Across the Pastor’s Desk by Don Rose

Many of the 2.2 billion Christians throughout the world celebrated the Festival of Pentecost this past Sunday. Coming 50 days after the Easter celebration, according to the writer known as Luke, Pentecost celebrates the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon Christ’s followers.

It is important to not be confused and think that this is the first time in which God’s Spirit is at work among God’s people and God’s world. Certainly the language of the Spirit of God appears in many ways throughout the human witness to the work that God is doing in God’s dominion. Perhaps what might best be said about the Pentecost experience is a change in the way in which God’s Spirit is at work.

In the times of the great prophetic tradition in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Spirit of God is quite localized and time conditioned. In a time of need the Spirit of God is given to one whom God has spoken to speak on God’s behalf during a particular time of trial.

In the Pentecost experience, the witness of the writer and of faith is that God’s Spirit is now poured out upon all of God’s children and not for just a brief period in time.

Now the Spirit has been shared with all and resides in all to whom the Spirit has been freely given by God. The emphasis then rests upon the work of God’s freely given Spirit in the life of God’s people and through all of creation.

The work of the Spirit is never to draw attention to itself. The message that the Spirit shares is never a new or unique message of its own. The Spirit has one function and one function only and that is to point to the salvation that God has worked for the world in the Savior, Jesus Christ. The Spirit is to teach what Jesus taught and ultimately that teaching is to remind people of what Jesus said and what his ministry means for the world.

There is no question that the people of God need reminding of what Jesus said now, nearly 2,000 years after Jesus walked upon this earth. Not only are people to be reminded of what Jesus said, but of what those words mean when lived out in real and concrete circumstances.

In a world driven by revenge and violence, how important it is to be reminded of Jesus’ words regarding forgiveness, love and peace. To be reminded that God’s people are not to seek revenge, that violence achieves nothing and that humble service are the themes of Jesus’ life and ministry.

God’s people celebrate the Spirit not so much for what it is but for what it does. Yet today, the true Spirit of God points to the truth of Jesus for a world that is sorely in need of hearing it.

 

Don Rose is the pastor of Mansfield Lutheran Church in Alden and United Lutheran Church in Walters.