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CREATING COMMUNITIES OF WHOLENESS WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTRE
Spirit of God - Discussion Notes of 24.06.2007
Acts 2.1-13
The first act is humanity in complete communion with God [Eden before the fall]. The second act is God’s long attempts to draw his people back to him through the patriarchs, prophets, and kings [most of the Old Testament]. The third act is the life of Jesus – God’s ultimate rescue mission to draw us back to him through incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection [the Gospels]. The fourth act is the Church of Christ empowered with the gift of the Spirit – from Pentecost on.
We can debate when the acts start and finish, or even whether they are helpful demarcations. But I use them to illustrate how crucial the gift of the Spirit is. It comes just after the ending of the physical presence of God on earth, the end of the ultimate rescue mission. But it’s also a beginning. A new act is about to start with Pentecost, when we see God in a completely new form, the Spirit, God who will never be with us but will always sustain, challenge, comfort and inspire and draw us back to God.
Reflect on what is ending and what is beginning for you and how are you responding to those endings and beginnings?
What whirlwinds of grief, relief, numbness, confusion, rejoicing, anger, celebration etc. are you experiencing. Even if the endings and beginnings are small it is likely that some of these emotions will be present.
Pentecost when the new church receives the Spirit, is the beginning of the fourth act. But although there is much that is new about Pentecost its worth remembering that the Holy Spirit of God has been around from the very beginning when it ‘moved over the face of the waters’ of creation [Genesis 1.2]. God is eternally Father, Son and Spirit.
The Spirit spoke though David, Isaiah and so many, many others. But something special and different did happen at Pentecost and from that moment the Holy Spirit becomes the dominant reality and expression of God in the life of the early church. The Holy Spirit was the primary source of guidance, the leaders of the church are described as men and women of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the source of day by day courage and power. The early church was a Spirit-filled church and that was the source of its power.
What is your initial gut reaction to the Holy Spirit?
In the early church?
In the life of the church today?
How do you think that the presence of the Spirit is expressed?
In the early church?
In the life of the church today?
Have we lost something important that the early church had?
Pentecost was one of the three great Jewish festivals [along with the Passover and the Feast of the Tabernacles]. Thousands would travel to Jerusalem for these festivals and especially for Pentecost. It was held fifty days after Passover, in early June, when travelling conditions were at their best, so people came from many nations [hence the international flavour of Acts 2].
Pentecost was a celebration of the gift of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai and had a flavour of our rogation services, when agricultural gifts were presented at the temple and prayers offered for a safe harvest.
Our festival of Pentecost has a different meaning, but we have taken on the Jewish name and retained the timing.
What actually happened to the disciples at the first Pentecost is a mystery, what they spoke, whether in foreign languages or in the ‘gift of tongues’ we cannot tell. What matters is that they, and thousands around them, experienced the power of the Spirit of God in ways that they had never before even imagined and it changed all of their lives. They stopped hiding and started to stand up and live and proclaim the love and power of God.
Does it matter that we don’t understand everything about the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, or indeed about the Holy Spirit?
What can the Holy Spirit be for us and for our church – even if we still don’t fully understand?
What can we do to find out and experience more of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit?
PRAYER
Come Holy Spirit,
Come breath of life,
Come, fire of love,
Come, power of hope,
Come, catalyst of God’s kingdom,
Come, heavenly friend.
Come and confront us with the truth from which we turn;
Come and reveal to us the way of Christ we dimly see;
Come and nurture in us the spiritual gifts on which life in all its fullness depends.
Amen.