Source of Hope

First, a small point of personal privilege. I think it began in the 8th grade when I started playing basketball, but "getting into double figures" has always been a source of great satisfaction. To average double figures as a basketball player was a goal. Even in the pro's they count the double double and triple doubles of the stars. Then when I became the Pastor of Bethel Presbyterian Church I was the 10th pastor in their 225 year history. The first four ministers served for a 160 years. Yeah, the average pastorate was 40 years each. The next six did not do as well. But I told them how excited I was to be the pastor who reached double figures. I was the first one to get double figures. Now I am excited and pleased to get double figures in the followers of this blog. There are 10 people who follow this blog. And I am very grateful to all of them.

A friend just suggested that the Bible may be called the Good Book, but when it comes to reading a book, most people would rather have a naughty book. People claim to believe what the Bible says but they do not know what it says. Today is celebrated in the Christian tradition as Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples. The Spirit of anything is the power that gives it life. That is why Mary Kay and Wal Mart have all those pep rallies and associates gatherings. The power of the Marines is its spirit. The Spirit gives energy, power, determination, and joy. The Spirit comes to a group as it lives and struggles together for a purpose. The Christian spirit is in the church as it lives and struggles to be the body of Christ. Muslims have a Spirit.

One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is to give life to the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit is the gift that brings us into contact with the story of the Scriptures so that those stories are part of our living conversation. The Holy Spirit brings alive the stories of the Scriptures so that we read those stories as stories of real people with real lives, with real challenges, with real doubts, and with real decisions. The Voice of God did not speak to Moses, Joseph, Abraham, Jeremiah, and the rest any more clearly than the Voice of God whispers to us. The Spirit of God enables us to realize that the presence of God is found in the give and take of every day life. There were lots of other voices and powers claiming to be God's voice in Jeremiah's day.

The Holy Spirit is given to give encouragement to us as we read the Scriptures to hope that whereas those in the past have found God in the midst of their daily, average, ordinary lives so too we will hear and find the voice of God as we struggle to hear it in our confused and complicated lives. The Holy Spirit comes to bring to life the struggle to hear and to be faithful to what we hear. The Holy Spirit comes in fellowship with others who are searching and who know that the search and the seeking after truth and justice matter. It is not so much that God did stuff in the past, the Holy Spirit brings those stories alive so that we might be alert to where that voice is speaking now.