Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Pentecost – the gift of the Spirit and its meanings

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The resurrection Spirit dwells within us. This is the power from on high that Jesus had promised would come from the Father (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). Jesus had previously bestowed power to the 12 (Luke 9) and later the 70 (Luke 10), the same power that he had demonstrated in Nazareth (Luke 4).

The Spirit in Luke: As he writes Acts Luke says “the Holy Spirit came UPON them…” (Acts 1:8; 10:44; 11:15; 19:6). Indeed, scripture talks about being “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8; Acts 1:5; Acts 11:16) and baptism is an external image. A parallel metaphor used by Paul is to “put on Christ” (Romans 13:14) and in Galatians he even links the two ideas – baptism and being clothed in Christ (Gal 3:27). The phrase “in Christ” appears over 90 times in the New Testament, primarily in Paul’s letters. So the Holy Spirit we can envision washing over us, covering us and saturating us as the waters of baptism – an all-consuming experience whether one is immersed or has the waters poured over. We can thus consider that the Spirit is BOTH on us and in us. These are not different realities but different viewpoints of the same reality. The phrase “filled with the Holy Spirit” is less about the ongoing presence of God’s Spirit within us than descriptive of a momentary experience of inspiration and empowerment to speak and act according to God’s direction. This, again, is a phrase unique to Luke in his gospel and acts (John Luke 1:15; Elizabeth Luke 1:41;Zechariah Luke 1:67; the disciples Acts 2:4; Peter Acts 4:8 NRS; Stephen Acts 7:55 NRS; Paul Acts 13:9 NRS).

The Spirit in Paul and beyond: Paul further says this to the church in Ephesus: 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19). And the New Testament also includes the notion of being “in the spirit” which again seems to be a reference to being overwhelmed by a sense of God’s immediate presence while in prayer, worship, or other spiritual discipline or experience (Paul Acts 19:21; believers pray Ephesians 6:18 & worship Philippians 3:3; John Revelation 1:10) Paul states clearly the connection when he says, “you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.” (Romans 8:9). Our faith tells us that this God dwelt fully in Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:1-14; Colossians 1:19). And further that this God dwells in us through the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2).

Notice the fluidity of these images – Christ dwelling in us, us dwelling in Christ. God’s fullness in us, us in God. The Spirit in us and on us, while we are in the Spirit. All of this, I conclude, demonstrates God’s refusal for us to codify or neatly systematize the divine and holy. Rather, we are invited into the complexity of this dynamic experience that is a convergence of multiple seemingly incongruous realities. It is, as has been said elsewhere, another example of the “already-not yet” of the Kingdom of God. Any box in which we attempt to contain God simply fails. And this failure is a gift of immeasurable grace – for who would want to worship a God containable by humanity? Rather, God is the all-consuming above, below, beside, before, behind, within, without, past, present, future, beginning and end of human experience. As temporal and flesh-bound creatures, we have a limited and finite experience of the limitless and infinite God.

The Spirit (Ruach) of God moved over the surface of the waters when God began to create. It was also the breath of life (ruach chayyim) which God breathed into Adam (Genesis 2:7) and into all the other living creatures (7:15). There is again a fluidity in our theological understanding between the Spirit/Breath of God and that life-giving spirit/breath from God given to humanity and all other living creatures. In Job, Elihu speaks of the breath and the spirit, and uses the two words interchangeably between that of God and that of man, and indicates that they are the source of wisdom, and that should God choose to withdraw them, we would cease to exist: 32:8 But truly it is the spirit in a mortal, the breath of the Almighty, that makes for understanding….34: 14 If he should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself his breath, 15 all flesh would perish together, and all mortals return to dust.

The Spirit in All Creatures – So, we can comfortably say that all living creatures share the gift of a spirit/breath from God. This truth humbles us from triumphalism of misreading Psalm 8, or from misinterpreting God’s covenant as one of domination over, rather than a caretaking and stewarding dominion over our non-human fellow living creatures who share the God-given spirit/breath (ruach chayyim).

So, with that background, what is it that happens at Pentecost?

What does this giving of the Spirit mean that is distinct from all these other instances? Let me suggest at least a partial answer. The giving of the Spirit to the Church at Pentecost seems to have several simultaneous meanings.

