2619AFC050826 – Try to catch the Wind. ← PODCAST LINK 😀
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Acts 8:17 – 17 Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 66:16 –
16 Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for me.
1 Peter 3:14-15 – 14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you
John 14:15-17 – 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Here we are at the Sixth Week of Easter, and Pentecost is near – Sunday, May 24. The new Members of the Body of Christ are among us. This past weekend, Bp. Lary Silva came to St Catherine of Alexandria Catholic Church to give 1st communion and Confirmation to about 2 dozen little kids. It was an awesome Mass! This coming Sunday, the Church prepares us for the coming of Pentecost by reminding us of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the early Church. When I asked him for the title of this week’s post (the Holy Spirit), I immediately was reminded of my Facebook buddy, Nicholas J Stojakovich. We’re both fans of Bob Dylan, and somehow the connection between the Holy Spirit, Nick, Dylan, and me (at the end of the line) brought up Blowing’ in The Wind. That gave me a mental image of souls riding inside the Ruach – the Breath of God – the Holy Spirit. Then up popped the question, “How do we get caught up in the Wind that moved over the surface of the waters?” POW! In comes the first song written and recorded by Scottish singer and songwriter, Donovan – “Catch the Wind.” It’s not often the identification of a title is that intricate, but with the Holy Spirit, “all things are possible.” That is how the Absolutely Perfect Plan works.
Alrighty then, how do we catch the Holy Spirit. Well for about 2000 years The Holy Spirit is received when a man ordained in the apostolic succession places hands upon a person who confessed their love for Jesus and His Church. This laying on of hands is an important connection to the Apostolic Church. But the movement and actions of the Holy Spirit appear in many places in the Bible. The first place is in Genesis 1:2 where the Ruach Elohim moved over the waters in the Creation narrative where this manifestation of God’s power ordains order and tranquility over the Earth. There is also Ecclesiastes 1:14 – 14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. The GNT translates it as It is like chasing the wind. Some translations shape it as a feeding on wind. In Ecclesiastes 2:11 the Prophet also opines (GNT) [1]– 11 Then I thought about all that I had done and how hard I had worked doing it, and I realized that it didn’t mean a thing. It was like chasing the wind – of no use at all. These passages use the metaphor of “chasing the wind” in a negative way, as an expression of futility. I thought that didn’t make much sense, so I asked about it: “Why am I shown these things?”
The answer that came back was from Psalm 51:11 –
11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me. Ah-Ha!! That snaps us back to the readings from the 4th Sunday of Easter and Acts 2:38 – 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the giftof the Holy Spirit. It is a Gift. It is something we receive. It is not something that we try to “catch” because it is not something we have to chase. It is quite simply, and elegantly, a Gift. Oh, Adelphos, that is something we must not forget. (Once again we have the problem of forgetting what God does for us.) The clincher is inJohn 3:8 – [Jesus said] 8 “The wind[2] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The Spirit of God is nonphysical ergo metaphysical. It is so Powerful that only God can control it. And what does that mean? Well, for one thing it means that only God can give it to us as a Gift. “OK Old Man, why is the imposition of hands necessary to pass on the Apostolic Tradition of “the laying on of hands to confer the Holy Spirit?”
Good question Camper! And your question contains the answer: Apostolic Tradition. Our first Key Verse illustrates the answer: Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. The answer to the next question is “Yes, I do remember that the Apostles did not experience the laying on of hands at Pentecost.” The Holy Spirit caught them – quite a surprise I imagine – and then they passed it on through Laying On of Hands.
Here we are reminded of Moses laying hands on Joshua to anoint him as the next leader of Israelites (Numbers 27:18-23) and the Israelites (perhaps the Elders of each tribe?) later laying their hands on the Levites to sanctify them – to set them apart for service (Numbers 8:10). The Levites were then commissioned to represent the people in the Presence of God – his Sh’khinah Glory – at the Tent of Meeting. (Sh’khinah is an ancient word used to describe the “abiding, dwelling, or habitation” of the physical manifestations of YHWH described in Exodus 24:16, and Exodus 40:35. ← look’em up. It will help you see what’s next.)
What’s next is The Mercy Seat (Exodus 25:21-22 ← open it, it’s a Gift!) Here we see an artist’s conception of the Ark of the Covenant, and the Mercy Seat is the covering (the “lid,” if you will) of the Ark. We are told in 1 Kings 8:9-11 – 9 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses had placed there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, when they came out of the land of Egypt. 10 And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
Uh-huh. Remember? “There is no place we can be where God is not already present.” To me, that’s a mindblower. Because why? Because I am where I am in what is around me and inside me, and … God is already there. Pa-khuhehehehoomy! That is why we again recall (← Check it out!) “it is not ‘seek the Lord where he may be found;’ it is ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found.’” (See Isaiah 55:6 –
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near; This is our very familiar adage from Jesus’ teaching, Repent and believe the Gospel! And my dear Adelphos, next is Baptism followed by the Confirmation that we are his – the Gift of the Holy Spirit. he’s right there with us, calling us by name. CAN I GET A TESTIMONY?!!?
How about “Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for me.”? He has Gifted me the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit within us that testifies as The Apostle John states in 1 John 5:5-9 – 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the Truth. 7 There are three that testify; 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. 9 If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. and we have these additional assurances – inspired by the Holy Spirit and passed on for us by The Apostle Paul:
2 Timothy 1:6-7 – 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Romans 5:5 – 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Indeed we have the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the especially extraordinary Graces of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord (reverence for the Majesty of God). We also have additional especially extraordinary Graces called the Fruit of the Holy Spirit which include Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. Wow! What a bonanza! Sixteen – 16 – things we do not have to try to catch because they are GIFTS! We can’t buy them, we can’t DIY them. WE can refuse them ,abuse them, confuse them for the things we’ve done. Belovéd, if we accept these gifts into our lives, that acceptance influences our YOLO-F. Now, here’s something I have done in 1964 which tangentially touches on this topic:
The Wind
I danced today
with a gust of wind
and in its merriment
I grinned.
It fumbled and tumbled
Around my knees,
and then scampered off
to dance in the trees
It’s not that I miss
its balmy bath.
I just couldn’t follow
its whimsical path.
Perhaps now we can see that – as Qoheleth stated so often in the collection of proverbs and instructions we call Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” He is, of course, talking about the things with which we earthlings busy ourselves enough so as to not be present in mind and heart whenever God is with us – as he always is! – in Spirit! Jesus told the Apostles quite plainly in our Key Verse from the Gospels (with some emphases added): 🙂
John 14:15-17 – 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. How do we keep his commandments? By loving him and each other as he has loved us. Why do we need another Advocate, a Paraclete? In Koine Greek, that meant a legal adviser or a personal advocate in a court – a defense attorney. He’s there with us, in us, as our “Advocate” or an “intercessor” who pleads on behalf of believers before God and AGAINST ha-Satan, the Accuser. We don’t need to try to catch the Wind, the Breath of Life from God our Creator. Since that Gift of God’s Breath of Life comes to us in his Promise as a Gift from the moment of conception, it is up to us – because of Free Will – to accept and work with, make use of, our Paraclete.
Come Holy Spirit, (↔ Music Link) please dwell in us.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
[2] The pneuma (πνεῦμα) pneuma (pnyoo’-mah) → Breath and/or wind
