Tag: Holy Spirit

The Bible in a Year – 29 November

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

29 November. Acts chapters 1-3

Have you eve been in a situation where you had to “think on your feet” – to react with no time for preparation to an unexpected change of circumstances?  It might have been a sudden death in the family, a serious illness, or unemployment; or more positively an unexpected lottery win or someone close to you announcing their engagement when you hadn’t even known they were in love.  Or you might have been asked at work to take over someone else’s role; or to give a speech with no time to plan what you were going to say.

Whatever the circumstances, the natural human reaction to such occasions is twofold – the thrill of a challenge, brought on by a rush of adrenalin, and nervousness in case it all goes horribly wrong.  We are all made differently: for some people it is the thrill that dominates, and for others the nerves.  Or you may have found yourself oscillating between the two.  Is this my big break, or my undoing? Can I rise to the challenge, or will it defeat me?  Those who overcome tend to be those who have coped with other challenges before.

Peter had to do a lot of thinking on his feet in the weeks around Jesus’ death and resurrection.  It had not been long, perhaps a few months, since he and his closest friends had been up the mountain with Jesus and seen him transfigured into glory. Peter knew then that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised one from God.  Yet weeks later he had heard the crowds baying for blood, and seen Jesus on trial. At that time nerves got the better of him, and he denied his master three times in a matter of hours.  Later that day Jesus hung on the cross and it all seemed over.  He had witnessed the burial.

But also the empty tomb, two days later, made him think on his feet again – what had happened to the body?  And then the many appearances over forty days of his master alive again (Acts 1:3).  Had the death been an illusion?  Then, just as they were getting used to Jesus being alive, he disappeared from sight (1:9) with mysterious words about the Holy Spirit and power.  No wonder they were all confused. Gain, loss, gain, loss, – what would come next?  The rituals and rhythms of Temple prayer were a comfort to hold on to.

Now on the day of Pentecost their world is turned upside down again as the promised Holy Spirit comes in a most unexpected way.  Fire, rushing wind, and an irresistible urge to praise God that comes pouring our of their mouths in languages unknown to the speakers but understood by the foreigners in the street outside.  They accuse the disciples of being drunk at nine in the morning!  And Peter, the uneducated Galilean fisherman, finds himself thrust forwards as the spokesperson for them.   Time to think on your feet, Pete.

But this time it is not nerves that force him into denial.  No, it is the rush that compels him to speak.  Not just the rush of adrenalin in his body but the rushing wind of the Holy Spirit in his soul.  For Peter has had a revelation, like that which would seize Saul a few months later.  Jesus is the Messiah, not just for Jews but for the world.

It was just as Jesus had promised, “when they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11).  Peter found himself giving a sermon that convinced not a few, but thousands of hearers that they must repent and be baptised.   No wonder the day of Pentecost is called the “birth of the Church”. For Christians it is as important as Christmas or Easter.

Is this of any help if you or I find ourselves caught out, surprised, having to think on our feet?  Surely we can’t expect the Holy Spirit to be poured out on us like that, can we? Well, not quite like that.  But the Spirit is ever-present, and  the words of Jesus recorded at the end of Matthew’s gospel “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age”, do hold true.  The worse the predicament we think we are in, the closer he will be to us.  In desperate circumstances, some people even see angels.  And if we pray, however simply but sincerely, for guidance the Spirit will be with us to guide us to react appropriately. She may even give us words to speak, as Peter found.

That’s not to say that everything will be happily ever after for us. As Peter found, his new ministry as leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem was not without persecution. Jesus never promised an easy life.  But he did promise that his Holy Spirit would be available whenever needed.

 

The Bible in a Year – 14 November

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14 November. Luke chapters 2-3

Chapter 2 of Luke is probably one of the best known passages of the Bible – at least the first twenty verses about the birth of Jesus and the visitation of the shepherds, a story retold at every nativity play and carol service.  For Anglicans, verses 29-32 are also very familiar in a slightly different translation as the “Nunc dimittis” said or sung daily at Evensong in cathedrals.

