Dance With The Spirit!
Christians call this coming Sunday, Pentecost Sunday. According to the Bible story as written in Acts 2, this Sunday helps us to remember that on this day God gave the Holy Spirit to all people. Before that time the people believed that God gave the gift of the Spirit only to people who God called to a specific task, like Moses and Miriam and King David.
On Pentecost, God’s Spirit came with all the wonder of a Steven Spielberg movie. According to the story there was a mighty wind, and tongues of fire. The Spirit landed first on Jesus’ friends giving them the power and wisdom to pass on Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness. Everyone who was there heard them in their own language. Wow. Whether they spoke only Aramaic, or Greek, or any other language, the Spirit gave them understanding of what Peter and his friends said.
Immediately Peter begins to speak and he says first off, God’s Spirit is a gift to all people, all people not just those who followed Jesus, and not just those who have had the right education, or those of particular colour or faith or gender identification, not just those who are rich or poor, or old or young, or leaders or followers. All people will have the gift of God’s Spirit, and we will recognize the presence of God’s Spirit in ourselves and others in our desire and ability to bring love, joy, laughter, fun, kindness to others. We will recognize the gift of God’s Spirit as we use our gifts of creativity to lead others in goodness and love. All people will be able to see that spreading God’s love and forgiveness will bring about a world of peace and love and forgiveness.
Pentecost is a mighty special day. When we celebrate Pentecost, we remember that God’s Spirit is with all people. We remember to watch for signs of God’s Spirit of goodness and forgiveness in all people. Just think the difference that could make in our world. We would no longer watch for differences, but rather goodness, mistakes and failures, rather than visions and successes. With that attitude and belief, prejudice, would disappear. The belief in us and them would come to an end. Wars would cease.
I believe we receive the gift of God’s Spirit at our birth. It’s our job to recognize God’s Spirit within us and others, and to listen to her wisdom and be led to spread God’s love to everyone. Even when we are old (over 90) or young (0-3 months old) and always, God’s Spirit is with us.
There is a wonderful chorus by Jean & Jim Strathdee that we will sing this week in our church that says it all.
Dance With the Spirit By Jean & Jim Strathdee
Dance with the Spirit early in the mornin’,
walk with the Spirit throughout the long day.
Work and hope for the new life abornin’,
listen to the Spirit to show you the way.
In the Bible there are many stories of people “Dancing with the Spirit”. Check out “The Feeding of the Five Thousand” (John 6:1-14) or “Touching the hem of Jesus’ robe” (Luke 8:40-48) and so many more. The Spirit moves in all of us. We need only recognize and dance with her. Here’s a suggestion. Think about a time that you have experience God’s Spirit rise up in you.Maybe it was a time when you felt the urge to share generously, or offer to be the co-ordinator for a task in your group, or stop to listen to someone who needed to touch, or heard the Spirit’s call to connect with someone on the phone or…We experienced God’s Spirit in so many ways. We often say, “I just felt the urge. Something kept tell me to…” Share that experience with someone else.