This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, one of the eight principal feasts in the Church Year. On this day we recall the moment when the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples; what many consider “the birthday of the Christian Church.” This is not so much the birthday of the Church as an institution, but the beginning of a community of faith empowered and led by the Holy Spirit.
The ancients imagined animating life as a breath of air. The Hebrew word “ruach,” meaning breath or wind, was the life force present in the living and so completely absent in the dead.
The disciples thought of the Holy Spirit as a wild, untamable wind that blows where it wills. It fills believers with its power and sustains them through the most difficult of times.
Now, the Holy Spirit is not comfortable territory for most of us. We’re told that the Holy Spirit is left as a comforter to us; as God’s presence in a world where we need the consolation and care of a heavenly Spirit. It is an abiding presence which animates our lives. It can also be a powerful wind that blasts us off self-destructive courses and guides us into the very arms of God. It can be a wind that blows away prejudice and injustice; poverty and hunger; doubt and fear.
Of the three persons of the Trinity, the Father/Mother Creator and Christ the Redeemer are both better comprehended than the Holy Spirit, this sustaining breath.
We aim to be people of faith, but it’s harder to embrace the parts of the faith which scare us just a little bit. The Holy Spirit is a wild card that cannot be managed or manipulated. May the powerful breath of the Holy Spirit reanimate the modern Church and may each one of us be constantly filled with new possibilities and fresh hope.
In the Power of the Spirit,
1 Comments
I have had experiences with theHoly Spirit.
Leathea Vanadore