“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.”
Nicene Creed
The Holy Spirit, is the third person of the Trinity, which is our understanding of God. The Spirit is often the being associated most particularly with the inauguration of Christ’s Church and if you did not know better it may seem to have only appeared after Christ’s ascension into heaven. To think that the Spirit only appeared at that time is incorrect.
Yes, the Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and an equal but different part of God. That is undisputed. Whether or not the Spirit proceeds from God the Father alone or from both God the Father and Jesus Christ is still under debate and has been for 2000 years. It is a debate that will continue between those churches guided by Orthodox or Roman Catholic principles. For the Orthodox the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and for the Catholics from the Father and the Son. The debate about the ‘filioque clause’ split the Early Church in the 11th century and reconciliation still seems a long way off.
In the Scottish Episcopal Church we lean towards the Orthodox position on the Spirit, that it proceeds from the Father alone. No doubt debate will continue for many centuries and perhaps we may never agree or ever truly know. Why? Simply because we can never fully know God for we are part of God’s creation and are not God. We can never fully know God as God knows us. The debates and arguments, however do not disagree on the fact that the Spirit is already present in our world and in our lives.
It is also worth noting that word ‘Spirit’ coming from the greek ‘sophia’ is feminine and we could refer to the Spirit as ‘she’!
I said, earlier that if you were encountering the Christian Faith for the first time at Pentecost you might be mistaken that it was at Pentecost that the Spirit made its first appearance in the world. It did not.
The Spirit like the ‘Logos’ - the Word made flesh, Jesus the Son - was pre-existent with the Father in the being that we call God but who were manifested in God’s time. In Genesis we are told that the Spirit hovered over the waters like a dove; in the Gospels we are told that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit and in the accounts of his Baptism we are told that the Spirit descended on Jesus; and from the Book of Acts we read that the Church existed before Pentecost and was not founded by the Spirit at Whitsun.
Where we have Peter speaking to the assembled believers - the fore runners of the Church.
What then we might ask actually happened at that first Pentecost? I think we can gain some understanding of what went on by considering two words: empowerment & waiting.
All of us are familiar with waiting rooms, perhaps of the Dentist’s or Doctor’s surgery. The waiting room is quite often the place you suddenly feel much better than you did and wonder why you bothered to make an appointment. The upper room where the disciples gathered was like a waiting room. St.Luke records Jesus telling the disciples to remain in Jerusalem:
“Stay here in the city until you have been closed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49
Wait they did for some 10 days or more , never out of contact with each other and anticipating what might happen. They, probably, did not find the waiting time easy and they were no doubt itching to get on and share the news of the miracle of Easter. But, wait they did until suddenly and without warning the Spirit rushed in:
“… suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the use of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Diverse tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave ability.” Acts 2:1-4
The Spirit empowered those in that upper room and gifted them the skills they needed to spread the ‘Good News’ across the known world. Their wait paid off in ways they could not have expected.
At that first Pentecost the gathering of Christ’s followers were transformed from a gathering of like minded people to an outward looking, missionary and evangelising community of believers fired by hope in the resurrection of Jesus and the redemption he offers us all. A wonderful gift and one you might not think needs to be repeated.
Logically, this may be correct but in practice we are blessed by the fact that the Holy Spirit still visits us today and comes upon us in different ways and at different times. For example at our Baptism or when we receive Holy Communion or when we interact with any of the seven sacraments. Each and every time we receive a Sacrament we are blessed by the Spirit and not only in the Sacraments, the Spirit can choose to come upon us at any time and in any place.
We can all make great plans for our future but how quickly these can change if the Spirit decides otherwise. I thought I’d have a career in education but the Spirit decided otherwise and I discerned my call to ordination with the help and support of others along the way. all of us need guidance as to what it is that the Spirit might be calling us to do with the gifts it give us. We need guidance to ensure that it is God’s will we follow and not our own. If we rush to put our own plans into action they invariably fail or only achieve meagre results.
This I think is what might have happened to those early followers of Jesus if they had gone out immediately to proclaim the resurrection but by heeding Jesus’ command to ‘wait’, then much greater things could happen when the Spirit came upon them. We need to be reminded regularly that we need to be in the waiting room occasionally before starting a new endeavour. We need to allow ourselves to be open to God’s Spirit in the knowledge that with God we will achieve more than we thought we might or could.
If we are prepared to wait and be open to the Spirit, our patience will be rewarded and God will show us what it actually is we need to do for the best. Just as the Dentist knows what to do with our teeth (well we hope they do) we have to trust in the Spirit to get it right for us. We have to bide our time, open our hearts and minds and be ever ready to meet God’s challenge or call. The wind blows where it will. No one can make it blow where they wish it to. Or as St.Luke wisely says:
“Stay here in the city until …”