Pentecost

Today is celebrated as Pentecost in the church.  In my book Pentecost is one of the "Big Three."  When it comes to celebration days in the church Easter is number one, Christmas is number two, and Pentecost comes in third.  As a pastor I was always prone to finding ways to spice up the day with creative images, powerful full of life music, and a sermon that I prayed would have enough wind and fire in it to be worthy of being preached on such a glorious day.  I could never understand why some preachers seem to let such a powerful moment of worship slip by without a whimper of acknowledgement.    

As the church we are wind and fire people.  We are a community birthed in an extraordinary moment of holy power.  We owe our existence to that work of the Holy Spirit which is described in the second chapter of the book of Acts. It is one of those moments in the history of God's Kingdom which is full of divine wildness, the unexplainable, the mysterious, and the impossible to put in a box.  Our attempts to tame the Spirit and tone Him down to make Him more palatable to the contemporary church is an exercise in foolish futility.   

When we look closely at what the Spirit did on that day so long ago, we see an outpouring of holy power that was set forth like a mighty torrent of river water that has more than enough energy to drive the church forward on its intended journey.  If only the church would stay in this stream of power instead of looking for dry land to anchor itself, if only the church would let the river of God's power sweep it away, if only the church would be so immersed in that stream of power that it disappears, then we would once again find ourselves in an age of signs and wonders.