Long before the disciples received the Holy Spirit, ancient Jews celebrated Pentecost. Pentecost is the Greek name for the Hebrew festival of Shavuot, which took place 50 days after Passover. Shavuot commemorated Moses receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai, which took place 50 days after the Exodus.
50 days after Easter is the Christian observance of Pentecost. Christians celebrate Pentecost because it was on that day - the festival of Shavuot - that the disciples received the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit came upon them like the rush of a mighty wind, with flames of fire, and enabled them to speak in the languages of people from all over the known world who had gathered in Jerusalem for this annual pilgrimage festival.
The Spirit did all this.
The Spirit did all this through the disciples: a group of uneducated, bumbling, confused men...
Jesus called these men to be his closest followers, to learn from him and help him carry out his mission. But they do seem a rather unlikely group of fellows to be the leaders of a new movement.
If a seminary-trained, ordained, credentialed minister like myself had written the book of Acts, it would be tempting to change it so that the Holy Spirit would come to the trained, ordained, credentialed leaders in the church, instead of the common, ordinary group of disciples. Why not have the Spirit be received by the Pharisees, the priests, the scribes? Their achievements were many. Their reputation was good.
But in the end, it was the mostly uneducated group of disciples who received the Holy Spirit.
The reason for this is that a life of faith isn’t something you achieve. A life of faith isn’t an accomplishment. A life of faith isn’t something you can go out and earn. It’s not something you can pursue.
A life of faith is something that comes to you. It’s something you receive.
The Spirit is something you receive.
The Pharisees and the priests and the scribes tried to achieve holiness through their own efforts. They studied diligently, and they observed all the rules. But they did this not to open themselves up to the Spirit; they did it to try and grab hold of the Spirit through their own efforts.
You don’t go out and grab the Spirit. The Spirit comes to you. It is a gift. A gift for you to receive.
My studies and knowledge of scripture have helped me understand this. Which is kind of ironic when you think about it. My studies and knowledge have shown me that studies and knowledge, by themselves, will not get you the Spirit.
Listen to how the Bible talks about the Spirit. Listen especially to how the Bible describes the Spirit as something you receive…
In John 7 we read this: “Jesus stood up and shouted, ‘All who are thirsty should come to me! All who believe in me should drink!’... Jesus said this concerning the Spirit. Those who believed in him would soon receive the Spirit.”
In John 20 we read: “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
In the first chapter of Acts, we read: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
And in Acts 2, we read that, on the day of Pentecost, right after the disciples had received the Holy Spirit, Peter spoke to the people and said: “Change your hearts and lives. Each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Each of these passages uses that word receive. “Receive the Holy Spirit; receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; receive the Spirit’s power.”
The Spirit isn’t something you go out and get.
You can’t go looking for the Spirit on the shelves at Walmart. You can’t order the Spirit from Amazon. You can’t go run a marathon, and be awarded the Spirit as a prize for your hard work.
The Spirit comes to you, as a gift, and you receive it. You receive it; you welcome it into your life.
So how do we open ourselves up to receiving the Spirit? How do we prepare ourselves to receive the Spirit?
The scripture says we are to be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.
One of the greatest sins is pride. Thinking we have all that we need. Thinking that we are completely self-sufficient, that we should be completely self-sufficient… Thinking that we can do it alone.
But when we submit to the waters of baptism, we admit that we can’t do it alone. We admit that, when we do try to do things on our own, when we try to control things and do things our own way, more often than not...
we mess things up..
Just like the disciples, who so often made a mess of things, but were always willing to be corrected and guided by Jesus.
When we humble ourselves and submit to Jesus, we are also admitting that we have a deep spiritual hunger that we ourselves cannot satisfy; that we have a deep spiritual thirst for living water that only Jesus can satisfy.
So to receive the Spirit, we need to admit that we are hungry. We need to admit that we are thirsty. We need to recognize our need, our emptiness, that there’s a space within us that only God can fill.
It’s not about what you have; it’s about what you lack.
It’s not about presenting your list of credentials; it’s about presenting your list of needs.
It’s not about taking control of your life; it’s about relinquishing control to God.
I’ve been reading Richard Rohr lately, and he says that great faith requires either deep love or deep suffering. And what love and suffering have in common is that both put you in a position of relinquishing control. Swallowing your pride. Surrendering your ego. Great suffering makes you say, “I can’t do this on my own.” Great love makes you say, “I don’t want to do this on my own.”
When you say that, you open yourself up.
When you say that to God, you open yourself up to the Spirit.
This is what it means to walk humbly with God. This is how you open yourself up to God and become vulnerable to God.
“I can’t do this on my own. I don’t want to do this on my own.”
That confession is the beginning of a spiritual life. That confession opens you up to having the Spirit enter into your life, satisfy your hunger, and quench your thirst.
This is not easy work. And despite what I said earlier, I don’t mean to imply that knowledge is bad; knowledge is good!
But so often we use knowledge as part of our defensive shield; we use our knowledge to build a wall around ourselves to hide our true selves from the world. We hide our emotions, we hide our insecurities, we hide our guilt and regret. We hide all this from others, from ourselves, and from God, because we think we can do this alone.
And these walls that we build around ourselves close us off.
To receive the Holy Spirit, there needs to be an opening. There needs to be a gap in that defensive wall. We need to be vulnerable before God.
Because that opening appears when we humble ourselves. It appears when we confess our shortcomings to God. It appears when we say, “I can’t do this on my own.” It appears when we surrender control over our lives to God, and submit to the waters of baptism.
I think it was when the disciples did that, that the Spirit came upon them. They were at their lowest point. They were at their weakest. Their leader, their savior, their Lord, had died, and they had all deserted him and denied him. Then he came back to life, which gave them very mixed feelings. They were confused, happy, afraid, and probably filled with regret.
But instead of getting defensive, instead of trying to control their situation, they opened themselves up to God. Instead of letting their weakness define them, they let the strength of God’s Spirit find a way into their lives; they let the power of God’s Spirit define who they were.
Remember when they were still in that locked room, afraid? They were still trying to control the situation. But when they gave over control to God, their fear went away, and they received the Holy Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment