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Happy Pentecost! 50 days after Passover,
Harvest in the Jewish calendar. For us, the celebration of the fulfillment of
a promise - the coming of the Holy Spirit to us. Jesus promised his friends
that when he left, he would not leave us abandoned - that he would send us another
helper. He was sending us His own life - the same life that He had walking around
here - the Spirit of God to dwell in us. That's all, just a real metaphysical
connection to the eternal substructure of the universe, to God, the eternal
one - that's all!!! If we receive this gift He has given us, we open ourselves
to something HUGE - much bigger than a set of beliefs or even a commitment to
a bunch of cool people. Those things factor in but they are not the core - they
eminate from the core of spiritual union with God through the indwelling Spirit.
Amazing. Amazing that we would think of this as anything other than mind-blowingly
gigantic in its significance to us and to the world.
We had a great celebration with our own small community and several friends
and freinds of friends. That milling around up there is what we like to call
the "sacrament of fellowship." It IS a part of the "service."
That's a little off-culture to many, and we have to keep re-brainwashing ourselves
to know that as soon as people get there to come together in one place, things
have started - it's happening.
The Antiphon for our chanted Evening Prayer last night said this: On the
day of Pentecost they had all gathered together in one place, alleluia.
This is the context in which the promise was fulfilled - in the context of community
- of US, gathered together in one place.That's what Pentecost
is: Us, gathered together in one place for this reason - to receive eternal
life - to open ourselves to the life of God to come dwell in us and make us
alive like Jesus. It is the life of eternity breaking into the world, doing
the work of creation, of recreation in us, through us, around us.
We had fun in community. Great fellowship; great worship; great conversation.
I think we were built up to go out and be the people that God has created us
to be - that He is continually recreating us to be.
| posted by + Alan | 3:54 PM | |