Somewhere between breakfast and tea on the day of Pentecost, the membership of the Church ballooned by over 2000 per cent. Not surprising then, that down the centuries Christians have longed for a second Pentecost. Montanus bemoaned the deadness of the churches as early as the second century and announced himself as the prophet of a new Pentecost when the Church would enter the Age of the Spirit, following the Age of the Father and the Age of the Son.
Crippled by countless failed prophecies, Montanus was branded a heretic and his movement faded, though its spirit has lived on and claims of an imminent new Pentecost arrive almost annually.
However, Pentecost as an event in church history was definitive rather than illustrative, a once-for-all happening, not a pattern for the church today.
To expect another Pentecost today is on a par with demanding another Creation, another Messiah, another Crucifixion and Resurrection. Like them, Pentecost was a singular act of God in history.
Since Pentecost, we have been living in the Age of the Spirit. It follows that the Spirit given at Pentecost cannot be the monopoly of any one section of Christian believers. All God's people have received the Spirit because where Christ is, the Spirit is with his rich diversity of gifts (Letter to the Romans 8:9). The one present-tense imperative recorded in Scripture relating to the Spirit is in the Letter to the Ephesians 5:18: "be filled with the Spirit".
A pre-Pentecost spiritual health check based on this command could be revealing and point us individually and as churches in a more rewarding direction than vainly longing for a second Pentecost.
Thus, the Spirit-filled Christian is more aware of Christ than of the Spirit. Our Lord said of the Holy Spirit: "He will glorify me" (John's Gospel 16:14). Strangely anonymous as to his own persona, the Spirit relentlessly deflects attention to Christ.
The Spirit-filled Christian is more concerned with "emptying" than "filling". That is, the "emptying" of self-giving and service. We should daily pray to be filled, but the Ephesians' command is set in the context of the mundane practicalities of life such as social behaviour and relationships.
So the filling of the Spirit generates activity and his blessings are given not to be hoarded but to be spent and shared. Paradoxically, to be emptied is to be filled!
The Spirit-filled Christian is more concerned for the interests of others than his or her own. This relieves the self-absorbed probing within to see whether one is so filled. The early Christians were in love with Christ and they wanted to share him, and it was observers, not the Christians themselves, who were left to comment on their Spirit-filled condition.
St Peter and St Stephen made no public claim about this on their own behalf; others concluded from their speech they were men overflowing with the Spirit of God (Acts of the Apostles 4:8, 7:55).
It is our families, friends and work colleagues who should be left to comment on whether we are Spirit-filled Christians. Moodiness, tantrums, gossiping, deceit and unreliability will figure as huge negatives in their assessment and, depressingly, will damage Christ's cause.
That is why we need the Spirit's filling daily so that his fruits ripen in us, and how attractive and winsome they are! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control . . . who could resist being drawn within the circle of influence of someone filled with this irresistible character-transforming cocktail!
Handley Moule, Bishop of Durham at the end of the 19th century, left his very personal mission statement on the Spirit-filled life: "We aim at nothing less than to walk with God all day long; to abide every hour in Christ; to love God with all the heart and our neighbour as ourselves, to yield ourselves to God, to break with all evil and follow all good. We are absolutely bound to put aside all secret purposes of moral compromise; all tolerance of besetting sin . . . We cannot possibly rest short of a daily, hourly, continuous walk with God, in Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit."
The potential for winning Ireland's religiously disillusioned to Christian commitment must surely be in direct proportion to the extent to which we who profess Christ's Name are filled with his Spirit on a daily basis. A prayer, then, for the week of Pentecost:
Spirit of holiness, wisdom and faithfulness,
wind of the Lord, blowing strongly and free:
strength of our serving and joy of our worshipping
- Spirit of God, bring your fulness to me!
G.F.