Lectionary readings for Sunday 31st May 2020 – Day of Pentecost (Year A)

• Acts 2:1-21
• Ps 104:24-34, 35b
• 1 Cor 12:3b-13
• Jn 20:19-23 or Jn 7:37-39

What is your gift? – a reflection based on Acts 2:1-21 and 1 Cor 12:3-13

Today we as Christians celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. In our reading from Acts 2:1-21, Luke described the coming of the Holy Spirit as the sudden sound like the blowing of a violent wind which filled the entire house where the disciples were staying.

It is here that the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit, the gift from the Father that Jesus had promised them after His ascension. Immediately, all who were filled with the Holy Spirit were changed; we are told that they began to speak in other tongues, in other languages as the Spirit enabled them.

Peter, who at the time of Christ’s trial had denied knowing Jesus out of fear for himself, now stood up and boldly addressed the crowd that had come to see what the commotion was. The Spirit had enabled Peter to speak with authority and quote the scriptures from the prophet Joel.

So what do we know about the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is a powerful and inexpressible force, and as we have been told by Jesus, a gift from God.

In our 1 Corinthian reading, Paul tells us that there are different kinds of gifts, and that all are the work of one and the same Spirit, distributed just as he determines.

We can look at the gifts of the Holy Spirit as unique abilities that have been given to each of us as followers of Jesus that allow us to serve God for the glory of God.

The Holy Spirit has the power to be the change in us, just as he was the change that enabled the disciples to boldly go forth and be witnesses to Christ in Jerusalem, in Judea and Somalia, and indeed to the ends of the Earth.

What is your gift?

What is your unique ability that allows you to be the light of Christ for others?

What has the Holy Spirit enabled in your life that you may do the work of Christ?

Casting Crowns: The Change in Me