Our Ministries
7 Jun

Pentecost Sunday

Wind, Love, and Breath

Mighty wind? Fiery love? Gentle breath! Which image of the Holy Spirit are you expecting when you celebrate Pentecost this weekend? 

When I last visited Prague in the Czech Republic a few weeks ago, I became aware of my immense inheritance from the culture and language my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents knew and lived. It was a very emotional time for me. When my great-grandparents (on both sides of family) left their native land, they never returned to visit. They never had the opportunity that I have had to come to understand how language, food, customs, vegetation, and flowers form us and UNITE us. For me, this visit was a new Pentecost—a new way of seeing and understanding the importance of identifying with others—some so much like me and some so very different. Yet the sense of UNITY for me was profound. I was at home in so many ways.

What I left the country with was an aching heart, however, for the loss of faith. I wanted the Holy Spirit to come as a mighty wind and a fiery love to renew the faith I inherited from just such a country. 

Pentecost is a good time to reflect on how the Holy Spirit is present, at work in our lives. Like those present in the Upper Room when they received the Holy Spirit, we are regularly gifted with the opportunity to hear other voices and to understand. In the midst of chaos, we are gifted with power to make a difference. At times of fear and despair, when we would rather hide and mind our own business, the Holy Spirit PUSHES us out to engage with the world, to renew the face of the earth. May our houses, our homes, and our hearts be ready to receive many people from different lands, languages, and ways of life. Some are already known to us. Others are not with us YET! Help us to see, touch, and meet Jesus Christ. Send us your Spirit, Lord, as a mighty wind, a fiery love, and gentle breath! Recreate in us a new sense of Unity as the Body of Christ on earth.

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