May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing to you, O Lord. Amen.
Today is Pentecost – the birthday of the Church of CHRIST.
Those of us who happened to celebrate a birthday during the Covid-19 crisis, might have noticed that "celebrating", does not feel quite the same anymore - but nevertheless made the best out of the situation.
Perhaps celebrating Pentecost feels strange today for similar reasons, especially as we bear in mind that it will be a while before all of us are able to gather and take part in a service like we used to do before.
I wonder, whether the disciples were going through similar emotions when they were awaiting the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem.
Jesus had told them that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit a few days after His ascension. And they were also told that they would receive power through the Holy Spirit to be Christ's witnesses.
But I bet, that they did not quite know what it really means to be empowered by the Holy Spirit nor were they in a position to anticipate
what effect the presence of the Spirit would really have on them as a community of believers.
The passage from the book of Acts reveals to us just what effects the power of the Holy Spirit had on them and those around them.
Many Jews from all over the world had come to Jerusalem for the Jewish Feast of Harvest and the offering of first fruits. It was then, that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and empowered them to speak in tongues. That astonished the folks who were there because all of a sudden they could hear the disciples speak in their own language.
There was no way that these men from the sleepy town of Galilee could have learned so many languages all of a sudden!
When some accused the disciples to be drunk the otherwise rather impulsive Peter addressed the crowd very calmly. Peter had a very simple yet powerful message for them. And those who embraced his message were baptized. About three thousand were added to the believers on that very day. And that (!) was the beginning of the Church. This is what we celebrate today.
Pentecost: the great harvest of the people who had not met Jesus personally, but were convinced nevertheless by the witness of an otherwise unknown and insignificant person. These 3000 people were so to speak, the first fruits of the believers who were gathered into God's Church.
Let us pause here for a moment to grasp the significance of this event...
Peter, a fisherman by profession, preaches one sermon without ever having attended theological school or having taken a course in public speaking and three thousand souls were saved.
How in the world was that possible – except that the Holy Spirit made it possible?
When we continue to read in the Book of Acts, we find that the first members of the Church continued to feel a great empowerment by the Holy Spirit even after that day on Pentecost.
The believers devoted themselves regularly to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread (communion) and to prayer. The apostles performed many wonders and signs. And all the believers had everything in common, selling their possessions and goods, and sharing with anyone who was in need.
What was unique about this group of people, was that they were of one mind and heart sharing with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying each other's fellowship. The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved by the great witness of this community of believers. The transformation they went through communicated to the world so much more than mere words could ever have.
No doubt, that the Holy Spirit moved about that Church freely and inspired and guided them in their daily life. What a joy it must have been to be part of such a community!
We don't have to get very far through the New Testament though to discover that the experience of joy and power of the Holy Spirit made some people envious. This had the effect that these people started to put on a show. They pretended that they were used by the Holy Spirit in a special way, while in reality they were just looking for a false kind of admiration and attention.
This kind of hysteria about the Holy Spirit Is what the apostle Paul addressed In his letter to the Church in Corinth. First, he started off by discouraging that kind of behaviour. Paul said that this kind of display does not belong to the Holy Spirit When the Holy Spirit is truly at work
He brings glory and praise to God (rather than to men and women).
We see this contrast so vividly in our reading from the book of Acts.
When the disciples were speaking in tongues, the international crowd of Jews, which had gathered around them, could hear a powerful message in their own language. It was a clear message, which focused on God's deeds of power.
So Paul concludes in his letter that to each believer the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Moreover, he goes on to say that, the spiritual gifts are allotted to each believer individually, just as the Spirit chooses and that these gifts are activated by Him. Therefore, a believer has no reason to be envious of the gifts of another believer.
That being said, let us spend a few minutes to understand the Holy Spirit and the way He operates in our life.
Perhaps, the most important thing to know about Him is, that the Spirit is not an "it" or an impersonal force but that He is a personal being, the third person of the Trinity.
We know from scriptures that the Spirit participated in the creation and that He gives life to humanity. We also find that the presence of God's Spirit in someone's life was rather an exception before the Day of Pentecost. Even though were many instances where He had been crucial in helping God's people to anticipate the ministry of the Messiah. One particular verse in the O.T. promises that someday God would put His Spirit in His people in a way that would cause them to live according to His will. This promise was certainly fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost.
Jesus too pointed to this fact when He said that the Holy Spirit, would teach followers of Christ all things and that the Spirit himself would remind them of everything Jesus has said.
This particular characteristic of the Spirit is probably something, which many of us have experienced at one point in our life. It can happen during an ordinary conversation or in a situation of great turmoil that
one particular verse from the bible is all of a sudden brought to the forefront of our mind.
In moments like these I am often reminded that the working of the Holy Spirit is really a miracle even though it might not seem like that in the first instance.
Let me give you an example for that.
We know that the apostle Paul was guided by the Spirit when he selected a location for a missionary trip. Often we read that the Spirit forbade Paul to visit certain places. Sometimes the place had to be avoided all together and other times the timing was just not right.
For a large part, we are left in the dark as to how exactly the Holy Spirit communicated His instructions to Paul. In one particular instance
Paul mentions that he suffered from great bodily illness, which prevented him from traveling but on the other hand gave him the opportunity to witness to another group of people instead.
Paul was confident, that the Holy Spirit used this illness to turn his attention to another place.
So, as we sit here today in the reality of the lockdown we should take time to examine where the Spirit wants us to turn our attention to.
How does He want us to make use of this extra time?
What unique opportunities does He want us to use?
Throughout the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is portrayed as actively leading and shaping God's people. There is no doubt to me that the Holy Spirit was, is and always will be the guardian of the Church and that He works through every believer to bring about Christ's love to this world. After all, Jesus himself says about the Spirit that "out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water" and that every believer is sealed with the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is the deposit Jesus made to guarantee and proof (to us and those around us!) that we truly belong to Christ. Nothing could ever change that. Not even our sins. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is grieved when we sin but He never walks away from us. Much rather than that He bears with us just like Jesus who, on the cross, endured the sins of humanity.
So then, today as we face these rather unusual and strange times let us trust that the Holy Spirit's desire and good will for the Church is much stronger than any challenges which come our way.
Let us rely on Him to transform our lives on such a way that we can be bold witnesses of Christ.
And may we remain attentive to His guidance as we re-commit ourselves this Pentecost into the hands of our guardian - the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Archana Jacob