Last week my youngest daughter had some R.E. homework, she had to find stories in the press or internet about the work of the Holy Spirit.
Luckily I had some things she could look at, so she settled down to read through them. She came over after a while and complained that there wasn’t very much there – at least not much specifically talking about ‘the Holy Spirit’.
I realised she was right. The Holy Spirit doesn’t get much credit in our Church – we seem to find it much easier thinking about God as our Father, and God as our saviour, Jesus.
I suppose it's partly because the Holy Spirit works within us to make us more like Jesus, part of the family of God, for without him we cannot develop our relationship with God. Every person who has committed their life to Christ possesses the Holy Spirit, as Paul says, ‘if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.’ (Romans 8:9).
Perhaps most importantly, the Spirit assures us of God’s love and acceptance in our lives, despite our fears, doubts or failures: ‘God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us’ (Romans 5:5).
Paul wrote about our adoption as daughters and sons, our new status, family and future. This means that we can now address God as father, ‘abba’, which is Aramaic for ‘daddy’, the very word used by Jesus himself.
As the Helper (or Counsellor) the Holy Spirit is also alongside to enable us to pray: ‘In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans’. (Romans 8:26).
That first Pentecost day in Jerusalem, when the Holy Spirit arrived in all his fullness, Peter stood up and preached the first ever Christian sermon to the astonished Jews in the city, and 3,000 were converted that same day. But it started with Christians joining together from across the city in constant and faithful prayer.
Perhaps that is something the Holy Spirit is calling us to do too.
We need the presence of the Spirit, as an experience and living reality, only then can God transform us, and our church, and our town.
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