On Pentecost Sunday we celebrated the birthday of the Church Universal --- the Big Church, worldwide. Originally, Pentecost was a Jewish feast day. Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem celebrated this festival by offering the firstfruits of the harvest; wheat, barley, olives, dates, pomegranates, and figs to God. While the Jews celebrated, the disciples received what they had been waiting for. The disciples, men and women, gathered in one place indoors, and patiently waited for what Jesus had promised (Acts 2). Then, with a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and a sight as tongues of fire, Jesus’ promise was realized. The Holy Spirit, the Presence of God Himself, took up residence inside ordinary bodies --- their bodies.

In that dynamite event the Church was born, and the disciples hit the streets with a bold new style of proclamation that world has never recovered from. Soon everyone in Jerusalem was talking about these followers of the recently crucified Jesus. To the amazement of the Jews milling around Jerusalem, the pilgrims from all over the world heard Peter’s Galilean message in their own native languages. It would be decades before Jewish Christians completely separated themselves from worship in the Jewish Synagogue, and worshipped as a Christian community, commonly known as the church.

The Church is the people of God. The Latin word for “church,” ecclesia, comes from the Greek ek, which means “out,” and kaleo, which means “to call.” The Church is holy and sinful, spotless and tainted. The Church is the bride of Christ, who washed her in the cleansing water and took her to himself, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind --- yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:26-27). The Church is the people of God called out of slavery to freedom, sin to salvation, despair to hope, darkness to light, an existence centered on death to an existence focused on life. 

The Church is a very human community but it is also a garden of God’s grace. It is gathering where holiness keeps blooming in sinful, wounded, hurt people; Holy people, saints, that’s who we are, we just have to keep believing it (Colossians 1:11-14). Many times God is most present when we are most human. Together we are Christ’s body, each of us with a part to play in the whole (1 Corinthians 12:27). All of us in our own unique ways gather together as in a garden where we have heard the voice of God calling us His children, and God uses our gifts and personalities in very unique ways.

Think and pray about how God is calling you to minister in His Church. Reflect on how your faith in God has grown, and pray about how you might mature spiritually in other areas in your life. 

May God bless you and your families as we move into Summer.