A Continuation of the Ministry of Jesus – The Holy Spirit continues that empowering work for ministry demonstrated in the Gospels, particularly Luke 9 & 10, wherein Jesus commissions the 12 Apostles and then the 70 Disciples for evangelistic work that included healing and exorcism – i.e. a continuation of his work proclaimed in Luk 4 (quoting Isaiah 60) empowered by the Spirit of the Lord (i.e. the Holy Spirit) – 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Good news to those who lack sufficient resources to sustain life
Freedom to those who are bound
New vision to the blind
Freedom to the oppressed
The Jubilee Year – a reordering of the economic, social & political world

A New Relationality – An expression of God’s connection to humanity through a peculiar people – a work that began with Abraham and Sarah. This connection was for the purpose of blessing humanity – not for the primary purpose of blessing the chosen people. In order for the work of Jesus to continue, his presence needs to continue, but not through the physicality of his Nazarene body but through His Body, the Church. Therefore the Spirit that descended on Jesus at his baptism is the same Spirit that descended on the Church at Pentecost, creating and confirming the unique role of the church as the continuation of the incarnation – enabling both the divine presence WITH the church and the divine presence THROUGH the church IN the world.

A Renewing Force – Because this is the life-giving resurrection Spirit, the Spirit which raised Christ from the dead will also give NEW life to our bodies – i.e. not victory over the entropy common to natural things, but over the spiritual self-destructive narcissism unique to humans. So though “the outward self is perishing, the inward self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).

A Down payment on Eternity – The Spirit is a “first installment, a down-payment” from God to us on the promise of everlasting life and the redemption of our whole self – body, mind, spirit & soul, and with us all of creation (2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:14; Romans 8:19). As we are being made new (sanctified, re-born, re-created) in this life, a process which will see its fulfillment in the life to come, so too will all of this creation experience the same renewal – as John described in the received Revelation (21:1). The presence and work of the Holy Spirit is our assurance that God is not through with us and that the final consummation of all things means restoration and renewal with God dwelling here among us in fullness and glory.

Pentecost expresses God’s desire to be with us, to bless us and work with us to bless others.

We Are Beloved: It enables us to hear with Jesus the words of God at our baptism “You are my beloved child, with whom I am very pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22)

We Are Called: It enables us to say with Jesus the words from Isaiah 60: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me a proclaimer of Good news.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Kingdom Power: Pentecost is the initiating of the church, a continuation of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, for which we pray, and thus for which we work. It is our call to action in the world, among each other and among our neighbors – it is both our empowerment and our ordination to Christian Ministry.

Some Thoughts on Repentance

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Last Sunday I shared some very personal reflections on my own practice of repentance. (see: http://kengcrawford.com/2012/03/05/no-one-is-beyond-hope/ ) Repentance is not just about guilt over big sins. It is also our daily humility to realize that we are not all we are created and called to be, and to confess that to ourselves, God, and one another. We admit that we fell short (a literal definition of ‘sin’ is ‘to fall short’ or ‘to miss the mark’). We ask forgiveness and make amends where to do so would not cause greater harm. This is difficult. We feel stupid and embarrassed or worse when we have to admit that we aren’t perfect. I think one of the absolute best things I do to strengthen my marriage is return to Laura if I have been short tempered and say, “I’m sorry. That’s not who I want to be or how I want to treat you. What I meant to say was…” It’s not easy to do, but it gets easier each time. Like many things, repentance gets easier with practice. We’ll always need to do it, so we might as well get on with it.

You may have also heard me say, “I’m not mean or vindictive or hateful. I can be short sighted, distracted, or stupid. But if I do or say something that you experience as hurtful, it’s not motivated by a desire to hurt, but by one of those other things. That may not ease the sting, but hopefully it eases the reconciliation. And hopefully you’ll be willing to say, “I felt hurt/angered/etc. by what you said/did/failed-to-do.” I may not like to hear that at first, but I certainly do want to hear it.

The fact that others have seemingly chosen to ‘forgive and forget’ does not absolve us of the responsibility of confession, repentance and restoration. The fact is that God chooses to not hold our sins against us – “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). We are not thereby freed from the need to confess and repent before God. Our sin, and our guilt and brokenness over it, is a barrier between ourselves and God. Remember how you felt when as a child you did something wrong but were afraid to come clean. The kinder and more loving others were, the more you hurt. The barrier was on your side, not theirs, and you were the one who had to act, had to apologize, in order to be freed to receive the love that they had for you. The same is true of our relationships with God and one another, and even with ourselves.

People often ask what is different about followers of Jesus. Part of what should be different is that we understand and practice grace and mercy in a particular way. Paul tells us, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That proves God’s love for us,” (Romans 5:8) and “Having been reconciled to God through Christ, we have also been given the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). What God has given us – grace, mercy, forgiveness – we also are to give one another and the world. I am to love you while you are yet sinners. We are to love the world while they are yet sinners. We are to practice reconciliation, which starts with the offended, not with the offender. We don’t wait for others to apologize before we forgive, because God did not wait for us to repent before we were redeemed and forgiven (restored into relationship). This is not easy – perhaps not possible without God’s help through the Holy Spirit. It is not what our flesh wants to do, but it is what the Spirit asks of us.

