Today we’re half way through our series on journeying with the Holy Spirit. It’s a good idea on a long journey to pause half way, to look back at what has gone before and forwards to what is to come.
Journeying is all about movement: we start in one place, we move, and we end up in another place.
In Psalm 104 we find this tiny little verse tucked away towards the end:
‘When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.’
In this verse we are given three movement words that relate to the Holy Spirit: sent, created, and renew.
Sending is movement. To be sent you need to move from one place to another place, often with a purpose.
Over the next few days we’ll explore this idea in the ministry of the apostles (which means ‘people who are sent’) looking at the book of Acts with Harry and Liam. We’ll also turn to the book of Exodus with Susan, as she looks at the people of Israel sent out on their journey to the promised land.
Creation is movement. It means moving from not-something to something. There is a change, and change is movement.
Renewal is movement. It also means to change, to grow, to become new again.
The Holy Spirit is always moving. Just think for a moment of all the images that the Bible uses to convey the Spirit to us: wind, fire, water, a dove in flight.
All of those images are dynamic, aren’t they? Each, in their own way, gives a sense of life and movement. As Fleur reminded us on Monday, the Holy Spirit has never stopped.
This creative, renewing Holy Spirit has been sent into the world, by the Father in Jesus’ name, as we reflected on yesterday with Simeon. More than that, the Spirit has been sent into our hearts, as Luke movingly recounted for us on Pentecost Sunday.
On our last day together, Mel will tell us the amazing story of Mary Jones: a young girl in Wales who over 200 years ago set out on her own journey, prompted by the renewing and inspiring Holy Spirit the Father had sent into her heart. As we continue to move through our journey with the Holy Spirit this week, let’s pray that we would know that same creative dynamism of God as ‘sent ones’ in the world today, borne along by the grace and power of the Spirit.
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