I apologize for the late blog post; yesterday I was attending the graduation party for a person very special to me.
The Holy Spirit descends
Thus begins the season of Pentecost, which is the non-festival half of the church year. The first Pentecost occurred 50 days (Pentecost comes from the Greek pentēkostē, meaning “fiftieth”) after Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter. Just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem because He would send the Holy Spirit to them. Sure enough, the Day of Pentecost arrived, and with it came the Holy Spirit in a sound like rushing wind and tongues of fire hovering over the apostles’ heads! In addition to the physical sign, He enabled the apostles to speak in many different languages so that they could proclaim the gospel message to Jews from different lands. And not only this, but thanks to the Holy Spirit, the apostles were able to fully understand everything that Jesus had taught them. If you are interested in learning about this miracle in more detail, the entire account is recorded in the first few chapters of the book of Acts.
The Holy Spirit is a heart transplant surgeon
Oddly enough, the sermon for today’s service was not on Acts 2. This morning, the pastor preached Psalm 51. Now, in order to understand the significance of this psalm, you first have to read 2 Samuel 11, which is the account of King David committing adultery with Bathsheba (who of course gets pregnant), and after all his finagling fails, the king then arranges the murder of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah in order to cover up his first crime. In the next chapter, the prophet Nathan rebukes the king with an allegory. The end result is that David repents of his sin and goes on to write a beautiful psalm.
Verses 10-12 and 17 are particularly of note:
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Psalm 51:10-12 (NIV)
The sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit.
A broken and crushed heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:17 (Evangelical Heritage Version)
The NIV uses the word “contrite” instead of crushed in verse 17. I used a different translation for the last verse because even though the message is the same, the imagery of a broken and crushed heart is much more profound. King David had committed horrible sins and he was sick unto death because of the guilt crushing him. Now, not everyone is guilty of such serious crimes as adultery compounded by murder, but this is how we should feel about any kind of sin. Even those sins that the world claims are “not so bad” or denies are actually sins in this enlightened age of secularized society. After all, nowadays it is okay to live in ways that God frowns upon because nobody appears to get hurt.
But David knew better. He knew the agony and torture of his guilty conscience. He knew that even above and beyond what he had done to harm Bathsheba and Uriah, that his sins hurt God.
Well, now that our hearts are pulverized beyond all recognition due to guilt and grief, how do we continue to survive? Even the most ignorant person knows that you can’t live without a heart! But who will give us a new heart? When one receives a new kidney, there is a chance that the donor is still alive. However, whenever a patient has a heart transplant, you know that the donor gave up their life in order that another should live.
This is what Jesus Christ did for us. He died that we might live. And this is where God the Holy Spirit comes in. He is the heart transplant surgeon. He replaces our broken and crushed heart with a newly created one…from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died that we might live forever with Him in heaven.
On a more “earthly” note, my toilet gardens are blooming! Go ahead and laugh. If you have any comments, please post them.
Cycle of Tehara 