All about the Word

 Acts 2:1-21

Tbere were adult male Jews from all over the world in Jerusalem because of Shavuot, which happens on Pentecost (50 days from the first day of Passover) and is one of three pilgrimage obligations for adult Jewish males.  Shavuot is the remembrance of God giving the Torah to Moses, one of the central events that mark the identity of God's people.

We all need a code.  Jesus offered His Good News of Agape Love as a code for living in God's Kingdom, even under empire.  The Torah code of loving God and loving Neighbor as self is fulfilled in Jesus' great commandment of the same, but with Agape Love.  If you have read anything of mine in the past twenty-three years, you know what Agape is.

So, the Holy Spirit joins the observance in very apparent ways, and the miracle is that whatever language is uttered, they all understood what was being said.  It is all about the Word and the importance of knowing it and applying it to how we live in God's Kingdom here and now.  That is why Paul would later write about speaking in tongues only being valid if there is an interpreter present.  It is not a show.  It is not a litmus test for one's faith.  It is about communication.  It is about God's Will being communicated to us so that we will live it.

What I know about the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit is advocate on our behalf in faith.  There is a certain accountability in that with the comfort in it.

I know that the Holy Spirit is guiding us, pointing us, driving us to the Agape of Jesus, always.  It is not about some pietistic practices or superficial measures of devotion, but about the application of committed action on behalf of stranger, enemy and the most vulnerable among us, that they may have Shalom (completeness, wholeness and well-being).  

I know that the Holy Spirit of God is relentless, whispering in our ear, the nagging feeling, the inspired thought, the peace that we cannot explain and the driving us always to The Christ and His message of Agape as the central principle and value of our lives.  Conscience, dedication, intuition, inspiration, creativity, depth of thought and receptivity are all tools of the Holy Spirit in my life that drive me to the Way of Jesus, but the greatest of these is the relationship of those human capacities with the Word, the Gospel, the Good News of Agape Love that Jesus taught, commanded and modeled for us.

It is all about the Word - in John's terms, the Word made flesh - that we would be flesh made Word - and the Word is Agape Love.