THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 26, Issue 8, 1 August 1936, Page 6

THE HOLY SPIRIT.

The day of Pentecost, the 50th day after the Jewish Passover— a week of W eeks— has become m the Christian Church Calendar— Whitsunday, and commemorates the coming into the church of the Holy Spirit, to be the abiding presence of its Founder, and the fulfilment of His promise. "I am With you to the end of the world." It is sometimes called the Birthday of the Church, but as the Church really began with the calling of the twelve, it may be regarded as

the day of its second birth, "born of the Spirit." As Pentecost was the Harvest Festival of the Jews, it.suggests the harvest of souls, that would result from the Spirit's out-pouring.

The Prayer Book has quite a lot to say about the Holy Spirit. Finding a place m all the Creeds, He is the Lord, the Giver of Life, He proceeds from the Father and from the Son, He is the Inspirer of the Old Testament Prophets. We are baptised into His name; we call upon Him m Confirmation and Ordination; our prayers end with "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Ghost"; our praises end with "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," and we depart from our worship with the Church's blessing "the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

But the Prayer Book makes no attempt to explain these phrases, and we find it very difficult to put into words what we understand by our belief m the third person of the Trinity.

Let us watch the Spirit m operation. Two features stand out, change or conversion, and power or inspiration. Consider Peter before and after the first Whitsunday. At first impulsive yet vacillating, bold yet fearful, confident yet unstable, "Thou art the Christ" yet "I know not the Man."

Can it be the same man we see presently preaching from the housetops Christ crucified and risen, denouncing to their faces the Pharisees and Priests for having slain the Lord of Glory? Whence this change, and this power?

Consider Saul, Scholar of Gamaliel, Pharisee of the Pharisees, a persecutor of "that way," becoming Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles, labouring more abundantly than they all. Again, when -this change, this power?

In search of Truth came Nicodemus to Jesus by night, to be told "You must be born again." But Nicodemus is old, conservative. How can a man be born, when he is old? How? When?

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell when it cometh or whither it goeth; so is everyone that

is born of the Spirit." So it is never t6o late, there are no limits to the Spirit's action, or to His power. It is God's free gift to each and everyone of us, and there is only one condition, "Ask." "Ask and ye shall receive." There will be no rushing wind or tongues of fire, but there will be a changed outlook on life, a new set of values, a true conversion; and there will be power to live a new kind of life. You send your boy to a great public school, and the older boys promptly "initiate" him. He is made to learn the records of bygone scholars, prizes, scholarships, sports trophies, the names of soldiers, sailors, statesmen, who have issued from its portals; and so from being self-centred, self-opinionated, salf satisfied, he becomes filled with the Spirit of the School, what the French so delightfully call Esprit de corps. A soldier joins up into one of the famous regiments, and learns of the victories and scars, heroes and Victoria Crosses, gazes on the tattered remnants of a flag that has braved, a thousand battles, and he too becomes filled with the Spirit of the Order. And a man joins the Church. What does it mean to join the Church? Tosing m the choir, take up the collection, sit on the Vestry? Let Paul, meet you engaged on these tasks some Sunday, and his greeting is: "Have you received the Holy Ghost since you joined the Church?" An awkward question to answer, is it not? Read the Life of its Founder. Read the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Read the story of the struggle of the Church of the first three centuries against' the Roman Empire. Read the history of the Holy Roman Empire m the Dark Ages, and of the gallant struggle for freedom put up by the Church of England during her long island story. Read the long roll of Saints and Martyrs, of heroes and missionaries. Look forward into the distant future, into the pictures of the Church Triumphant — "a vast multitude which no man can number." Then — try torealise into what a goodly Company you have entered when you joined' the Church.