On one occasion, while Jesus was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
–Acts 1:4-5
God the Father, Christ who died, and the Spirit who guides…thank you.
What a perfect and perfectly complete three-in-one God we should know. Jesus, even those who knew you best, those most eagerly equipped to scatter out into the world shouting your story of redemption and forgiveness and grace…you bid them wait. What a surprising thought.
Your own eyewitnesses, your innermost circle, you commanded their patience, their pause. The bearers of such profound truth, such life-breathing, life-giving capital-lettered TRUTH, meant for and given to the whole world that we may live…the men and women so fully acquainted with your extravagant, excessive love, the holders of these words poured out to heal the whole world…you said, “Wait.”
How helpless they must have felt, as if they had been told to sit on their hands while the world out there was drowning, a world to love like you love. How ready they must have known they were to go out and get to work.
And oh, don’t I know how significant the story is, Jesus, the story of God and creation and God’s intense love for creation. The story woven so deep in our marrow we oftentimes miss it. The story that haunts us, that shadows our every step, that skirts around the edges of our souls telling us we aren’t quite home yet.
I know this story well. I know the impact and the purpose and the hope you offer. I know the way your words sink into my skin and pump through my heart and pour from my fingertips, if I let it.
None of that has very much to do with me, if anything. None of it comes from my own eloquence or experience of you. And oh, thank God. I could not spill grace so willingly, so easily, though I am given it so freely and at such a high cost. Never could I on my own.
In your perfect knowing of the universe and through your intimate understanding of humanity and all of our weaknesses, you prepared us to finish the job. To heal the world. Jesus, you could have done it all; you could have fixed the earth once and forever and the job would have been done to perfection, completion. But what an invitation you give us to engage. Not for your lacking but for our own undeserved fulfillment. What an invitation to follow you. And what a direction you are leading us.
God, you breathed us to life. Jesus, you bled for our redemption. Spirit, you’ve moved in to help us muddle through it all.
This chapter in your holy word, Acts 1, in preparation of what the liturgy lovers call Pentecost…your followers had no idea what was coming. Would it have blown their minds to know what power had been readily promised, so eagerly gifted them? I know I have been arrogant and ignorant enough to think any good I do, any heart I touch, has anything to do with me. No one aches for me the way we all ache for you, God, whether or not we choose to call attention to it. And you knew, God creator and King, how we ache. You knew we needed your life, your death, and, now, your might.
And I still don’t know, not fully, what was coming. Holy Spirit, how little I consider the gift of you. How much I misunderstand you, forget you, as if you were little more than an inkling or a conscience whispering in my ear, pricking my heart, nudging me right instead of left. How wrong am I to misuse the eternal Spirit of God the Father who formed and adores the universe and every single thing in it.
How you came to move among and within us, the same Holy Spirit who swept over an unformed earth before time and space were set in motion. The same Spirit who fought battles for King David, who prophesied through Isaiah, who poured visions and faith and courage into the faithful who have gone before us. What power we have been given! What history — our history — living and breathing in the very center of our chests!
What would happen, I wonder, if I knew, really tried to know, the power with which you have anointed all of your followers? What would happen if I let you, Holy Spirit, lover and knower of every eternal soul, actually move me? What if I were to let God’s own Spirit lead my feet and use my hands and bleed from my heart?
Jesus, you commanded your followers to wait on the gift of the Holy Spirit. The weight of Heaven and Earth depended on it. And once given that Spirit? They shook the whole world.
Move us and in us, Holy Spirit of Heaven, the way you moved unhindered through those first followers of Jesus Christ our souls’ redeemer. Awaken our hunger and our hearts. Plant our feet and point our hands.
Be our power, our sole power. Remind us that through you, and only you, can we shake the whole world.
This is a series of prayers for the church in hopes that we the beloved body of Christ will move and glow and pulse in this world for God’s great and wrecking glory.
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