Day of Pentecost - Year C

19 May 2013 LWPT Meditation
Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34,35b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17

I grew up in a church that referred to the Holy Spirit as “it”, and eventually I became a member of a cult that reinforced that understanding. What they called “holy spirit” was just stuff, a sort of power, a bit like electricity, nothing personal about it.


It has been a wonderful pilgrimage, therefore, to discover and experience the Holy Spirit in all his complexity. All Christians – understandably – have some difficulty in grasping the concept of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost he fell like fire, filled men and women and caused them to speak in languages they did not know – though others knew them, and heard the word of God proclaimed in their own tongues with the promise that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21). This was a new phenomenon, but the Holy Spirit himself was not new. He had been there from the beginning (Genesis 1:1-2); his work is described in Psalm 104 as central to creation (104:30). It is his work that brings about the intricacy and wonder of all creatures, “large and small” (104:25), even the mysterious “leviathan” that “frolics” in the “vast and spacious” sea (104:26, 24). We see a joyousness there that is perhaps missing in Acts 2, but which we ourselves have probably experienced from him...

Created by Susan Thorne on behalf of LWPT (Leaders of Worship and Preachers Trust) for further information click here.