So I am going to look at chapter 3 – continuing the story of John the Baptist that was started yesterday with his own miraculous conception.  Thirty years on, John and Jesus were both called by God to the tasks for which they had been destined.  We don’t know how long John had been proclaiming his message of repentance before Jesus came to be baptised, or how long he had lived a solitary life in the desert before that until he received the “Word of God” (3:2), i.e. the conviction that God was about to appear in a new and unique way that demanded special spiritual preparation.  But it might not have been very long, for his “unofficial” ministry made him unpopular with the religious elite, as well as the secular authorities.  It seems that soon after Jesus was baptised, John was arrested.

So the baptism at the Jordan of Jesus by his only-slightly-older relative was a moment of handover, when the Holy Spirit that had been in John descended on Jesus in more dramatic form – in appearance as a dove, but with the voice of God from heave (3:22).  This is reminiscent of the occasion when Elijah as he was taken up into heaven, passed his robe and with it a “double share of his spirit” to Elisha.    On this occasion, the message of self-denial and repentance was about to be replaced with one of rejoicing and healing – fulness of life.

For everyone who turns to God, there is a unique ministry – not preordained in every detail, but to worked out with God and other people according to our aptitudes and character.  No-one (other than Jesus) is perfect, we all have weaknesses as well as strengths.  Sometimes God arranges it that one person will follow another in a particular situation (such as a parish priest or teacher) with gifts that are different but complimentary.   A caring pastor might be succeeded by a brilliant preacher or gifted evangelist, drawing a different set of people into the church.  Or in the progress of one group of pupils through school, a teacher who is rigorous in teaching theory might be followed by one skilled at illustrations and practical exercises.

So there is no point worrying whether there are some aspects of your faith or career at which you are weak, as long as there are others at which you are strong.  Leave it to God to fill in the gaps.

 

The Bible in a Year – 5 November

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5 November. Mark chapters 1-3

As I mentioned at the start of Matthew’s gospel, Mark is widely believed to have been written first, and although he covers much the same ground as Matthew he tells the story in a more compact way, with more of a sense of movement and excitement.

Mark is uninterested in Jesus’ birth and childhood, only the stories from his adult life. These first few chapters show Jesus appearing first as one of John the Baptist’s disciples, but being marked out by the appearance of the Holy Spirit and the voice of God as having a unique relationship to God.  Mark has no time for plot development – he reveals immediately who Jesus is, and then goes on to the miracle stories.

The idea of an itinerant religious teacher drawing crowds by his captivating way of speaking, the power of his message and the healing miracles he performed was not new.  Some of the old Jewish prophets such as Elisha and Jeremiah were similar, and right down to our own day the same can be seen with ministries such as that of John Wimber.  But most such people are forgotten soon after their lifetimes – who talks of Smith Wigglesworth today, for example?

Mark wants us to know from the outset that Jesus was not just another rabbi or faith-healer.  His opening line is “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  Gospel means “good news”, Christ (or Messiah) means “anointed one” and Jesus’ name – a common one for Jewish  men – means something like “God saves”.  So, “The beginning of the good news of the God who saves, the anointed one, the Son of God.”

Not everyone believed in him, of course.  Towards the end of chapter 3 we read of those who thought that Jesus himself was possessed by the Devil or some other evil spirit.  In explaining why that could not be so, Jesus adds that while all ordinary sins can be forgiven, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (3:29-30).  This “Unforgivable sin”, then, seems to mean doubting that a work of God really is from God, or not being able to distinguish between the Holy Spirit and evil spirits.  If you cannot see God at work, you are not in a position to receive the healing and wholeness that he offers.

The Bible in a Year – 22 October.

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

22 October. Romans chapters 8-10

In yesterday’s post I pointed out Paul’s brief reference to the Holy Spirit in chapter 5.  He returns to the subject more extensively in chapter 8.  If Romans is at the heart of Christian theology, then this chapter is at the heart of the letter.

