 |
| Image by Justin Kern |
†
A GREETING
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
(Psalm 42:2)
A READING
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided 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 them ability. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’
(Acts 2:1-4;12)
MUSIC
The languages being sung are Finnish, Irish, and ultimately English.
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
Is anything too wonderful for God?
(Genesis 18:14)
A POEM
I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying.
Said the river I am part of holiness.
And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.
- from "At the River Clarion" by Mary Oliver
VERSE OF THE DAY
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
(Psalm 42:4)
†
 |
| Image by Stuart Rankin |
The Holy Spirit knows how to make an entrance. The Spirit arrives into a gathering of the faithful as a force of nature, a sound and a noise so intense that it fills the upper room and manifests in the vision of flames or tongues of fire. The third aspect of the Holy Trinity announces itself with Creation’s cacophany. And the community who are gathered are suddenly expanded in their capacity for awareness.
In contrast to this spectacular event, however, the story of Pentecost takes place in a time when the disciples are filled with grief and fear. Jesus is gone, and the life they had with him is also gone. Everything is brand new and they don’t yet know what that “new”ness means. In Acts 1, they are assembled and trying to organize. They are Galileans, those rebels who were challenging Herod and Pilate in Holy Week. Still despised in the wider community, they have nonetheless gathered in a place of danger just to be in the very place where they were promised a comforter.
The transforming event of Pentecost begins with sound, a word in Greek that is used elsewhere to describe the deafening roar of the waves at sea. The sound shatters grief, it overturns fear. It is comforting, through its unstoppable life force. In the upper room, the people who have been filled are not deafened; instead they are suddenly transformed in their capacity to hear other languages as if they were their own. The breath and sound made by the disciples is therefore an expression of the same noise and sound that marked the Spirit’s coming. Language and words have become a phenomenon of the natural world.
The comfort of the Holy Spirit is sound, human sound, human exchange of listening and speech.
To be comforted, is to be heard.
Today’s music is a collaboration of languages: a Finnish soprano, an Irish choral ensemble, and a Kansas City gospel choir, all performing Maalaulu (Earth Song in Irish). In three different languages, we hear a celebration of the “cycle of the natural world renewing and replenishing itself” (song notes). The descent of the Holy Spirit is a force that enters all of our grief and reminds us that the will of God is for the created world to thrive. What does that look like in our own time?
Over these few days, we will reflect on how the transformative aspect of Spirit can reawaken our discipleship and send us back into a hurting world with hope and even joy.
What is the noise that the Holy Spirit makes in you, as it seeks to renew you? What is the transformative fire in you being called into new life?
* * * * * * * *
A STORY OF AWAKENING
Birds sing in their sleep and also dream, say researchers who have recently published evidence of work done following the sleeping patterns of the Kiskadee, a middle American and Southern American flycatcher bird. By monitoring these birds while both asleep and awake, scientists have discovered that the muscular contractions involved in making sound during the day still take place at night. The Kiskadee's sleeping song is most likely the expression therefore of a dream. By comparing the song to the daytime birdsong, the data revealed that the birds are most likely singing as a way of protecting their own territory, as the song is the same as when they do so while awake. The researchers believe that the birds sing in their sleep so that they may stay safe. Birds are very far removed in species from humans, but both humans and birds share the same night time anxiety. They may awake, therefore, with the same sense of relief. Read more here.
†
LC† Awakened by the Spirit is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!