Does this mean we put ourselves in situations knowing others will hurt us? Not necessarily. We are not called to remain victims in abusive or dangerous situations. We are called to seek reconciliation before writing others off and washing our hands of them. Staying in an abusive situation enables the sin of the abuser and is not an act of love, forgiveness, mercy or grace. Moreover, when we separate ourselves from that unhealthy situation we are better able to practice these virtues. The space gives us the freedom to love, and gives the other person freedom to move toward healing.

One reason we need Christian community is because this work is so difficult – we need to be reminded, encouraged, challenged, and helped to forgive and to repent. We proclaim a God who loves us enough to experience the incarnation and crucifixion. Do we practice that faith? What does our treatment of others say about what we really believe? That we are worthy of God’s forgiveness, but no one is worthy of ours? We pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Luke 11:4); we are asking God to make the forgiveness we receive conditional on and proportional to the forgiveness we give. How frightening is that for you?

We need to practice both forgiveness and repentance – they are two sides of the same coin. If we practice one without the other, we are really just trying to manipulate God and others. We are not acting honestly and we are not acting in love. If I consistently forgive others but never repent, then I am presuming an arrogant superiority – they need to be forgiven, but I don’t. If I am repentant but never forgiving, then again I am being arrogant – “I deserve to be forgiven, but no one else does”. Humility is needed for both repentance and forgiveness, which is perhaps why humility is so often called for. It may also be why repentance and forgiveness are so difficult for us. Again, Paul points us toward Jesus who leads the way: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” (2 Philippians 2:5-8) Notice here that humility is not a mask for self-loathing or self-negation. To “empty oneself” is to release self-importance, to literally “not be full of oneself.” Humility must not be mistaken for self-abnegation – it is rather the fullest affirmation of our true identity as God’s beloved children.

Micah 6:8 tells us that what God desires of us is that we do justice [together with God], embrace mercy [together with God], and walk humbly [together] with God. Justice and Mercy are the two hands of humility with which we practice God’s love in the world. Any notion of Justice that lacks Mercy is false, just as is any notion of Mercy that lacks some expression of Justice. Forgiveness is not contrary to God’s justice – it is the very nature of God’s justice.

We cannot experience the fullness of God’s love without passing through our own valley of repentance – which feels for many like a shadow of death. God’s whole creation calls out to us proclaiming God’s glory and our beauty, begging for us to let ourselves be loved, and to love all around us. Repentance is a vital step in that process. Without it we can’t be ready for the things to come – cannot be ready for the blessings that God has for us or the ways that God desires to work in and through us. God has dreams for us, but until we repent, we won’t be able to dream them, much less live them.

My Response to Rick Warren’s “Jesus Trusted the Bible. You Should Too.”

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Rick Warren wrote: Jesus Trusted the Bible. You Should, Too.

I trust Jesus and the bible. Unfortunately, Warren’s article is built on a common leap of logic – the notion that what we know and believe about Jesus is somehow separate from the bible itself. It is the bible (NT) that informs our ideas about what Jesus believed about the bible (OT). Which is sort of like me saying, “I’m trustworthy. Just ask me.” Skeptics are not persuaded by such an argument – it just sounds silly. And, faith and doubt are not incompatible. “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief!”

Why does Rick feel it necessary to call us to a faith tenet that scripture does not call us to hold? The claims he makes regarding Jesus’ understanding of scripture are reasonable, but by no means exclusive, and certainly not explicitly elucidated in the New Testament itself. What is clear is that the New Testament presents Jesus as living and teaching as though the Hebrew Scriptures were authoritative in his life and should be in ours. Poetry and history can most definitely be authoritative, and are genres of writing that can and do change lives. Again, Warren here relies on a common false choice. Which again leaves seekers and skeptics shaking their collective heads at such a weak argument. I respect Rick, and know he has done better.

Yes, the New Testament shows us that Jesus trusted the God revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures and Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books (those written after Daniel and before the birth of Jesus – from which ideas like bodily resurrection and the existence of angels were most clearly derived by the Pharisees, with whom Jesus agreed doctrinally. Yes, as Jesus is revealed in the canonical Gospels, he taught from those texts. He also taught from them in a way that most people around him – the religious authorities, experts and scholars in particular – did not recognize or understand as “true”. He believed the bible in a way that no one else in his generation seemed to. At least that is what I think the Gospels suggest, given that no one recognized him as the Messiah, and no one understood what was unfolding to be a part of God’s redemptive work.

The New Testament then was written by people who trusted Jesus as the fullest revelation of God among human kind. Through their own writings inspired by the Holy Spirit, through their own faith in the God whom Jesus trusted and revealed, they shared Jesus with us so that we “who have not seen” might “yet believe.” (John 20:29; 1 Peter 1:8). Our trust in the bible precedes our trust in Jesus, to a certain degree, because it is through the bible that we come to know most fully who Jesus is. It is the bible which serves as our lens of faith through which we see and interpret our world, our lives, and existence itself. In the process we may remember that the bible itself was also written through other lenses not our own – from other times, cultures and worldviews. So what then does it mean for us to trust the bible? and to trust Jesus? That is the journey of faith. And it is not helped by shallow arguments like Rick Warren’s in “Jesus trusted the Bible. You should too.