It was the experience of Jesus that Paul (formerly Saul) had on the Damascus Road that transformed him from being a legalistic Jew to an ardent Christian believer in God’s offer of salvation to all people – as we shall see when we get to the book of Acts.  This understanding that we are reconciled to God, not by ‘doing good’ nor even just by confessing our faults, but by trusting in the death and resurrection of Jesus, is behind Paul’s writing to the Romans. And a sudden understanding of it through reading this book, or a commentary on it, was instrumental for two of the great men of Protestant Christianity – Luther and Wesley – in their own spiritual lives. Their understanding of this doctrine of ‘salvation by faith’ sparked both the Reformation in 16th century Europe (the 500th anniversary of Luther’s ‘conversion’ is being celebrated this month across the world), and the Methodist revival in 18th century Britain.

Paul points out in this chapter three things that the Holy Spirit does in our lives. She* brings a sense of peace to our lives as we turn from a self-focussed worldview (“the flesh”) to a spiritual one (8:6); she creates within us a sense of being children of God (8:16); and she helps us to pray, even without words (8:27).  Each one of these statements deserves a sermon in itself!

For Paul, the Spirit is always “the Spirit of Christ” – never working on her own but always with him. For that reason the Catholic church and its derivatives say in the creed that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”, although the Orthodox church still uses the simpler statement “proceeds from the Father”. Fortunately, wars are no longer started over such a small difference in theology.  The important thing is to be open to the working of the Spirit so that you too may have the revelation that changed the lives of Saul, Luther and Wesley: that having Christ and his Spirit within you, giving you faith in them, is all that you need to be right with God.  Nothing you can do by your own goodness can bring that about, nor can any sin, once confessed, prevent it.

* Lest anyone question my use of “she” and “her” to refer to the Spirit, let me explain.  Conventionally all the persons of God, Creator, Redeemer and Spirit, are referred to by male pronouns.  But a God who created man and woman in God’s own image, and who calls both men and women equally to be part of his family, cannot be restricted to one gender.  Personally I experience the presence of God, on the occasions that I do, as more of a feminine presence than a masculine one.  And given that the Hebrew word used for the spirit is feminine (so I am told), that is my preference when writing about her. The Spirit can, of course, equally be seen as having masculine qualities of power and strength. But please never say “it” for this most personal manifestation of God.

The Bible in a Year – 21 October

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

21 October. Romans chapters 4 to 7

After a long explanation in the first four chapters of what makes Christian faith so special (see yesterday’s reading), Paul sums up like this, and here I quote the Good News Bible which uses simpler language: “Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (5:1)

Peace is not a word that Paul uses often, but it is an important one, as is the [Holy] Spirit – another word that Paul introduces in chapter 5 for the first time in this letter. Many of us long for a sense of peace in our lives.  Not only because we live in such a complicated, pressurised world these days.  But because even if we count ourselves as ordinary decent people, there is still that nagging sense of guilt, of things we have done badly and ways we could have been better people.  We feel we need to be “put right”.  Now the good news is, God can deal with all that.  How? This is where the idea of the Trinity can begin to make sense.

The word Trinity does not appear anywhere in the Bible, as it is a concept developed by Christians several generations later, and still forms the basis of belief of most (but not all) Christian churches.  The relationship between the father (creator), son and spirit can the thought of like this:

Through the death of Jesus, who in his love took away our guilt on the cross, and with the gift of the Holy Spirit who brings us the benefits of Jesus rising from the dead, we can approach God the Father with confidence.  As Saint Paul puts it at the end of this short passage, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us” (5:5, GNB). So if Jesus brought a new way of being right with God (as I explained yesterday), the Spirit brings a new way of being at peace with God.

(based on part of a sermon preached on Trinity Sunday 2013 at Christ Church, East Greenwich).

The Bible in a Year – 17 October

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17 October. 2 Corinthians chapters 1-4

There is one theme that St Paul keeps coming back to throughout his letters, expressing it in different ways.  That theme is that if you think it is enough to rely on “keeping the law” to be in a right relationship with God, you have missed the point.

