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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion February 9, 2009 The Age of the Spirit |
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Frontline Devotion for Monday, February 9, 2009 by Fritz Foltz
Acts 2: 32- 36 This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear... Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified
How extremely important! According to Luke-Acts this is the heart of the first Christian sermon. More than that, it is also pretty much the heart of every sermon preached in The Acts of the Apostles: You executed Jesus of Nazareth as an enemy of God and humanity. But God resurrected him to proclaim he is truly his Messiah, his Christ. Now God has exalted him and authorized him to continue acting on his behalf. He is sending to us the Holy Spirit shared by God and himself. It is a new day, a new Age of God's Spirit. And then the clincher: "All of us are witnesses". They are not only reporting a first-hand resurrection appearance, but also that they have received this Holy Spirit.
They shall continue to be witnesses to their words by the way they live. Operating in Jesus' Spirit, they shall respond to evil with sacrificial love. That can always lead to martyrdom in this world, and it did for some of those who spoke that first Pentecost.
In this new Age of the Spirit, God's love creates a new people. His Church, the Body of Christ, continues Jesus' work. She now represents God in our world. We often say the Holy Spirit leads his Church. Martin Luther described it more forcefully. "God is pushing me- he drives me on, rather than leading. I cannot control my own life. I long to be quiet but am driven into the middle of the storm".
So, too, we are driven to witness in our words and in our actions. Last week we heard how important that witness is. The President of the United States described how he became a Christian: "I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck - no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose - His purpose." It is the Age of the Spirit. We are called; we are driven to witness in this time and in this place. To what witness is the Holy Spirit driving you?
Let us pray: We give thanks that Christ shares your Spirit with us, Father. Drive us forth; grant us the courage to witness wherever we find ourselves. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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