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Spirit Takes Center Stage

As I return to my close consideration of scripture after a month of work re-locating our residence to a home in southern Wisconsin I am thinking about the acts of the apostles following the ascension of Jesus. Consequently, I am back to the subject of the Holy Spirit. And perhaps for the first time I am coming to a new understanding of the connection between the Christ and the Holy Spirit, reflecting together a sea change in God’s relationship with humanity.

Back in January I wrote three blogs concerning spirit in scripture. I think I have a handle on it for my own life. But in reading Acts again this past month, I am beginning to understand more fully God’s reconciliation with the human condition God created. While the book is entitled The Acts of the Apostles, the protagonist is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in the stories of Acts is not simply that elusive pneuma (breath, wind, spirit) that warms the heart in some inexplicable manner that signals the presence of God. No, this Holy Spirit is a different kettle of fish altogether. John reports in his Gospel that Jesus foretold the coming, at his request after his departure, of an Advocate or Helper, to be with us forever (Jn. 14:16). Jesus likened this Helper (parakletos in Greek) to a Spirit (pneuma) of Faithfulness (Jn. 14:17). Jesus told his disciples that God was going to act as their helper through God’s Spirit.

Then what happened? Again, you cannot make this up. Luke reports that God waited until the first big festival day after the ascension of the Son, a time when Jerusalem would be filled with Jews from all reaches of the Roman Empire. God had given a law to the Israelites instructing them to bring offerings from the spring harvest on the fiftieth day after the seventh sabbath following the Passover sabbath (Lev. 23:15-16). On that day in Jerusalem, God acted through God’s Spirit to fill the disciples and their colleagues with the power to speak in all the languages of the empire and caused them to speak of God’s “deeds of power.” (Acts 2: 1-12). These acts of the apostles on this day would have the maximum impact, but they were not planned by the apostles. God was the protagonist providing through the Holy Spirit the words and language of advocacy to the apostles and giving Peter scripture to quote in his speech to the crowd (Acts 2:14-36). God chose the day and the hour to act. Christians celebrate this day as Pentecost.

Seems to me this day we call Pentecost is the day God communicated to all the Jewish people in Jerusalem God’s continuing presence among the disciples of the Son. God acted in no uncertain terms, showing clearly to all that God would provide help through God’s Spirit to those mortals who would carry to all humanity the message of the Son, Immanuel, God with us. Seems to me the great sea change is God’s commitment forever to provide God’s Spirit to help each of us better understand God through the message of the Son. Where would we be if we had only the history of Jesus as a one time event without the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit? Isn’t it through the Holy Spirit that we in fact can experience a relationship with God? And therefore know that God loves us and wants a relationship with us? Amen.

5 replies on “Spirit Takes Center Stage”

Wow what a helpful understanding of how God reaches out to us. I pray and listen continually for the feeling, his words, his advice to me in my world with Diane with dementia.

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