Pentecostal Thoughts

--I'm not a Pentecostal by affiliation, although I can certainly understand why someone would gladly welcome such affiliation. Personal experiences of Spirit, in its many manifestations, can really rock your world. After all, according to Scripture, you're dealing with fire and wind!

--A simple puff of air can extinguish a match; wind can quickly spread a forest fire. God's Spirit is not a gentle breeze, but a mighty wind that fills arid valleys and animates piles of lifeless, dry bones (Ezekiel 37).

--This is no tame Jesus, whose Spirit calls the dead to life (take that anyway you want), gives courage to the fearful, and elicits wild from the domesticated. According to Acts 2, The Holy Spirit lifted a group of people to their feet and scattered them to the winds, as it were, to gather a harvest of which they were the firstfruits, children of God's breath.

--Why are we Lutherans so afraid of the Holy Spirit that we only give Him focus once a year? Would a greater emphasis place us in the charismatic camps? Maybe I just answered my first question. Heaven forbid that we be like...them. I understand that personal experiences of the Spirit can lead to spiritual snobbery and aires of superiority, lording it over those who have no such experiences (like me). But would it be necessarily so?

--Things that remind me of the functions of the Holy Spirit: the wind blowing through the trees, a frightened heart made courageous, a group of people feeding the homeless, an elderly couple dancing to music that only they can hear, a mourner being given solace and comfort, a baby taking his/her first steps, someone listening to music that brings tears to his/her eyes, the fleeting moments of the heart that whisper "all is well", people planting flowers at a gravesite, aha! moments, a person enchanted for whatever reason, reminiscing on past memories... the discovery that life is a river that flows and seeks to be forgotten in the ocean of God's love.

--The Spirit is not a liquid that is infused like a vaccination. The Spirit is more like an artesian well that springs forth from the very depths of our being in Christ and yells, "Surprise!" I think Jesus said as much in John 4:13,14.

--How come we don't dance down the aisle after receiving the Eucharist? The Holy Spirit never made anyone in Scripture staid and stiff, like they were coming out of a boring movie. The Spirit made people alive and vibrant, like they just had a stiff drink! Think about that last sentence for a second.