RESPONSIVE TO THE SPIRIT
"… filled with grace and power..." – Acts 6:8
Looking back over the past year, I am drawn to remember the many ways the Holy Spirit filled my life with grace and power. The following poem, entitled “How to Recognize Grace” by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, is both a help and a challenge for me to get in touch with the Spirit’s presence and action:
It takes you by surprise
It comes in odd packages
It sometimes looks like loss
Or mistakes
It acts like rain
Or like a seed
It’s both reliable and unpredictable
It’s not what you were aiming at
Or what you thought you deserved
It supplies what you need
Not necessarily what you want
It grows you up
And lets you be a child
It reminds you you’re not in control
And that not being in control
is a form of freedom.
It seems surprising that the day after celebrating the birth of Jesus, we are invited to recall the death of Stephen. Yet, the account of the first Christian martyr draws us to recognize the power of the Holy Spirit. Stephen is shown to be like Jesus in life as in death. He is filled with the Holy Spirit, living as Jesus and “working great wonders and signs among the people.” At his death, he is filled with the “grace and power of God”. Grace to surrender his spirit to God as he died. Power to forgive his enemies. He was given the same Spirit of God as Jesus. The same spirit that overshadowed Mary so she can bear God-with-us; the same spirit that empowered Joseph to embrace Emmanuel as his foster son; the same spirit who gave Elizabeth and Zechariah miraculous life to bear John the Baptist, the herald of God’s tenderness breaking into our lives.
Likewise, through baptism, each of us is given the same Spirit of self-giving love. Jesus coming into the world makes us the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, God’s favorite hiding place. Like Stephen, we are given the power to forgive, the grace to surrender. We are given the same spirit that urges us to move towards the light even when it is difficult, reminding us that God loves us wildly, fiercely, gently, completely, and without reservation; the same spirit that whispers within, “I am with you, you are my beloved, I will guide you…”
Like Stephen, we have an opportunity to recognize and respond to the Holy Spirit – to receive God’s self-giving love – breathing life through the crib of the Christ-child as through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Let us take some time to reflect on the poem above and allow the following questions to embolden our embrace of the Spirit’s prompting, however great or small.
What surprises me about God, myself, or life this Christmas? Jesus, what are you inviting me to embrace or to let go?