Pentecost

Good morning and Happy Pentecost,
We often think about Pentecost as the church's birthday because it's the Spirit's power that enabled that small band of disciples to spread the good news of God's love in Christ throughout the known world within a generation. In our Sunday reading from Pentecost we hear the story of that day and the apostles first Spirit-filled words to the crowd. I've never literally been able to speak another language I haven't learned like on that day, but through our different lives and experiences God enables us to communicate with different groups of people. As a community we speak the "language" of counseling, teaching, engineering, medicine, music, domestic life, groceries, research and many more. Our experiences are part of how God calls and equips us to share God's love with others, and by the Spirit God gives us many gifts for ministry in the world.

Our Gospel passage gives us an up close look at one of Jesus' early healings. Leprosy was a particularly feared disease in Jesus' time because not only did it threaten the health and life of the person who was ill, it also cut them off from their family and community, leaving them isolated. The man with leprosy, a man who faced rejection and loneliness everyday, found the courage to ask Jesus to heal him. He knew Jesus could, but he also knew from experience that many people shrunk back from touching him. Jesus does not shrink back and he ignores not only the risk of infection but also the fact that touching someone with leprosy made him ritually unclean. We know Jesus didn't always see eye to eye with the religious establishment, but here we see him take pains to send the man to follow the temple rules for showing that he was now healed. This reminds the temple that God is working in the world and begins the process of reintegrating the man into society. I pray that we would use our different gifts to reach out to others and to bring God's healing and love to a hurting world.

Blessings,
Sam

Luke 5:12-16

12Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” 13Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him. 14And he ordered him to tell no one. “Go,” he said, “and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.” 15But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. 16But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.


Acts 2:1-8
1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?