Dear Friends:
Pentecost is about our becoming
Christ in the world. It is God taking on flesh through His Holy Spirit
and becoming a Reality within us.
The Holy Spirit opens our
spiritual eyes to see and the ears to hear.
The eyes to see that God is in
the details, that God is an actual reality both in spirit and in the
flesh, and we have ears to hear Him speakisng within our hearts
and upon the lips of others -
in the rush of a spiritual moment.
The eyes to see and the ears to
hear - as one - and as unique persons
valued and treasured so much by
God that God comes to us as we are and makes us even more truly who we are
when we are His.
The story of the birth of the
church, of that day some fifty days after the
Resurrection of Christ Jesus
that early Christians called Pentecost - tells us
that this is what God has done
- and even yet is still doing at this very moment.
The followers of Jesus are
given the ability to speak in the idiom, the language of all those who are
assembled and through them beyond. God graces us that we might understand
one another and that we understand the good news - in just the way we need to
hear it. Much as God communicates to each one of us here today.
We hear the gospel in our own
language, with our images, in our thoughts and with intuition using our own
metaphors, with our own ears because the chief spiritual gift of the Holy
Spirit is She remains dwelling within us.
Some will be encouraged to
spend more time in praise and wonder to thank God for blessings, others will
hear that the power that they need for tomorrow's trials and tribulations will
come, while still others will take heart knowing that God is present to them at
all times.
Whatever it is - you will be
filled with God - and this will be uniquely yours.
Pentecost is the birth of the
Church. It is God among us in power making us not simply a group of believers,
but being Christ in the world - unafraid, empowered and bearing the cross
within our lives out of love, being raised to witness together here in
fellowship of God in glory.
The Holy Spirit empowers Jesus, from his conception,
and throughout
his ministry, to teach and to heal and this mission
continues today. And before Jesus left his followers he gave them a
mandate to motivate them for the task ahead, and promised to send the Holy
Spirit in his place (Luke 24:49).
The Holy Spirit is alike Jesus, who is God – God the Father as it is said that the Love of the Father and Son together generate the Holy Spirit, who is their Love.
This Spirit of Love guides us to the truth about Jesus, about ourselves and our personal predicament, our gestalt within this world and the times we find ourselves in –The Holy Spirit gives us the ‘big picture’ and will show us God’s will for the future (John 16:8-13). The Holy Spirit also brings us “gifts” “powers” understandings compassion to become similar to Almighty God.
When you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit enters
your life, and He will never leave you.
How am I to be filled with the
Holy Spirit? Firstly, you are already filled with the Holy Spirit by virtue
that all life is from God and your Baptism in particular. But, to have more of
the Spirit enter your life, your daily living, you must desire Him, and you
must persist with a hunger and thirst to do that which is right (Matthew 5:6).
This involves confession of your sins, faults, and ego centrism (1 John 1:9). Then ask the Holy Spirit fill you up with Divine Grace: for if you ask for anything that God also wants, He will hear you because you are on a Divine Path (1 John 5:14,15).
Thank God for filling us up in real time, so that by faith we live innocently moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day with His Creation in His holy power and under His divine direction.
Now remain awake and listen
within for the Holy Spirit speaks. May the Holy Spirit guide your life.
In Christ, Bishop Daniel J. Dahl
Senior Bishop
