Dear church family,
June is here, and summer is nearly upon us. For some of you, this means school is out and you’ll have more time with your kids or grandkids. Others will enjoy trips to the beach or lake. Still others will find themselves complaining about how muggy and buggy it’s become! Regardless of what this season means to you, I’m sure you agree with me that summer brings with it a certain kind of spirit.
Spirit. It’s an interesting word, isn’t it? We often use it in various ways, whether to describe the energy level at a baseball game or the mood of a particular person or moment. It’s like a thermometer or barometer this way, measuring particular human output or emotion in a given situation. But Scripture has a different idea. In a biblical sense, the word is almost always used as a proper noun – as Spirit, with a capital “S” – to refer not to humanity, but to God. Indeed, the Holy Spirit is the very presence of God and the third person of the Trinity, who is intimately connected to our human experience while also remaining distinct from it.
Think of Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Or Matthew 3: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water… and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” Or Galatians 4: “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” In all these references, the Spirit is not a product of human experience, but a gift of God – indeed, the gift of God himself.
You might know where I am going with this. The first Sunday in June is Pentecost Sunday, during which the church celebrates the Spirit’s descent upon the apostles and other disciples gathered together in Jerusalem (see Acts 2). It’s a story of great power, healing, unity, and direction, setting the stage for God’s work through the church for centuries to come. To reflect on this we will be studying Acts 2 on Sunday mornings through the month of June, moving from the Spirit, to Peter’s sermon, to the earliest Spirit-filled community of Christians.
I believe we need a reminder of the Holy Spirit’s presence with us especially now, given all that’s transpired in recent months. Our country has yet again been reeling from mass shootings in Buffalo, California, and Texas. Stories of sexual abuse have erupted in the Southern Baptist Convention. The war in Ukraine rages on. And we are moving through a mid-term election season, revealing more and more division in our country. What hope do we have as we live through these struggles, to say nothing of the struggles in our own families and hearts? The answer is the Spirit, who unites us to Christ so that we are never alone.
As Jesus himself said at the end of John 16: “Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you… In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Happy Summer,
Blake