This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. The day when the global church remembers the gift of the Holy Spirit, given to us, poured out upon the people of God. And what a gift! A gift, unlike any other.
All this is true… and yet. I grew up afraid of the Holy Spirit.
I knew that God was three persons in one – this Trinitarian God. But I was scared of this the third person of God of whom I knew so little about. My experience was limited, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be filled with the Spirit. I was afraid of losing control, of being forced to do things I didn’t want to do, of looking foolish.
I read the New Testament account of the giving of the Spirit, and I was both scared and intrigued. Tongues of fire, speaking other languages, miracles, wonders – it was fantastic and yet far removed from my experience, and from what appeared to be the experience of others around me. I knew that the Holy Spirit was vital, in some vague and undefined way. He was a member of the trinity after all, but that was about as much as I could say.
At the same time, I longed for God. I yearned to know God, to live in an authentic relationship with him. And I grew more and more frustrated as the years passed by.
Several years ago, I was caught by these words of Jesus, “it is better if I go away” (John 16:7, other translations this as “it is to your advantage that I go away”). I could not comprehend how this could be true. I have often thought: if only I could have been there. To be a follower of Jesus. To hear him speak, to follow him wherever he went, to sit, like Mary, at his feet. How wonderful would that have been! Could there possibly be anything better? Don’t get me wrong, in my less romantic moments, I think that probably it wouldn’t have been much fun to be a woman in first-century Palestine. And I am grateful for many things that make our lives vastly more tolerable and comfortable. And yet, even so, how I long for all of that!
I spent a great deal of time wrestling with these words. I knew that Jesus was speaking here about the Holy Spirit, and yet my experience certainly didn’t appear to match up with what Jesus was promising. And so I prayed at length and discussed this with God. I guess this was a beginning point for me. I recognised what Jesus was saying, and I longed for it to be true of my life. And so I asked him for that.
The more I come to know God (if one can really make such an audacious claim), the more I find there is to know. I find this endlessly comforting, for I figure that if I think I know God if I come to an end of what there is to know, then whatever I have found it certainly cannot be God. For if God is to be God, he must be infinitely above all I can grasp or imagine. My experience has been that there is a continual revelation of each member of the trinity. Our God who dwells in community takes great delight in revealing himself to us, and it seems each person of God delights to showcase the others.
So what have I learnt?
I have found that the Holy Spirit sets us apart from all the followers of Yahweh who came before Christ. For in the Old Testament, the Spirit rested upon a few, select individuals. The Spirit could be upon them for a time but then be removed. Yahweh himself was found in the tabernacle, in a temple, in the arc of the covenant, or on the mountain of God. These were sacred places where God could be found. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he promised that the Spirit would come and be poured out upon his people. And so instead of finding God in an external location, he came to dwell in his people.
The presence of the Holy Spirit in my life means that the Spirit of the Father and the Son abide in me. And I cannot get closer to God than that. We have been given a priceless gift. A gift that some of the writers of the Old Testament saw in the future and longed for. We live in the era in which the Spirit has been given. We are privileged beyond measure.
I have discovered that the Holy Spirit is to be welcomed, not feared. And that in welcoming him I allow him to move, to speak, to lead and to guide me. How I long for him to do that each and every day, moment by moment. For the words that he speaks, bring life to my soul. When I act upon what he says I may be terrified (see this post), but I find joy and delight that is only found in doing his will. And when I see him move through me and speak into the lives of others, I am deeply and profoundly moved. I am humbled that the God of all creation would choose to work through and with me. In those moments, I feel most alive, like I am doing that which I was born to do.
There is clearly much more that can and should be said about the Holy Spirit, and about the gifts he gives and the fruit that he brings to bear in our lives. But, for now, we will leave this here.
Holy Spirit, thank you that you have made your home in us. That you choose to dwell both in and among your people. We long to know you more – Father, Son and Spirit – please reveal yourself to us. Amen.
So, what about you? Is the Holy Spirit welcome in your life? What has been your experience?
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