What a wonderful Lenten time and Holy Week we have just completed! I’m sure that all attending were truly blessed with the class on Methodism very ably facilitated by Barb MacInnes. Something new was learned during each session. Thank you, Barb!
The worship services for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter were very well attended and blessings abounded! Our thanks to all who participated and attended!
We now are in the church season leading up to Pentecost. Calendar-wise, the Day of Pentecost in Judaism is about a fullness of harvest – whether of grain, or the giving of the Torah. For Christian believers, Pentecost celebrates the day that the baptism by the Holy Spirit was first experienced by the original followers of Jesus. Pentecost Sunday (June 12) is the culmination of the Great 50 Days of Easter in the church calendar and calls for us all, once more, to invite the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s work to be present in us and among us so that we may be enabled to serve our Lord with power and strength.
If you have already received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, continue to do all those things that will keep the power of the Holy Spirit close to you and within you. If you have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, now is the time to look inward to yourself and outward toward the love of God and Jesus, to pray, witness, and worship in the love and comfort of the Spirit that is here today for you to receive. As Jesus said to his disciples, and now to you, “8…. you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
One way to prepare for Pentecost Sunday might be to pick up your Study Bible, look up and read all the scripture readings that have to do with Holy Spirit between now and June 12. Read and understand. If you don’t completely understand, do some studying or ask others. The more we learn about the Holy Spirit, the better we will understand how it affects us and others.
Come now and become one with Christ, be baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, and be truly empowered to do His mighty work on this earth! Become one of Christ’s disciples commissioned and sent forth to serve with boldness! Be the one to now say courageously, as Isaiah of old said, “Here I am Lord, send me!!”
