Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
- How much do you notice your own breath?
- How much do you notice the beating of your own heart? We only usually hear it when we lay awake at night, worried about something. THEN we hear that heart beat, but otherwise?
- How much then do we take note of the presence of the Spirit? In Acts, the Spirit aids and propels the spread of the Gospel. In Paul's letter to the Romans, the Spirit prays within Christians when they don't know how to pray. In John's Gospel, the Spirit is called the “Advocate” (Paracletos in Greek, which means defence attorney – more or less) who will lead the Faithful to all truth and will speak as Jesus speaks.
- It seems that Christians rely on the Spirit for their life in Christ. What about the rest of their lives... as if we could separate our life on earth from our lives in Christ. In Genesis 1, we are told that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos as everything was created. (In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Genesis 1) It is good to note that Wind and Spirit and Breath are the same word in Hebrew – “Ruach”.
- So we are created from the breath of God. Are we at all aware of the breath of God within us? It might be something we take for granted and don't consider. It is so common to us and our everyday lives that we don't take any time to think of it... like the breath that enters and leaves our bodies with such regularity.
- There is an interesting strain of the theology of the Holy Spirit that holds that the Spirit is the very life of God and to be in the Spirit is to have the life of God in you. This is an interesting notion for it means that as we live we participate in both creation as creatures created by God and in the life of God as those who share God's life because of his gift. This is also another way of looking at grace.
- As one breath leads to another and another, so the breath of God within us leads us to more life and to an even more intimate relationship with God.
- This is our life, each of us and all of us together. This has become our new ordinary, something so common to our experience that we hardly take note of it. Still, it remains wonderful, powerful, profound, and amazing.
- When you think about it so is our breath and our heartbeat. Wonderful... powerful... profound... amazing.
- As has been said before, the Spirit moves where it wills and changes everything. Imagine if you will, not breathing for a time. Try it when you go home; how long can we hold your breath? Eventually we will NEED to breathe. In that moment, when the need to breathe the good air around and we realize the value of the that good air, then we can take the next step and know the need we have for the Spirit and for grace and how the Spirit and grace surrounds us.
- At that moment, if the Spirit is with us, we can realize that what we consider normal and ordinary is anything but, and the life of the Spirit within us has changed everything we know and experience and live for.
- There is an ancient prayer I'd like to close with today. It is based in part on the 104th Psalm and it calls down the Spirit on ourselves, on all the faithful, and on the entire world that God has created.
- “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.” (Ps. 104:30)
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