The power given us by the Holy Spirit is purposeful: it helps us promote peace, extend forgiveness, and renew life.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the second chapter of Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-21), because this coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday.
Pentecost is an older holiday than Christianity. It was celebrated in Judaism for millennia before Jesus’ followers gathered in some place in Jerusalem to observe the day. We know that they began in some place together. Perhaps later in the day they planned to go worship in the temple. We don’t know. What we do know was that whatever their plans were, they were disrupted.
There was the sound of a rush of a mighty wind. There was something that played above their heads that others later described as looking like tongues of fire. They came outside and began to speak to people about God’s deeds of power in Jesus. And when they did so, they spoke in languages that were not native to them, languages that until that day they had not spoken.
Pentecost became, for Christians, the holiday which celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit. And indeed it’s paired in the lectionary with the twentieth chapter of John (John 20:19-23), in which on the day of his resurrection, Jesus said to his followers, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
There is a lot that can be said and has been said and will be said about the gift of the Holy Spirit to the followers of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is literally the foundation of the church. We exist because the Holy Spirit gathers us and we continue to serve from the power that the Holy Spirit gives to us. But let’s be careful about what that power is.
When Jesus spoke to his disciples, he said to them, “Peace be with you.” So first of all, the power of the Holy Spirit is the power of peace.
Jesus also said, and later Peter would say in that sermon on Pentecost, the the power was the forgiveness of sins: not the power of condemnation, the power of restoration and belonging.
And it is the power of life and of resurrected life. The power of the Holy Spirit is what lifts us up when we are cast down, what gives us strength to continue doing what is good and right and true when we think we have run out. The power of the Holy Spirit is the power to take our bodies when we have laid them down at the end of our lives, pick them back up again in a grand resurrection, and restore us to one another and to God in the realm that is to come.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
