Third in a series of teachings exploring the Confession of Faith from a Mennonite Perspective.
Will Fitzgerald, given at Kalamazoo Mennonite Fellowship, 2006-02-11
This is not really a teaching per se, but mostly stories. The Holy Spirit acts, and it seems better to talk about what the Spirit’s done and is doing rather than, say, who the Spirit is.
The Spirit of God hovered over the chaos of the initial creation, brooding over its formlessness, its nullity, its deep and utter darkness, brooding for a day, for six billion years, for eternity, carefully planning. And Spirit spoke, breathing, naming, calling forth structure and order: this is day; that is night; this is the sky; here are myriads of billions of stars; this one is the sun, here are its planets; this one is earth; here are plants, millions of animals; this one is humanity; it will bear our image.
Spirit gathers a people and breathes wisdom to her people: hear, O Israel, Yahweh is your god, and there is no other. Consider this day whom you shall serve. You shall have no other gods before me. Love your neighbor. God is with you in all your times of trial, and God will deliver you. Look for a deliverer; he will come, filled with Spirit.
Billions of galaxies, and Spirit (it seems) especially watches this galaxy. Billions of stars, and Spirit broods over the sun. Many planets, and Spirit visits our earth. Billions of years and millions of species, and Spirit speaks to humanity. Thousands of nations, and Spirit calls forth Israel. Billions of people, and Spirit comes upon this young, trembling girl. And of Spirit, she conceives, and bears a son: Jesus, the promised deliverer. Immanuel, God with us.
Jesus grows in wisdom and stature. The Spirit makes a home in him. Jesus is anointed by John, and everyone sees the Spirit descending on Jesus.
God sent his pure sweet love,
On the wings of a snow white dove.
A sign from above on the wings of a dove.
And Jesus begins teaching.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
As the Spirit drove Jesus from here to there, healing and teaching and announcing the reign of God, the powers conspired to kill him and defeat his message. And Jesus, in the Spirit, accepted his fate: separation from God, his Father; the Spirit forsook him; men mocked him; death took him. But it was part of the Spirit’s planning, the Spirit’s infinite planning. And the Spirit returned to Jesus, and Jesus returns as King Jesus from out of from the dead, the first fruits of a new work of the Spirit.
And then the new work. The Spirit pours out, inciting loud praise and strange tongues and miracle cures and changed lives. Out of one nation to many nations. Out of many nations, one spreading Spirit kingdom. The King lavishes out gifts from the Spirit to the citizens of the new Kingdom, an assembly, a church, a building where the Spirit dwells: wisdom, ministry, guidance, unity sometimes, new insights other times. As the Confession says, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the church preaches, teaches, testifies, heals, loves, and suffers, following the example of Jesus its Lord.
A child lies in bed, thinking. He’s just moved to a new town. Last week, he visited the clapboard church near the lake. He’d just begun to follow Jesus, accepting him as his Lord-and-Saviour through the promptings of a pushy Sunday school teacher, the Spirit at work “writing straight with crooked lines,” as they say. This Sunday he’s sleeping in. Or so he thinks. The Spirit will not let him rest. A deep restlessness, a guilt, a conviction comes over him. He gets out of bed and goes to church. If he’d slept, would he’d ever heard the Spirit’s call again?
Sometimes the Spirit drives us like the Spirit drove Jesus. But we are also called to yield to the Spirit. A story from 1 Kings 19. Listen to the word of the Lord:
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.”
And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”
And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.”
And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”
And he said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
And he said, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.” And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
The Spirit presents to us the will of God, and we need to quiet ourselves at times to hear the Spirit. The Spirit seems charged with turning us into the people we need to be, people who are fit enough to stand in the presence of God. The Spirit groans in prayer for us, comforts us, prods us, encourages us, teaches us, empowers us. The Spirit does this for us as individuals, and the Spirit does this for us in community, praying, comforting, prodding, encouraging, teaching, empowering.
I wonder how you have seen or felt or experienced the Spirit’s care for you and the communities in which you have been a member.
[Here, I asked people to share stories of how the Spirit has been active in their lives.]
I wonder how the Spirit will guide this small community.
[Here, we sat in silence for a while, “waiting on the Spirit,” who gave one person a strong sense of peace, and impressed upon another that we had open hearts to receive the people God would send our way.]