The Resurrection Work of God in the World

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Speak to the bones – speak to the breath

Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones – chapter 37
Ezekiel was commanded to speak to the bones and call them together – they were to return to their created design and order. And they did as they were told. This mirrors the creation story which tells us of Creator God forming the human from the humus, but it was not yet a living being because the breath of life was not in it.
Then Ezekiel was commanded to speak again – this time to the wind/breath/spirit (ruach) of life. The breath blew in from the four winds (representing the wholeness of creation?) and entered the inanimate bodies (the meaning of the Latin anima is the same as the Hebrew ruach – Latin also has a separate term animus, meaning mind). At this point, the bodies became living beings, again mirroring the creation story.
God then gave the interpretation of the vision (much the same as Jesus giving the interpretation of the parables in the Gospels). The vision represents the future of Israel, on and for which God will act to redeem and restore and renew/rebirth. God will bring Israel back together, and into God’s people God will place the spirit/wind/breath (Ezekiel 39:29; Joel 2:28). And the fortunes of Israel were indeed restored – they were returned to their homeland and experienced a time of revival, though incomplete. They continue to struggle to this day.
And this is mirrored in the Acts of the Apostles, particularly chapters 1-2. We see:

  1. A prophecy that the people will receive the breath/ wind/ spirit of power from on high (in Greek – pneuma)
  2. A reorganizing principle in that the angels ‘speak to the bones’ to come back together
  3. The disciples return to the upper room in Jerusalem where Peter calls for a council to restore a 12th Apostle as a replacement for Judas
  4. There in the upper room they are all together
  5. There they ‘speak to the spirit’ by ‘all with one mind continually devoting themselves to prayer’.

Finally, the process moves to its final phase, wherein all these steps happen repeatedly in each community, among all peoples, extending out like concentric circles from “Jerusalem, to all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth…”

 

The promise that was made, perhaps first in Proverbs 1:23

Repent at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
 
And how this prefigures what we hear from Peter in Acts 3:19-21: Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.
  • Repent, i.e. turn back to God, who is source of your life
  • Experience refreshing, renewal and restoration of Spirit
  • Experience the Word / Logos, which is Jesus

In what ways is your life in need of this process today?

How do you need to be reordered or reorganized? In your thinking, behaving, relating? Is it your relationships, your habits, your finances, your work, your physical health? Where is there just a valley of dry bones in and around you? Speak that which you desire, that which God desires for you, into the situation. Then take the actions necessary.

Where do you need a renewal of spirit? Where is there organization, but no life, no breath, no animation? Speak to the Spirit and pray, “Come Holy Spirit, come.”

Where do you need the Word to be real in you?

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away….No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe. (Deuteronomy 30:11,14)

 * cf (see also) Romans 10:8; Hebrews 4:12

 
Light shining into darkness – the Word is already there.

Hope undergirding the despairing – the Word is already there.

Love overcoming hate and indifference – the Word is already there.

 

This is the resurrection work of God in the world.

Thanks be to God!

Holy Habits of a Faith Community

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What are those practices which form and distinguish a Christian faith community?
Here’s the start of a list:

  • Daily Prayer
  • Regular Meals Together
  • Bearing one another’s burdens
  • Worship together
  • Labor side by side
  • Rest together
  • Play together
  • Study together
  • Share generously
  • Equip each other for ministry
  • Accountability / confession / forgiveness

These, I think, are among the vital life habits of a faith community that both create and define it.

It’s becoming popular to talk about the church today becoming again what the church of The Book of Acts was under the name “Missional Church, or Misional Community”. These are related to, and often used synonymously (incorrectly, I think) with Emergent Church, or Emergent Christianity. For more on all that…
Missional Community Defined – from Jason Zahariades’ blog “The Off Ramp”
Emergent Village.com – Tony Jones hosts this web site, a central, though not The Center, voice in the emergent community, and a good starting place.
Allelon.org – Alan Roxburgh, et.al. are for me great conversation partners in the developing understanding of leadership in the emerging christianities in our post-modernizing world.

Theologians? More on them later….

My point for now, coming back from that side trip, is that we are being called back, again/still, to the core of christian faith, which is the faith and way of Jesus. This is, on the surface, the goal for all Christians. The age inwhich we find ourselves simply challenges us in new ways to understand ourselves, our world, and our God. I put forward this conversation about Holy Habits of a Faith Community as one expression of how we move into God’s emerging kingdom.

Seeking to be…

Ken