In chapter 3 (headed in the New Revised Standard Version as “Ministers of the New Covenant”), he explains that the Kingdom of God is something so counter-cultural, so different from the idea of “keeping the law”, that such people don’t even realise it’s there.  It’s as if the very fact that God gave us commandments to keep is like a veil or curtain that stops people seeing the truth behind it, which is that being in a right relationship with God is a matter of loving faith.  Or to use an English idiom, they cannot see the wood for the trees.  The trees are the individual commandments; the wood is the Kingdom in all its beauty.

But what can remove the veil, if endless study of religious laws and faithful attempts to keep them cannot?  “Turning to the Lord”, is Paul’s answer, that is to Jesus Christ.  The removing of the veil reminds Christians of Good Friday, when the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom as a sign that the sin and death that separated humanity from God can no longer do so because Christ has removed their power.

We need a new way of living in a post-veil world, and the Holy Spirit is key to that. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (3:17).   We will not get far if we treat the ethical teachings of the New Testament like another set of ten commandments, written on stone to bind us to particular actions (or the avoidance of them).  Rather they are to be “written on our hearts” as the ways in which the Holy Spirit sets us free to act out the love of Christ to others.  In doing so, Paul says, we will be transformed “with ever increasing glory” (3:18. NIV) into the likeness of God.  What an amazing thought!

Do you sometimes fail to see beyond the veil because you are concerned about whether all your actions are right?  Ask the Holy Spirit to remove the veil from your eyes!

The Bible in a Year – 15 October

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15 October. 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14

These three chapters deal with the sometimes contentious, and often misunderstood, question of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Seeing that the Alpha course takes a whole day (or even weekend) to explore this topic, I cannot cover it adequately in a few hundred words.   But it is important to understand that the Holy Spirit is not simply some mysterious force that takes over a small number of people and enables them to perform miracles such as healing, or discerning what is going on in someone else’s life.  Paul does refer to those ‘gifts’, but they are rare.   Speaking in tongues (praising God in a private language) is more common, but still not part of regular mainstream Christian experience.

What Paul is at pains to point out is that the Holy Spirit (who is the presence of God among us, sent after the ascension of Jesus) gives all kinds of gifts, which are intended partly for building up the faith of the individual, but mainly for building up the faith of the congregation and empowering the ministry of the whole church in the world. Such gifts include leadership, preaching and teaching, leading worship and pastoral care, which are the mainstay of authorised Christian ministry.  But above all Paul prizes prophesy – the understanding and sharing of a message given directly by God for a particular situation.  The prophet may well also be the priest or pastor, but not necessarily.  That is why he insists at the end of this passage that public worship must be orderly, with only one person speaking at once, and the rest of the congregation paying attention.

For the same reason, Paul emphasises that the Lord’s Supper (which became the communion, eucharist or mass in later tradition) is about gathering to share bread and wine as if they were the actual body and blood of Christ, which unites us.  The practice that the Corinthians seem to have had is something more like a picnic where every family brought their own meal and were not even willing to share food with those who had brought nothing.

So whether you personally, or your church, experience the more miraculous gifts, and in whatever way you celebrate the Lord’s supper, never forget that all the Spirit’s gifts are given for the church, and not just for you.  We are one body.

The Bible in a Year – 9 October

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9 October. Galatians chapters 4-6

In the letter to the Galatians, Paul introduces the theme of “Flesh and Spirit” which also appears in his letters to the Romans, Corinthians and Ephesians.  What exactly he mans by the “flesh” is a matter of some debate, but something like “the human tendency to please oneself, even at the expense of others” seems to be getting close. The Spirit, on the other hand, is God’s presence with us drawing us into the sort of lifestyle that pleases God, because it involves laying aside our own self-interest for the sake of others.  The starkest contrast between these two influences is in chapter 5 where Paul lists first of all the “works of the flesh” – including the many forms of human conflict as well as various sexual sins and drunkenness.  “By contrast”, Paul writes, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity [or goodness], faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (5:22-23).

