Different times,
but the same Spirit
The Rt Revd Kate Wilmot, Assistant Bishop
We’ve been travelling through the Easter season in these past weeks, interacting again with the resurrection accounts - the stones that move, the folded grave clothes, the angelic appearances, the risen Christ in all his mysterious power. As the weeks have moved on, we’ve encountered the exciting events of ‘what the disciples did next’ as told in the Acts of the Apostles.
It’s easy to notice that the followers of Jesus are changed. The watchful and wary, confused and alarmed disciples of the last chapters of the Gospels transform into people who stand up and strongly proclaim the message of new life and redemption in Christ.
The behaviour of Jesus’ original followers (and the extraordinary works of many of his followers since) is the strongest evidence for the truth of the resurrection.
It wouldn’t be possible to fuel all of the witness and service, the great architecture, literature, art and music, the powerful teaching, the sacrifice of all kinds, (including to the point of death) on a trick, a sleight-of-hand with the dead body of Jesus.
A movement can’t be sustained for thousands and thousands of years on a mistaken belief, on an ‘oops thought it was him, but it wasn’t’ moment, no matter how sincerely held.
As Christian believers we’re not convinced that the Lord is risen because a Gospel writer puts in a detail about a rock, an angel or some linen wrappings. Instead, our own encounters with the Christian community, the Holy Spirit and perhaps the risen Christ himself are the inspiration and motivation for our own ministry and witness.
We have to be honest and acknowledge that not everything done in the name of Christ or of his church was born of the Holy Spirit or done in God.
So many things are, though – through history, within the compass of our own memory and at this very moment.
In all the dangers, toils and snares – the Holy Spirit has never abandoned the people of God’s church. Jesus told his first followers that the Spirit would come, and this was true not only for them, but for the church ever since.
St Paul writes: ‘Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.’ (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).
The Spirit that was with the first apostles was with the lively but ‘wandering’ community at Corinth and now fires our endeavours in the Diocese of Perth.
Our access to the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, is a real link across distance and history to the first Christian followers.
‘For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit’. (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Cultures change, circumstances change, change takes place among the people of God, but the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit is not diminished.
As we get ready to celebrate the day of Pentecost, may we know and proclaim the ways that our lives are enriched and powered by the Holy Spirit.