Body and Spirit
We need not be persuaded that each of us has a body. We are material, made up of molecules; all of us empirically detectable forms. The body is that aspect of me that I wish looked better in swimwear. Now, what about spirit? Whereas the body is visibly reflected in the mirror, the spirit is not perceived by the senses. We sense in other ways that a soul or a spirit is part of our makeup. Human beings are bodies and spirits. An invisible vital force vivifies a marvelous physical network. Your body and spirit interplay, making you the living being that you are.
There is something gorgeous about the language of Genesis: God took up dust from the earth to form a creature and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. The human being is brought into being by the Creator, God. If the spark of life is blown into living flame by the breath of God, the Christian celebration of Pentecost calls our attention to a fuller experience of life in God: the rush of a mighty wind, and the flame of the Holy Spirit dancing over our heads:
When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. (Acts 2:1-4)
Consider the older feast of Pentecost. The Hebrew Tradition celebrates the Harvest Festival called Shavuot (“weeks”) or Feast of Weeks, which came to be called, Pentecost, (Greek for “fifty”) because it falls fifty days after the beginning of Passover. It is a festival of joy and thanksgiving celebrating the completion of the harvest season, which is described in Exodus (23:16) and Numbers (28:26). In the time of Jesus, before His Ascension into heaven, he instructed his disciples to gather in Jerusalem and wait for the empowering of the Spirit. They arrive in Jerusalem in time for the heavily populated celebration of Shavuot, Pentecost.
The significant harvest, as it were, was how the Holy Spirit gathered up the assembled followers of Jesus in the power of grace. There are sensory signs of the outpouring of grace. Sounds like rushing winds, scenes of divided tongues of light, like flames, and people hearing in their languages, the empowered ones praising God. Peter described it as the fulfillment of the Prophet. Joel (2:28-32) through which God declares, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Luke, who gave us the Acts of the Apostles from which this Pentecost story comes, seems to convey it as the birth of new humanity sent out with the message of the Good News, baptizing and making disciples everywhere they went.
Individually, we are bodies, animated by the spirit of life. The Church, collectively, is the Body of Christ brought to life by the Spirit of God poured into it and filling it. The Scriptures teach that you were created in the image of God and have the Spirit of God breathed into you. The spiritual element of you made you a candidate for the infilling of the Spirit. Also note this passage from The First Letter of Peter (1:3-4): “By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”
How glorious it is that we have both a material and a spiritual aspect of our created being. And how glorious beyond description that God has willed to give us new birth from above, and to equip us for work in this world of such need. Spirit-filled, you are ambassadors for Christ every day, everywhere you go. All I can say is, “Happy Pentecost, everybody!”