Christ.

Why do you want to highlight the Holy Spirit’s role in Advent and Christmas?

We often tend to see Bible stories about Jesus’ conception and birth as events that happened long ago. Sermons about Christ’s life often implore us to be more like Christ. But when preachers ask, “What is the Holy Spirit inviting us into in this passage about Christ?,” something special happens.

Instead of trying so hard on our own to be like him, we can remember that Jesus, the bearer of the Spirit, generously gives us the Spirit. Raising the Spirit’s profile in worship reminds us that we can ask the Holy Spirit to come into our lives to shape in us the virtues of faith, service, sacrificial giving, and hospitality. I want to highlight that not only during Advent and Christmas but also throughout the church year.

How does the lectionary reveal the Holy Spirit’s at work during Advent and Christmas? 

Many Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions use a three-year lectionary of prescribed weekly Sunday scripture readings that center on the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for Advent and Christmas has some explicit references to the Holy Spirit. Preachers can easily highlight those texts in preaching and teaching. For example, Year C Advent 3 includes Luke 3:7-18, where John says, "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."

The text draws the distinction between John and Jesus, as well as their baptisms—the former is preparatory and the latter its fulfillment. The text also shows that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire, where fire can be seen as signaling the Spirit's work of burning (judgment) and purifying (cleansing), both convicting of sin and cleansing from sin.​

Are all Holy Spirit references so obvious in the lectionary?

No. Some RCL references to the Spirit’s work are implicit. But preachers can make these more explicit by drawing from the broader context of the narrative or other assigned Advent texts that align with the Spirit's work. For example, Year C Advent 1 includes God's eschatological promise of salvation to his people in Jeremiah 33:14-16, which includes this reference: "In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land."

The preacher will know from Isaiah 11 that the righteous Branch of Jesse, from the house of David, is the Messiah who has the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom, and so on. The text can show that Jesus bears the fullness of the Spirit and gifts to accomplish God's salvation.

Your Sculptor Spirit book talks about how we can participate in Jesus’ life as much as humanly possible. Please give an example of this from a “Holy Spirit at Christmas” lens.

In the texts above, Luke 3:7-18 invites us to share in Jesus' life of proclamation, since he, like John the Baptist before him (and the apostles and evangelists after him), also preached a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is a participation in Jesus' speaking of the Word in or by the Spirit. For Luke, this is a convicting word that leads to repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins. It also bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Jeremiah 33 invites us to share in Jesus' Spirit and gifts, so that we make use of his Spirit's wisdom and bear witness to God's salvation through his Davidic Messiah.

There is continuity and discontinuity in making the move towards participation. Jesus alone bears the Spirit and baptizes with the Spirit to save us. We are not saviors like Jesus is our Savior. But we receive his Spirit by the grace of adoption so that, in our God-given vocations and callings, the Spirit can empower us with his gifts to bear witness to God's salvation in Word and deed.

Jesus alone bears the Spirit and baptizes with the Spirit to save us. We are not saviors like Jesus is our Savior.

Can you give another explicit example of the Holy Spirit’s work at Christmas? 

Let's turn to Christmas season in Year C, where the Holy Name of Jesus is celebrated. Galatians 4:4-7 is explicitly pneumatological and attributes our adoption as God's children to the Holy Spirit. "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'” This is also the prayer of Jesus at Gethsemane. He prays to the Father in the Spirit, "Not my will, but yours be done." We share in Jesus' sonship by the Spirit.

We also have continuity and discontinuity here. Jesus is the Son of God by nature. He has the Spirit as "his own Spirit," as some church fathers used to say, because he is one with the Father and the Spirit by nature. We, on the other hand, share in his sonship through adoption or by grace. Through the sign of baptism, we share in the "name” of Jesus. We are baptized in the "name" that blesses us, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and this brings us into a relationship with the Father through the Son in the Spirit. 

And another implicit example?

A less explicit pneumatological text for the same occasion is Philippians 2:5-11, where Paul exhorts us to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. Just before that lection, Philippians 2:1-2 notes that having the mind of Christ is a way of participating in the Spirit! For Jesus, this means that he was anointed with the Spirit at his baptism for his mission as the Suffering Servant. In the text, this means that Christ took on the form of the Servant even unto death. This is the text’s Christological meaning.

The meaning for us, the church, is that the Spirit shapes us in the likeness of Christ the Servant, so that we participate in his Spirit when we take on the attitude of service. We also share in the exaltation of Jesus. His exaltation manifests that he has the name above every name. As members of Christ’s body, his church, we share in his exaltation through the bodily resurrection. To bear the name of Jesus as his disciple means sharing in his death and resurrection, his suffering and exaltation. 

Besides sermons, how else can preachers and worship planners focus worshipers’ attention on the Holy Spirit’s work at Christmas?

I recommend consulting the Vanderbilt University's RCL website because it has resources such as prayers and artwork for all Sunday lectionary readings. Also, look around your church's sanctuary, closets, and basement. See if there are banners, artwork, stained glass windows, a baptismal font, or something else already in place that could be used as a pedagogical tool for highlighting the Spirit's role in Advent/Christmas.

Sing classic hymns such as “Creator Spirit, by Whose Aid,” various “Come, Holy Spirit” versions, or Christmas canticles that highlight the Spirit’s work through Mary, Elizabeth, the angels, Zechariah, and Simeon.

As a professor of Hispanic ministry, I have many students whose churches host a traditional Las Posadas, a drama about the Holy Family looking for a posada (inn) for the child. Pilgrims accompany the Holy Family, knocking on doors at many inns. It is a story of rejection, faith, and hospitality. I imagine that you could liturgically adapt Las Posadas to bring out the Spirit’s role in turning innkeepers and unwelcoming persons from rejecting Jesus to welcoming him in by faith. The Spirit opens our eyes to see God's salvation in Jesus. The Spirit also leads us to repentance for rejecting strangers (pilgrims) who, like the Holy Family, seek welcome in our homes and hearts, in our churches and communities.