Pentecost = transformation + liberty
Pentecost = transformation + liberty
June 8th, 2025 – Communion Meditation
Today is a very fitting day on which to worship the Lord through Scriptures, Songs, and Saints, because today is also Pentecost Sunday! I love how God takes the little that we have and offer and know and plan, and he crafts something far beyond what any of us on our own could imagine or arrange. Later in the service we will read some Scriptures about what happened on that first Pentecost, a Greek word meaning “50” to mark the 50th day after Jesus’ resurrection, the day when God first poured out the Holy Spirit on Jesus’ followers. And God has been pouring out the Holy Spirit on followers of Jesus ever since!
What happens when the Holy Spirit is poured out? 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 tells us, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, we are transformed so that we look and act and live and love more like Jesus! And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, eleutheria, liberty! What kind of liberty is this? It is liberty from laws and constraints that have no relation to salvation. It is liberty from the blindness that prevents us from seeing the majesty of Jesus Christ. It is liberty from being ruled by corrupt desires so that we can freely do God’s will. Galatians 5:1 urges us, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
I want to invite us during this time of Communion to open our hearts and minds to receive a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit, according to Ephesians 5:18, “be filled with the Spirit,” which literally means “be continually being filled with the Spirit.” Let us pause in stillness for a few moments as we cry out, “Come, Holy Spirit!”
At the Last Supper, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to those with him and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” When you come forward, you will be given a piece of bread along with the words, “The body of Christ broken for you.”
Jesus then took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” When you come forward, you will also be given a cup into which to dip the bread, along with the words, “The blood of Christ poured out for you.”
I invite you now to come forward to receive the elements. Jesus Christ is present here with us. Let us celebrate the presence of the Lord and the body of Christ as we eat and drink together!
