What’s your takeaway from Pentecost? That God gave His Holy Spirit? OK, but what does that have to do with you personally? That the Spirit comes through God’s Word. I agree, but still not deep enough. Peaceful worship was yesterday. Monday brings us back to the madness of this world, depressing. So, how does Pentecost change the way I react?
In Homer’s poems from some 3000 years ago, the gods fight and jostle with one another and humans for glory. Ticked off, Zeus says, “I could let all the world swing in mid-heaven! That is how far I overwhelm you all, both gods and men” (“Iliad,” VIII, x). A resort to power, that’s how so many people imagine God, and that’s their delusional daily way toward good.
The God of Pentecost says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). My takeaway from Pentecost is the contemplative life, personally through devotion and quiet reflection, and nurtured every week in Christ-centered community where I find a totally different way of looking at the world. “The world cannot receive (the Spirit of Jesus), because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:17).
Today we commemorate D-Day. Power and might must sometimes be used. It’s the world’s way and we are in the world, but not of it. Had I fought then, or today as we encounter sin and evil, Pentecost’s gift is this, “You keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” (Isaiah 26:3). “You” is Jesus, sent by the Father, who gives us His Spirit. “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). “Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest, / And make our hearts Your place of rest…. (Lutheran Service Book, 499:1).
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