Pentecost and Scripture

This Week, the Holy Spirit is offering us an invitation to hear the word of God in a way that we have never heard the word before. My prayer was that the Holy Spirit would open the Bible for me in a way that I could understand the message that God has for me, and for us all. The message of the Bible can be difficult to grasp. The language, at times, seems to come from days long gone by; the context, first living as free people and then united by a monarchy, and then finally overrun by and dominated by an Imperial Army is difficult to say the least.

Think for example the life, judgement, punishment, and execution that Jesus suffered at the hands of Imperial authority. Capital punishment was a foreign concept to the Hebrew people, it was something that the Greeks and then Romans did. In Hebrew culture for a capital offender the highest punishment was to banish one from the community and condemning the convicted to live in a sanctuary city, alone, and without any support from their family. Men and women were forced to take foreign spouses, spouses who knew not the traditions of their ancestors. They were cut off from all that they knew and understood. The Romans reserved crucifixion for rebels, revolutionaries, and the most heinous crimes. When I hear the crowds shout “crucify him, crucify him” to the Roman Prelate, I hear the Hebrew people breaking with their tradition and owning that of the Empire, which was even considered horrific to the Romans. The late John Stott reminds us in his The Cross and Christ (1986), that the Roman orator Cicero wrote, “To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to kill him is almost an act of murder: to crucify him is – What? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed.” And as one who wears a cross around my neck, am I as truly stricken as the Hebrew and Roman people were by the crucifixion of the Divine Innocent?

The greatest gift that the Holy Spirit can offer is that of eternal life; a close second must be to live life in the awareness of love and the abundance that that love brings. The Holy Scripture could be described as a love story between God and God’s people, but it is written in difficult language, translated into others, and then set in a difficult and challenging context. It is written for us and for our understanding. The stories of the Bible are recorded for our understanding and it is a joyous gift to be able to understand them at all.

I currently lead two highly relevant Bible studies per week, one on Sunday morning after 9 and before 10 and then on Wednesday evening from about 5:30 until about 7:10. Both Bible studies are free style enough that we can address individual needs, concerns, and questions.

Join me in this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.