And also with you!

Breathe on me breath of God fill me with life anew That I may love what thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do. There is a story told of a little boy who went faithfully with his parents very Sunday to Church as became well versed in the liturgy. He especially liked it when he got to talk. The clergy would say to the congregation “The Lord be with you” and the boy would loudly proclaim, “And also with you!” one evening the family went to take in a showing of the original Star Wars movie. And when the teacher, Obi wan Kenobi said to the young Luke Skywalker “May the Force be with you,” the young lad in the audience shouted out “and also with you!”

Without the coming of the Holy Spirit where would the Church have been? If the Spirit had not come on the Church thee people would have been left in confusion, under threat from outside their group who opposed them, having being betrayed by one of their own and most of all they would have been left in growing fear that they were about to be killed themselves. They would have remained as long as they could have behind closed curtain and locked doors waiting to be gotten and dealt with by those who opposed Jesus. Could it be that is why we are allowed to see Jesus in the room and breathing on his disciples?  So why suddenly did they become bolder and stronger, willing to preach the risen and ascended Jesus and taking risks and putting their lives on the line?

They must have found and awful lot more than forgiveness for their lives. They must have found a deepening relationship with God. The Easter season is more than just about Jesus rising from the dead and returning to the Father, completing the incarnational cycle. Resurrection moves people not just into repentance which leads to the forgiveness sin and thus potential relationship with God. The risen life of Christ also necessarily moves people into personal and public vocation concerning the kingdom. And to enable this to happen,  Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to not only be with but also within the Church to continue doing for the Church what had been done for him – empowering ministry. We are made three simple promises by Jesus according to the Gospel:

1.       That the work of Christ will continue on an everyday basis through the Church and be enabled to do greater things than Christ has done because he is at home with the Father enabling us to do it.  

2.       That prayers will not only be heard, they will be answered in order that life and mission in the Church is sustained and maintained. Thus the Church needs to stop and realize that God’s work done God’s way, will know God’s supply.

3.       That the Church will not be orphaned but that the Spirit is sent to be alongside and with the Church for the rest of eternity: that the Church, that we as his Church, his Body, will never be abandoned and left orphaned.  

The Spirit moreover marks us as Christ’s own and enables us to be in community with one another in ways that we could not have otherwise imagined – we are God’s slaves, his sons and daughters. All of us are adopted – chosen by God. And we are called to be filled with the Spirit so that we can show whose children we really are. Speaking to people in another language not about how bless some people were in that moment. God cleared away the things that were getting in the way of us boldly telling the nations of the earth how Great God is and what God has done for us in Christ to bring us home too.

The Spirit within us as Church compels us to tell all of creation about the good news of God in Christ and that Christ lives and is Lord. While we like to have our programs and people to do things, and we like our rules, our theology and our liturgies what the world needs most is for the Church to be the Church. For the Church to show its heart and declare boldly that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father. The Church needs to show its lives that are filled with the Spirit and are being lived out faithfully and with hope for what is to come in the present and in the future. 

Let us recognize that this same Spirit is here in the Church today and the power to propel us into proclamation is still there – the power to demonstrate that Jesus is alive and is Lord is available to the modern Church as it was to those early believers. That is worth something in terms of celebrating so let’s go live it. And the Lord be with you!