Ah, Pentecost.
There is, I think, no festival of the church year which I
like better. Perhaps it is because this is the only one I can truly wrap my
head around religiously. I mean, Christmas is about Jesus being born, it is
just a birthday party. Easter is about Jesus dying and being resurrected, and I
can’t really figure out how that happened, or what it means…
But Pentecost… The day that we remember how the Holy Spirit
empowered the disciples to start the church, and how that same spirit continues
to empower us. That I understand.
It is like love. Love inspires me to be nicer to people than
I normally would. Or it is like creativity, which causes me to all of a sudden
have this great idea for putting mustard on corn on the cob. (try it, you’ll
love it).
The spirit is something we cannot see, but we can feel. It
is the power of the universe seeping into my pores and strengthening me to do
things I was afraid to do, or giving me ideas I never would have come up with,
or empowering me to do it anyway, even though I am afraid.
So, the story says that these followers of Jesus, who were
having a pretty rough time, were all gathered in Jerusalem and they were
talking… and suddenly it was like their tongues were on fire… it was like
everyone understood what they were saying… it was like they were inspired to
speak in such a way that everyone wanted to join the new movement…
So partly this is the birthday of the church. It was from
Pentecost on that people flocked to hear the disciples preach. But more
importantly, this is a time when we celebrate a concept, the concept of divine
inspiration.
There is a passage in the Bible where it says that when we
are too sad to speak, the Holy Spirit speaks for us, and it does it through
sighs and tears.
I like that. Once more it is a practical explanation of how
God is active in my life. God is that power that goes beyond the strength I
have. The divine is what gets me through it.
Albert Einstein was one of the world’s most creative minds.
He could imagine things that others had not even dreamt of. He once put what I
am trying to say this way:
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the
sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this
emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as
good as dead.”
It is when I stand and stare at the sunset over the
Miramichi River and feel joy, and awe, and love in my heart that I am empowered
to go out into the world and help others, or write creatively, or paint a
picture….
Religion really is as simple as this. Jesus said that all of
the laws, all of the rules, all of the sacraments, all of God could be wrapped
up in the idea of having love in your heart.
It is that love and the inspiration that bore it that we
celebrate during this time. Once upon a time there was a man who loved so
completely, honestly, and compassionately that everyone wanted to be like him.
That same spirit lives on in those of us who try and follow to this day.
Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, but once a year we
stop and remind ourselves that the power of that spirit goes beyond our
imaginations; and that when you truly feel it, it will change your life.
So happy Pentecost everyone!
