Today we celebrate the birthday of the Church! In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we read the familiar story of the Holy Spirit and tongues of fire and rushing mighty winds. It is truly exciting. There are some things that many people do not realize when it comes to the Holy Spirit.
First off, when you were baptized, the Holy Spirit was placed inside you. Now many people think that the Spirit grows inside them. This is a bit backwards. It is you that grows towards the Spirit. The closer you move in your relationship to Jesus, the more walls come down and the more the Holy Spirit is alive in you. This is really cool to think about.
Here is another cool fact that many miss. Did you know that on Pentecost there was actually a miracle of hearing that took place? Many of us get caught up with the speaking in tongues part, but if you read the passage carefully you will see that people “heard” the apostles speaking in their own language. This means that one apostle might be speaking yet those 50 or 100 listening heard him in their own language. It would be like standing next to a person from Italy, and he would hear the message in Italian, while I might hear it in English and someone next to me may have heard it in Swahili or Greek or Latin etc. Now here is the kicker! Remember the story of the tower of Babel. All the people spoke one language, yet when their false pride and ego caused them to challenge God with a tower, God caused their language to become confused and no longer one, thus we get the term “Babel”, or “Babel ling” from this event.
Now back to Pentecost. Here God reverses what occurred at Babel as people of many languages come together and hear the one language of the Holy Spirit who speaks to them individually. How cool is that! So this week, take some time to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you, and perhaps walls will come down from your heart, towers of pride and ego will fall, and the Holy Spirit will descend like a soft gentile rain to water the dry parts of your soul… Something to think about… Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday to our glorious, beautiful ,Spirit filled and life giving Church…May God richly bless you always…