Pentecost
The Holy Spirit is the nearest and most illusive member of the Blessed Three. He is full of mystery: how we sometimes call him “Holy Ghost” and how John the Baptist declares that Jesus will fill us with fire! His “intimacy hollering to be let in” is scary, especially for those of us who are perfectly happy with God-from-a-distance. It’s possible to have a confirmed relationship with God the Father and God the Son, and barely give a nod to the Holy Spirit.
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. As I reflect back over the years I think of all the ways the church has tried to domesticate the Holy Spirit’s work. We declared that Pentecost is the birthday of the church (which, of course, it is, but the Spirit is so much more than that!). We’ve sometimes asked people to wear red (the color that signifies fire and joy, the tongues of fire that fell on the disciples forty days after the Resurrection). But if we we really hear this Sunday’s lessons and pray them for ourselves, we are forced into the face of God’s power.
I’ll probably wear something red, I usually do on Pentecost. And I am grateful for the birthday of the church. But I wonder how this year’s Pentecost celebration at Christ Church Anglican can bring us to a new awareness of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity? If we pray for and expect a fresh outpouring of God on his people here, could this Sunday be like when “great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:33)? I invite you to join me praying with expectation:
“Blessed Spirit of God, come to us in all Thy fullness and power, to clothe us in our nakedness, to enrich us in our poverty, to inflame us in our feebleness. Be closer to us than breathing, nearer than hands or feet. As lovers live each in each, so live in us and we in Thee. As the fire gives of itself to the molten iron, so give Thy presence to us. Compass our minds with Thy wisdom. Saturate our souls with Thy righteousness. Fire our wills with Thy might. Melt our hearts with Thy love. Do everything at all times to make us wholly Thine until Thy wealth is ours and we are lost in Thee” (Charles Henry Brent).
Chuck Collins
Interim Rector
Artwork: “Pentecost” by Josef Ignaz Mildorfer, c. 1750