The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

PRAYER PRACTICE

Prayer Journal - To begin your daily worship today, grab a pen and paper and write out a prayer to God. Not sure what to write? Try using ACTS to frame your prayer. Begin with adoration for who God is. Then move on to confession – being real about where you have fallen short in the last day or two. Give thanks to God for all that He gives (including forgiveness for the sin you just confessed!). And then finish with supplication – with your prayer requests to God. When you are done, tuck this away somewhere (so you can read it later and see how God has answered your prayers) and then move into hearing from God through His Word.

DAILY READING

Acts 2:1-13

REFLECTION

by Katie Borden

Have you ever noticed that the presence of God's Spirit is often mysteriously found in wind and fire? We see fire in Moses' encounter with the burning bush in Exodus 3, and the pillars of smoke and fire led the Israelites in Exodus 13. Wind, or breath, is present as God himself breathed life into human beings in Genesis 2, and in the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37.

So in Acts 2, when the sound like the blowing of a violent wind and what appeared to be tongues of fire were present, it may come as no surprise to us as readers of Scripture that this indicates the presence of Holy Spirit.

We compare Holy Spirit to fire an awful lot.
But why wind?

Wind is something we as humans cannot control. Sure, we have technology that allows us to harness it for the benefit of our communities and societies. But make the wind blow, or control weather systems? We have little power over that. So too with the Spirit--we cannot dictate where or how He will move and act. But, like a sailor adjusting her sails to calculate for the movement of the wind, we can respond to God's Spirit in our lives.

We can similarly think of "breath" as a metaphor for the Spirit. The Spirit has breathed life through the gift of faith into each one of us, and that gift of the Spirit is nothing we can control, but something we can cultivate with gratitude, by his power.

The faith that is breathed into us by the power of the Spirit is fanned into flame in the church, in those whom he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies (see Luther's Small Catechism for more on this).

God, thank you for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and for how he continues his work in each of us today.