Waiting on the Spirit
A Reflection on Pentecost 2025
I don’t post a lot of heavily theological posts, despite having spent much of my time as a teacher and as a student in that world. There are plenty of good theological Substacks worth your time, and I generally think my talents lie elsewhere. But I’ve been thinking on Pentecost a bit here lately and wanted to share a brief thought.
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place” – Acts 2:1, NAS95
Imagine waiting for the Holy Spirit? Can you envision what it would have been like, to watch as our Savior ascended into heaven promising to send His Helper? 50 days. It must have seemed like forever. The work was done! Jesus had not only paid the ultimate cost of sin on the Cross, but He had defeated death when He walked out of His tomb. With God’s kingdom seeming so close at hand, did those 50 days drag on and on?
We will not know this side of eternity, but the ending of Acts chapter one give us a clue: “When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers,” (1:13-14, NAS95). This group did what is contrary to our nature: they waited. So often we rush to the finish. We see that, as the school year dwindles down, we are so near to the end that we can taste it. But, as with all things that are a part of God’s kingdom, we must not rush the Holy of Holies.
Why didn’t the Apostles run out and start evangelizing? Why weren’t they proclaiming the new kingdom of God, fulfilling the Lord’s prayer of “on earth as it is in heaven”? I’ve thought about that a lot throughout my life. While my own tendency in life has not been to move quickly, I’m also one who' is content to act once I’ve got a good handle on what lies ahead. If I have a plan, I see little reason to delay it. I’d have made a poor disciple, I’m afraid.
It forces me to consider the immense blessing of being a part of God’s coming kingdom here and now, but this is not something accomplished in our own strength. It, naturally enough, makes me think of Paul’s words to the Ephesian church, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,” (3:20). That last bit always rumbles around in my imagination: the power that works within us. It’s a considerable burden lifted. We don’t do God’s work on our own, but rather, as the Apostles before, we devote ourselves to God in prayer, and He will give us the strength to finish well.
This idea was said best by a teacher I once had: “Christ can do it, and He always said He would.” As the Church calendar moves closer towards its end I’m reminded that Summer is also a time of many other moves, people changing jobs, moving to different schools, and all kinds of other moves, I know many will be tempted to do things in their own strength. But in order to be effective in this world, we must always be drawing on the only source of Water that give life, and life abundantly at that.
May each of take Pentecost seriously by living the life God has called us to and may be always remember that we do so in His strength.