I recently went with a small group from our church on a weekend away at which we considered these fruits of the spirit.  We were urged to work at developing these fruits in the coming weeks. I know I certainly have to work at patience and self-control!  But given that the whole thrust of this letter is about Christians no longer having to conform to religious rules, the last thing Paul would have wanted is people either comparing themselves competitively with others to see who is the most joyful or generous, or getting anxious about not being as much like any of these as they would like to be. The whole point of these “fruits” is that it is God who grows them in us.  We just have to provide the right kind of soil, that is to say, by being open to God through prayer and scripture, we create the right conditions for these fruits to grow in the way we live with other people.

The Bible in a Year – 17 June

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17 June. Joel chapters 1-3

Joel is one of the shortest books of the Bible, a mere three pages in most editions.  Its theme – that of God’s punishment of Israel for idolatry and other sins by sending the Assyrians and Philistines to conquer them, and a later restoration of the land to reoccupation and economic prosperity – is found in many other Biblical writings of the period.

 

But it also contains some of the most profound revelations of God’s future plans for his people.  Chapter 2, verses 28-32 are quoted by St peter in his address to the crowds on the day of Pentecost to explain the coming of the Holy Spirit: “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions … everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”.

 

Chapter 3 contains what seems like a vision of a final judgement of all people in the “valley of Jehoshaphat”.  The latter was a name of a king of Judah, but as the name simply means “The Lord has judged”, there is no real clue as to what location might have been intended.  It does however tie in with other Biblical prophecies such as that of Armageddon, suggesting that whatever the “last day” might be, it will involve some kind of war or other physical encounter in the Bible lands.

 

The penultimate verse of the book is a wonderful promise: “But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to all generations.” It has not been fulfilled literally, for there was a time when the holy city was abandoned, but it is still revered by all three Abrahamic religions as a holy place, and in Christian thought “Jerusalem” is a metaphor for the Church wherever it is found.

The Bible in a Year – 28 March

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28 March. 1 Samuel chapters 9-12

Two days ago we encountered Samuel as a young boy, dedicated to God by his mother. Yesterday we saw him as a wise leader – not leading his people in battle as other ‘judges’ did, but keeping the peace with his wise judgements. Today we see him hand over leadership as another young man (Saul) is chosen by God to lead his people, this time not as a priest, judge and prophet like Samuel but as a military king, as they wanted.  In what to Saul must have seemed a chance encounter with Samuel, he is anointed as the future king of his country.  Late, he is officially elected (by God’s will made known through the drawing of lots that is, not by democracy as we know it) and crowned in front of representatives of all the tribes. After that, he goes on to lead a successful military campaign against the Ammonites.

 

But in between the intimate personal encounter when he is told of God’s choice (confirmed by a prophecy fulfilled in his own life), and the public event, Saul is sent by Samuel to encounter the ecstatic prophets at Gibeah, where he is caught up in their ecstasy himself.  In modern Christian terms we would say he was “filled (or baptised) with the Holy Spirit”.  The coming of the Spirit on a person is usually understood as an equipping for service,  a giving of gifts or talents from God that they were not born with, for the purpose of making God’s ways known, or his will done, on earth.

 

Saul was from a rich family and so presumably would have been educated, but like so many other great Biblical characters (Abraham,  Moses, David and Amos among them) he was a herdsman as a young man – in his case of donkeys rather than sheep.  For all these people, their time alone away from the busy ways of a town, and in nights under the stars, helped them to be open to God’s call, and to his indwelling Spirit.  But he would not have encountered Samuel if his companion (probably a family servant) had not known of him and pointed Saul to him for guidance. So often it is true that one person can, by a single encouraging or corrective word, witness to God’s truth and point another on the right path for their life.

All these elements came together to make Saul the great king that he would become: an education, time spent meditating in solitude, a religious friend who was not afraid to witness to him, the word of prophecy given by someone else, a sacramental anointing, and finally the encounter with God’s spirit of ecstacy.  To quote from John Bell’s hymn “enemy of apathy”:

She dances in fire, startling her spectators,
Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
Nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.