Scripture: Acts 10:9-23a

There is a direct correlation between the holiness of the Holy Spirit and the holiness that characterizes those who make up the church. Paul assumed that through baptism a new people had been called into existence to be for the world what Jesus was and continues to be---the manifestation of the reality of God’s love. Peter does the work of faith before the Spirit, He prayed (discipline), he deliberated (was puzzled), and he discerned the direction from the Spirit (he went). Prayer is the crucial practice through which we are drawn into the life of the Trinity. Since we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit “intercedes with sighs to deep for words” (Romans 8:26). To be made holy is not to be morally better than anyone we know; to be holy is to be made part of a community in which our lives depend on those we know and who know us. To be made holy is to be held accountable and to hold others accountable, to be loved and to love as we have been loved by Christ, the one who would have us love one another even if such loves invites the hatred of the world. However to do so, we MUST be dependent upon the Holy Spirit! We are given gifts so that we might pour out the fruits of the Spirit upon all others. The body of Jesus is the dwelling place of God; Jesus is the new temple. But as Jesus and the Father come to dwell in us, WE become the temple of God, the place where God lives. We as church—that is the assembly of believers—but also we as individuals become a habitation for the Spirit. 

Acts 1:8 & 2:42-47

Acts is the record of the beginning of the work of the Holy Spirit’s calling into existence a people who must exist in physical, bodily form to make known what God has done in Christ in human history and what the Spirit is doing within individual lives. The church was the evidence of the breath of the Holy Spirit upon each believer that would point others to Jesus Christ. Understanding the church means trusting the Holy Spirit as the agent of renewal. Such trust is at the heart of our confession that we believe in the “holy catholic and apostolic church.” We believe in the church because we trust the “holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.” We confess believe in the visible church, warts and all, as an act of faith that the church is a gift of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. The church will only cease to exist if and when God in the person of the Holy Spirit seeks to call it into existence. Thus in the end it is not the church we believe in, but it is God in whom we believe. It is in God’s condescending to the church through Word and sacrament that makes church, church. "170618 Contemporary".

Scripture: Acts 2:1-4

At Pentecost a multi-linguistic community was born to be for the world a witness to the peace instituted by the cross and resurrection of Jesus. Christians were to learn the language of Christ. Just as the wind had hovered over the water at creation, just as the Spirit was present in Mary’s womb, so now the Holy Spirit continued that initiating work by creating a people who “once were no people.” The mission of the Spirit has been eternal – The Spirit continues to witness to Jesus by coming to rest on his body. Jesus though seated at the right hand of the Father, was present in the power of the Holy Spirit poured upon all at Pentecost. The Spirit continues to rest on Jesus’ body, only now that body turns out to be the church. The church under the direction of the Spirit has as its task – in word and deed—to point to Jesus. The church is the witness to the incarnation by gift of the Spirit.

Romans 8:11, 14-16

God is Father, Son AND Holy Spirit. The temptation in the Western church, has been toward a binary account of God as Father and Son with the Spirit as an afterthought. Christ can be made known, however, ONLY through the Spirit. The work of each person of the Trinity is indivisible. The Father is creator, and so are the Son and the Spirit. The Son is the redeemer, but then so are the Father and the Holy Spirit. In like manner, the Spirit makes the Father and Son known to one another as well as to us, but the Father and the Son also make themselves known to one another and thus to us.

 

The Spirit has been present since the outset as shown in Genesis 1:3 – Hovering over the water. The Spirit is ever present (Psalm 139:7-10) and the Spirit is all-wise . . . teaching us and reminding us of Christ (John 14:26). Throughout Luke, Jesus testifies to the presence and work of the Spirit. It is through the Spirit that the church is birthed and through the Spirit that individuals learn the Truth.