2007_05_27 Confessions of a Reformed Bi-nitarian

Confessions of a Reformed Bi-nitarian

Acts 2:1-12

May 27, 2007 – Pentecost

Memories of Ohio U.P.

• I knew who God was:
• Creator
• Omni-everything
• I knew who Jesus was:
• Lord and Savior
• God with skin on
• But what on earth is a Holy Spirit for?
• Casper, the friendly ghost
• Every Sunday we all said we believed in ‘the Holy Ghost’ but we never talked or taught anything about this strange being.

7th grade – Syria Mosque – Kathryn Kuhlman

 - Alexis Majors

 - People were claiming to be healed. Even as a kid this seemed right to me. I had heard about Jesus’ miracles. I had read that the disciples also prayed for healing and their prayers were answered. I just hadn’t seen it for myself, till then. Though I didn’t realize it then, it was the first time I remember witnessing the work of the Holy Spirit.

Through the rest of my Jr. Hi and high school years my spiritual journey was pretty typical with the vast majority of my days spent, or misspent as - adolescents are wont to do – with moments of spiritual aha’s, fits of deep commitment, followed by long periods of spiritual anesthesia.

At age 15 I remember praying to receive Christ as my Lord and Savior in a tent with 10 other guys at New Wilmington Missionary Conference. I had thought of myself as a Christian all along – but at that moment it just seemed right to take that step so that I knew I had chosen it intentionally for myself and had not just taken it for granted.

I wish I could say that settled things for me and from there on it was smooth sailing into eternal bliss, but you know me far too well for that proposition to have any credibility. It seemed to me that once I had made that commitment it was up to me to try my hardest to be the person I thought God wanted me to be. It was exhausting and frustrating – I just didn’t have the ability to do the things I wanted to do and so often I did things I didn’t want to do. I found out later that the apostle Paul described the same experience in Romans 7. He came to the same conclusion: “What a wretched man I am! Who will save me?” Like Paul I discovered what life is when we live under the Law – try harder, do better for a while, fail miserably, try harder and on and on and on in an ever downward spiral of disappointment and futility. I wasn’t disappointed with God. I knew God was good and had a wonderful plan for my life. I wasn’t disappointed with Jesus. I knew He was my perfect Lord and Savior. I was disappointed in me. What I didn’t know then was that it was never intended to be my job to become like God. It’s impossible! I needed help! But where does that help come from?

It was in the college years of 1966-70 that my eyes began to be opened, but not because I was looking. Like much of the world I remember during the sixties I challenged everything that resembled authority. Everything needed to be tested before it could be trusted, most of all the church and the people in it. The Lord used a group of mostly young adults called the John Knox Fellowship and an Associate Pastor named Jack Chisholm at the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, but mostly he used the love, patience and prayers of a sweet young lady named Linda Lou Ligo to soften my heart and get through my hide.

It wasn’t a good argument of some deep theological insight that opened my eyes. It was the constant, patient, loving acceptance and encouragement from this assortment of God’s people that showed me what the Christian life was all about. They helped me to lower my defenses and to look outside myself for the strength and power to live this life of faith.

While this marinating in the love of Christ was happening Pastor jack took Linda and me under his wing. He had been selected to serve on a General Assembly Task Force charged with examining and evaluating a spiritual awakening that was happening all over the country and the world. Presbyterian scholars called it the rise of Neo-Pentecostalism, but most of the rest of the Christian Community called it the Charismatic Movement.

Although it began around 1900 as new awareness of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit and of the Spirit’s gifts and power called the Pentecostal Movement, by the 60’s it was making a huge impact on both the Catholic and Protestant communities. Spiritual Gifts were being rediscovered, long-time church members were experiencing a deeper, more intimate faith and people everywhere were witnessing the kind of power encounters and miracles we read about in the Book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament.

Pastor Jack entered the process as a skeptical Presbyterian that had been taught in seminary that miracles and healing had ended with the death of the last apostle, but he was willing to look into these strange phenomena – fully expecting to debunk the myths and rumors.

As he did his research he took Linda and me all over the Pittsburgh area to places we had never heard of. We went to charismatic prayer meetings at Duquesne University, the cradle of the Catholic Charismatic movement – to Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside where the legendary Sam Shoemaker, founder of the Pittsburgh Experiment, had begun a healing ministry. There we met Emily Gardner Neal, a remarkable lay woman who was quietly and gently in a completely Episcopalian style, praying for the Holy Spirit to bring healing to the people of God. God was answering! Our heads were spinning as we witnessed the Spirit’s presence in powerful ways. Jack Chisholm not only changed his mind, he became one of the primary leaders for renewal in the Holy Spirit in the Presbyterian Church.

The 1970 Report to the General Assembly on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit was for over 25 years the most requested and reproduced report ever and it may still be today! It was a call to the whole church to be open to the immanent  presence and power of the Holy Spirit and to all Presbyterians to a new awareness of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. It’s hard to find a church today that actively encourage the people to discover and develop their spiritual gifts as they seek to serve the Lord in the church and in the community.

Slowly but surely I had found the third person in the Trinity! The Holy Spirit had been the missing piece in the puzzle. It was the Spirit who provided the presence and the power to live the Christian life to it’s fullest both in the church and in the individual life of every believer! God the Father creates and provides; Jesus the Son guides us by His word and saves us from our sin; but it is the Holy Spirit that is the immediate, constant presence and power of God in our midst.

That is what Pentecost is all about! That is the answer to the question, “What does this all mean?” This is the moment when weak, fearful, confused followers become empowered, equipped disciples, filled with the power to be Christ’s “witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and all the world.” This is the moment when the Holy Spirit came as Jesus promised to empower God’s people to do God’s will and work to reach God’s world.

Pentecost is the birthday of the church and God’s reminder that God has given us all we need to live the life of faith and the power to accomplish God’s will and calling in the world.

That’s why I’m no longer a functional Bi-nitarian. Thank be to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – One God, One Faith, One Baptism, One People, one Purpose. AMEN