Dearly Beloved,
Sunday is Pentecost -- the day when we celebrate the spirit being poured out on the disciples and the way in which it brought people together across culture and language. After witnessing the Holy Spirit's coming and hearing Peter's message, crowds of people are deeply moved and ask: “Siblings, what should we do?” Peter responds that they are to change their hearts and lives, and 3,000 are baptized into the community of followers of the way.
For Christians, Pentecost marks the birthday of the church, and on this coming Sunday, we will celebrate this congregation by welcoming new members, by receiving love letters from the congregation's staff and by reflecting on the many gifts present among this body.
As we approach Pentecost, I want to share with you these words by Rachel Held Evans about the Holy Spirit being like fire:
The Spirit is like fire, deceptively polite in its dance atop the wax and wick of our church candles, but wild and mercurial as a storm when unleashed. Fire holds no single shape, no single form. It can roar through a forest or fulminate in a cannon. It can glow in hot coals or flit about in embers. But it cannot be held. The living know it indirectly—through heat, through light, through tendrils of smoke snaking through the sky, through the scent of burning wood, through the itch of ash in the eye. Fire consumes. It creates in its destroying and destroys in its creating. The furnace that smelts the ore drives off slag, and the flame that refines the metal purifies the gold. The fire that torches a centuries-old tree can crack open her cones and spill out their seeds. When God led [God's] people through the wilderness, the Spirit blazed in a fire that rested over the tabernacle each night. And when God made the church, the Spirit blazed in little fires that rested over his people’s heads. “Quench not the Spirit,” the apostle wrote. It is as necessary and as dangerous as fire, so stay alert; pay attention.
As we conclude our Easter season and move into Pentecost and summer, let us quench not the spirit. Let us stay alert and pay attention!
In the spirit of love and fire,
Thandiwe
p.s. You can read Held Evan's entire essay on the Spirit (she also likens it to breath, a seal, wind, a bird and the womb) HERE.
