Our primary text for this Pentecost Sunday is the story of the great day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2:1-21. We will also read about the work of the Holy Spirit described in John 15:26-27, 16:4-15. Both of these passages can be read here.
On Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate the day when God began God's new work of pouring out the Holy Spirit on all people, marking them as God's own and knitting them together to be the Body of Christ now that Jesus' physical body was no longer present on earth. It is called by many "the birthday of the church"--so don't forget to WEAR RED on Sunday morning as a sign of our collective celebration!
One of my favorite quotes about Pentecost and its meaning in our lives and faith comes from John Mcintyre, who while speaking at the Edinburgh Festival on Art and Religion once described Pentecost as the “wholehearted expression of the almost unlimited imagination of God.” We may no longer experience hurricane force winds or tongues of fire on a regular basis, or even on this one day a year, but we do still have the chance to experience and to participate in this insane imagination of God as to what God's continued visible presence on this earth could look like.
Think about the church today--our church, and the Church in general. In what ways do we represent and live out the best of God's "almost unlimited imagination"? In what ways have we settled for less than this rousing vision of wind and flame and speech and community given to us in Acts 2? Even without pyrotechnics, how might we continue to unravel and unveil God's creative excellence as we celebrate our birthday this year?
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