The Holy Spirit

 

Todays Reading: Isaiah 43:15; Luke 1:35; I John 2:20

A Portion from the Nicene Creed

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
He spoke through the prophets.

The Holy Spirit is one of the most abstract, yet most personal manifestations of God that we interact with on a daily basis. We are currently in the Easter Season of the liturgical calendar.  Several years ago, it was revealed to me that Easter was not only a specific day, Resurrection Day, but Easter is a season of joy and happiness and new life that begins on Resurrection Sunday and last for 50 days ending with Pentecost Sunday (the fifth Sunday after Passover).  It is this particular day that the Holy Spirit and mankind reunited.

We as a people are able to reconcile God the Father.  There are many religions that believe in a higher being and creator.  The people of the book: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all can trace back our origins to God the Creator.

God the Son: Jesus Christ, it the pinnacle transformation of God for Christians.  Jesus is the ultimate union of God and Man in a single being.  This union allowed God to create a life that was able to fully feel, breathe, and comprehend the completion of the human experience.  This allowed Christ to fully understand the full gambit of emotions and experiences that we all have face or will face in our life including death.

God the Spirit is one that has been in more direct intimate union with us more the other images of God since creation.  This is the best gift that we as Christian believers have available to us: God the Spirit. He is the comforter to all of our needs.  He is the true manifestation of God in us and abides within each of us.  This full purpose of Christ coming to earth was to reconcile the people with the Spirit which was disconnected in the garden.  The reason that it is hard for many to understand God the Spirit is because of the relationship with God the Father and God the Son. These relationships have to be created and maintained in order to see the fullness of the power of the Spirit.

To better understand this relationship lets look at our relationships.  I have been blessed to have many relationships throughout my life.  Many of the long-term relationships are forged on many different experiences and encounters. These relationships I have been son, brother, spouse, father, and friend.  In each of these relationships I have been intimately invested for the course of the relationship.  There have been elations and points of disputes in all of the roles, but we persist. If at any point I didn’t have open communication with these relationships, the connection would be damped or lost completely.  These connections have to be matured and maintained on a periodic basis.  The more frequent the interactions; the more connected with the individual you will be and the communication aspect will reflect it. There are times when I have a certain feeling or a time that I am under an immense amount of pressure and one of my close friends will call me without me first contacting them.  This type of relationship is one that God the Spirit is searching for in each of us.  He wants to be able to comfort and direct us in the times of the most difficult and challenging, but first we have to create the relationship with God the Father and God the Son.

For many of us we have to have tangible items to connect us with the intangible.  Here are some examples that have been given in the scriptures that can direct us to the true nature of God the Spirit. I believe a way that God communicates with us about his being is in the tangible elements of Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth.

                                                     Fire

Acts 2: 1-4

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested[a] on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

~ God the Spirit appeared as actual fire to the believers on the day of Pentecost

Jeremiah 20:9

For the word of the Lord has become for me
    a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, “I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name,”
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire
    shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.

~ After being persecuted for prophesying Jeremiah tells that God the Spirit is like fire that is captured in him and will not allow him to be silent about the goodness and judgement of God.

                                                       Water

John 7: 37-39

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as[f] the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

                                                       Wind

Job 38:1 -3

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action[a] like a man;
    I will question you, and you make it known to me.

 Genesis 1: 1-2

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

                                                      Earth

Thinking of Spirit as earth, the Spirit is the one that creates the Shalom or inner peace within all that recognize him.  In the Jewish tradition Shalom means to make complete something that is not whole.  Imagine a fortress wall.  The main purpose of the wall is to maintain strength and fortify against intrusions.  If there are several bricks missing from the wall the integrity is compromised and the fortress is prone to attack.  This is our spiritual wall.  We all have many places that are weakened from current attack, past attacks, and future attacks.  If we are trying to mend these on own we will fail.  But God the Spirit is able to locate all of the weaknesses and re-fortify our walls if we have a relationship with Him.  He alone is able to give us this complete Shalom and peace that transcends our understanding.

One final thought:  God the Spirit was there before the earth was formed.  God the Spirit breathe life into Adam.  God the Spirit spoke through the prophets.  God the Spirit conceived Christ.  God the Spirit rose Christ from the dead.  God the Spirit communicated and performed miracles in the apostles.  God the Spirit is within each of us waiting to do amazing miracle in us if we allow Him.

God the Spirit,

Allow us to welcome you into our lives and acknowledge you in all that you do and have done for us.  Amen.