Happy Birthday, Church
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, who loved us enough to leave the Holy Spirit with us to empower and embolden us to be faithful disciples. Isn’t that good news?
Pentecost is coming. It remembers the coming of the Holy Spirit, the birthday of the church, and the way God calls all of us to be the presence of God in the world.
Not bad for a holiday we often forget.
“Pentecost” literally means “fiftieth”, because it signifies the fiftieth day after Easter (I’ll pause while you check your calendars). Jesus emerges from the tomb on Easter Sunday after his arrest and torture and execution (we never want to sanitize what Jesus went through on Calvary)—he returns to his disciples and for 40 days he teaches them about the Kingdome of God (Acts 1:3). Make sure that sticks in your mind. The resurrected Jesus returns to his closest followers, and of all the things he could have taught them, he chooses to talk about the same thing he taught in his parables: what it means to live as citizens in the Kingdom of God.
You’ll hear the story this Sunday, along with how it fits with the prophecy of Joel in the Old Testament. Joel promised that men and women alike will speak the words of God—that all of us, young and old, will see clearly what God calls us to in this life. In Acts 2 we’ll hear the story of the coming of the Spirit—how it made the good news of Jesus understandable to people in their own languages—in their own forms of expression.
Isn’t it just like God to help us see and experience his presence in a meaningful way?
That’s the gift and the calling of Pentecost.
I’ve talked about a lot of this before. After Pentecost our relationship to God is no longer rooted in a place. Once the Holy Spirit comes to empower and energize the church, the presence of God isn’t limited to a box or a Temple or a country. Each of us carries that presence with us, which is meant to be a blessing for every person and nation in the world. That has huge implications for us and for the rest of the world. Why?
Because after Pentecost there isn’t any specific holy land anymore.
After Pentecost it’s all Holy Land—every beautiful, troubled, broken, glorious inch of this earth is Holy Land, rich with the presence of God because we’re in it.
This Sunday we’ll celebrate Pentecost in our prayers and music and message. Come and be a part of it as we wish the Church a very Happy Birthday!
Blessings to you,
Pastor John