Mothers, pentecost and communication
Mother’s Day and Pentecost falling on the same Sunday this year offered an interesting mix. Which should get the greater attention in Sunday worship? One church engaged in a certain American 40 day program saved itself the trouble by mentioning neither. In another service the two were mentioned only obliquely during announcements and a pastoral prayer. I attended the Global Day of Prayer at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in the evening. There the timing and theme of church rightly celebrated aspects of Pentecost. I think there was a prayer honoring mothers.
I grew up in a family oriented church that celebrated Christmas, Holy Week and Easter as family affairs, I knew nothing of the other Christian holy days until college. Of course Mother’s Day was one of the best attended services of the year as the three or four major clans crowded the pews to assure their matriarchs got the best honors.
There is some commonality between Mother’s Day and Pentecost. As we celebrate the women who gave us birth, so Pentecost is sometimes celebrated as the day the Holy Spirit gave birth to the church. But then we go about the Spirit as “He”, but that’s another story. It was the Spirit who so filled the insecure apostles that they spoke the gospel boldly, and people of diverse languages understood them.
That suggests another commonality - communication. Well, my Mom was formative in the development of my communication ability. Chances are the first semi-intelligent syllable I ever uttered was 'mum'. The amazing thing, however, was not my early mastery of the oral technology of speech, but rather my Mom’s ability to understand what her little stinker was saying.
In the same way, one of the break-throughs at Pentecost was the miracle of understanding. Talk about Pentecost, and folks get all excited (or anxious) about the Charismatic subject of “tongues-speaking”. But the point of Pentecost was not so much that the apostles suddenly spoke in new languages. The point is that the normal linguistic barriers of understanding are not an issue with the gospel. A colleague recently how he experienced this is different countries, preaching before a German and Mexican audiences, where somehow the people understood him.
Ordinarily we use words to communicate with each other. But as the Spirit blows, communication goes beyond words and touches people’s hearts.
I grew up in a family oriented church that celebrated Christmas, Holy Week and Easter as family affairs, I knew nothing of the other Christian holy days until college. Of course Mother’s Day was one of the best attended services of the year as the three or four major clans crowded the pews to assure their matriarchs got the best honors.
There is some commonality between Mother’s Day and Pentecost. As we celebrate the women who gave us birth, so Pentecost is sometimes celebrated as the day the Holy Spirit gave birth to the church. But then we go about the Spirit as “He”, but that’s another story. It was the Spirit who so filled the insecure apostles that they spoke the gospel boldly, and people of diverse languages understood them.
That suggests another commonality - communication. Well, my Mom was formative in the development of my communication ability. Chances are the first semi-intelligent syllable I ever uttered was 'mum'. The amazing thing, however, was not my early mastery of the oral technology of speech, but rather my Mom’s ability to understand what her little stinker was saying.
In the same way, one of the break-throughs at Pentecost was the miracle of understanding. Talk about Pentecost, and folks get all excited (or anxious) about the Charismatic subject of “tongues-speaking”. But the point of Pentecost was not so much that the apostles suddenly spoke in new languages. The point is that the normal linguistic barriers of understanding are not an issue with the gospel. A colleague recently how he experienced this is different countries, preaching before a German and Mexican audiences, where somehow the people understood him.
Ordinarily we use words to communicate with each other. But as the Spirit blows, communication goes beyond words and touches people’s hearts.
--georgos
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