Skip to main content

Pentecost Power

In the Western Christian tradition, Pentecost marks the reception of the Spirit by Jesus' disciples following His ascension. He had told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, which would include power. Jesus had told them that He would go to the Father but that He would not leave them as orphans. Rather when He had gone, He would send the Spirit who would remind them, empower them, and give them words to say when they needed them.

Once they had received the Spirit, they were to be His witnesses and messengers to the entire world. This then is often considered the beginning of he church, but it isn't really. He church, or the called out people of God, had been in existence for sometime. Rather, this day is the empowering of the disciples to now fully and boldly proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God to all comers, and to take the message to all peoples.

Part of the church's mission is to tell the world of the Life God wants for them, secured and exampled by Jesus. This message is to be proclaimed not in a truncated, even if accurate, "Jesus died for you" message, but a message that includes the blessings available right now. This is no pie in the sky message but one that assets that God has broken into our reality not with just a message but with Life.

This message though must be proclaimed by people who are living that Life as the called out people of God. A people who are living the blessing they seek to lure others toward. Jesus will tell them that people will know that they and we are experiencing the Life we tout by our love for one another. It will be apparent to ourselves when we can look at ourselves and our group and find the fruit of the Spirit in ourselves and each other.

That empowering then is not just so we will know what to say when in front of magistrates, but so that we can become lovers of each other and of the same things that God loves. And what does God love, but the world. We are then charged with loving each other, which can be difficult on its own, but we are also called to love those outside our group as well - all those sinners our God loves but we try to avoid.

Pentecost reminds us then that God has empowered us to be lovers of people. We don't have the option of saying that we just can't love that person because off what they have done, or the Life they are living. We can't say that because God has empowered us to do just that - love them.

On this Pentecost then, let's remember the coming off the Spirit, yes, but let us admit that the Spirit is given for a reason. Let's accept our charge to both tell and live a life of love and so entice each other and outsiders to accept the Life God offers.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wineskins II

       In chapter 16 of Matthew, Peter ‘makes the great confession’ - Jesus he says is the Son of the Living God. At Covenant, when someone wants to become a member or to be baptized, we ask them who Jesus is and we expect this response. Peter is correct when he says this, but it is not clear that Peter (or the other disciples) understood the ramifications of his statement. Following Peter’s statement we find a series of incidents that make us wonder just how much Peters actually believed what he had said.      In the first instance, Jesus compares Peter to Satan. Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem and there he will die. Peter exclaims that he will not let that happen; Jesus will not be killed. Peter is expecting great things from Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God on behalf of Israel and he cannot fit Jesus dying into his hope for a greater Israel under this Messiah. This cannot happen, he reasons. Jesus’s response is a harsh re...

Freewheeling

Merton never disappoints. Here's an excerpt from "Love and Living," a collection of individual writings collected after his death in 1968: "Life consists in learning to live on one's own, spontaneous, freewheeling; to do this one must recognize what is one's own—be familiar and at home with oneself. This means basically learning who one is, and learning what one has to offer to the contemporary world, and then learning how to make that offering valid." This short passage is pregnant with meaning and spiritual insight (would we expect anything less?). Let's start with the last few words: "…make that offering valid." The offering of ourselves, of our lives is our calling. We offer ourselves to assist the re-creation of Creation; the reconciling of Man to God. The validity of our offering is measured in how closely we mirror the work of God; to what extent our motivations are based on knowing who we are rather than a slavish obedience to p...

Wineskins

  Jesus comes from the Wilderness where the Spirit has driven him for testing, announcing the imminent coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. His message to the crowds calls them to repent because the “Kingdom is at hand.” The kingdom or the effective rule of God has come upon Israel and Israel’s expected response is to return to her God. A number of passages tell us the sorts of things God has against Israel or at least her leaders. They have the form of the People of God, but not the substance. He will call those opposed to him “white-washed tombs” to describe their religious and moral corruption. They look good but are dead. He calls these people to repentance, to return to “their first love,” to actually live as though they are the People of God. In another place, he will tell them that while they do well to tithe mint and cumin, they have missed the larger point of caring for people. In the judgment scene, he describes sending into a place of gnashing of teeth those who failed to gi...