Spending more time with Scripture will help us be more open to the Holy Spirit
Many of the post-resurrection stories concerning Jesus begin with the phrase, “peace be with you.”
That greeting was necessary for Jesus to allow His followers to become acquainted with Him again. So much fear and confusion ruled their minds and hearts that it was difficult for them to embrace the possibility that they were encountering Jesus again. Remember all the times we have been overwhelmed by fear or grief. Remember the times when we were soaked in loss and pain. Those deep emotional experiences can cause us to lose sight of our current environment. We become so overwhelmed in our grief that we don’t notice what is happening around us.
On the first Pentecost, the disciples were locked in a room out of fear. They clustered together with those they knew best and who shared the same pain. Jesus came into their midst and greeted them with peace. It was necessary to have peace of mind and heart to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were about to experience something that would scare and confuse them.
We often need to understand what is being asked of us and the potential consequences before we act. At Pentecost, there was no way to explain or prepare for what happened to Jesus’ disciples. To leave the locked room, to preach to people of many backgrounds and cultures and to experience speaking in a way that everybody could understand them was certainly a very confusing and exciting experience.
The gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit are needed now more than ever. We seek to speak with wisdom and understanding so that others might experience peace. We know that we need to work in unity, but we find so many reasons to divide. We experience ourselves and the world as in need of truth, yet there is hesitancy to embrace it because of the consequences. If we were to receive the Holy Spirit in a deeper way on this feast of Pentecost, what consequences would that have for each of us?
God might be prompting us to speak to groups of people that we might never speak with because we don’t believe our words could communicate anything to them. We hesitate because we can’t figure out how that would work. We forget that the power of the Holy Spirit is with us and that the Spirit will assist us in speaking the language that God wishes to be spoken.
Let us take a look at family, workplace, friend groups, church communities and encounters with strangers. How much has fear kept us from love? How much have we stayed in the locked room of isolation and failed to speak the truth of love everywhere? How often does our lack of understanding keep us from doing what God is asking? Are we allowing the peace of Jesus to fall upon us so that we can trust more deeply in the power of the Holy Spirit?
One way to become more open to the Holy Spirit is to spend more time with Scripture. There is no better place to start than one of the Scripture readings we have this weekend. They are stories of people very much like ourselves, living in fear and uncertainty. One part of us wants the love of Christ to consume us more deeply, and the other part of us is so afraid of what that would mean for our lives. Are we willing to change our lives for the sake of allowing Jesus to have more power in it? Are we willing to live less of an individualistic life and look out more for our sisters and brothers? My prayer for each of us is that Pentecost becomes more than just one weekend of the year, but the way in which we live each day of our lives.
