This coming Sunday is the Day of Pentecost. It is our annual celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, “like the rush of a violent wind filling the entire house where the disciples were sitting.” The story from the Acts of the Apostles goes on to describe divided tongues, as of fire, appearing and resting on everyone in the room. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
And what happened next? They spoke. They communicated. They talked in many languages so that everyone could hear and understand. There was purpose to this extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit–purpose to their words. It wasn’t to prove they were special. It wasn’t to prove a special personal gift of power given by God. The purpose was unity—community.
On the Day of Pentecost, the Church was born–the Body of Christ on earth drew its first breath. The many became one, unified in and by the Holy Spirit. And the Church’s first birthday gift was the ability to communicate, to speak so that others could hear. To speak so that all might know the welcome, the universal hope we have and we share in Christ Jesus, even in our diversity.
We are one in the Spirit regardless of our language, our ethnicity, our identity, our background, our history, or our culture. We are one in the Spirit even if we prefer Rite I over Rite II, or Hymns versus Gospel Songs.
The Holy Spirit unifies; it does not divide. The gift of the Holy Spirit draws us into deeper communion and community with God and each other.
And that is the Lord’s Prayer. Last Sunday, The Seventh Sunday of Easter (known by some as The Sunday after the Ascension) we learned the Lord’s Prayer. No, not that one. Not the one that Jesus taught his disciples—the “Our Father.” Last Sunday in the Gospel of John 17:20-23, we heard Jesus’ prayer—our Lord’s Prayer, the night before his crucifixion. And our Lord’s prayer was that we may all be one. Jesus prayed: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
The Day of Pentecost—the gift of the Holy Spirit is the answer to our Lord’s prayer. May the Spirit’s power fill us with love, grace, and strength that we remain devoted to the unity and the ministry of the Body of Christ, so that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.*
Happy Pentecost!
*source: Prayers from the “Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage,” BCP p.429
