Living in to live out?

     We are coming up on perhaps the second most important celebration in the church, but one that is often overlooked and forgotten - PENTECOST!
     The coming of the Holy Spirit: the wind and fire the blew into the room of disciples, the continuing force the teaches, corrects, and renews in each of us.  We read the account of Pentecost in Acts 2 and from it gather that whenever the gospel is being proclaimed around the world it is because of the Spirit.  When it comes to proclaiming our faith, and even to faith itself, the Holy Spirit is the most important part (well, in addition to Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection and God, who orchestrated the whole thing...) of coming to believe in the first place.  As Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism so many centuries ago:

From www.laboringinthelord.com

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him; but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me true in faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.  Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins - mine and those of believers.  On the Last Day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.*

     Faith is a gift - given by God through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in each of us.  Jesus makes this promise in John 14, and we read in Romans 8 that the Spirit bears witness with our own spirit.  And because we are unified, or in communion with, the Spirit, Jesus promises that we will do greater works even than he.  Greater even than Jesus.  Wow.
     Do you know what this means?  This means that the feeding of the 5,000 will look like child's play.  This means that the healing of the paralytic, the blind, the soul-starved will be so commonplace it won't seem like miracles.  This means that the world had better be prepared for the amazing miracles that will happen through the disciples of Christ who live in the Spirit. 
     Wait - am I describing sometime in the future or now?  We don't think anything of it when a country experiencing famine or the homeless population in our town gets a meal.  We don't think anything of it when an amputee regains use of the lost limb through the use of a prosthesis, or when the blind can see with laser surgery or corrective lenses.  We don't think anything of it when someone makes a great breakthrough with their therapist and lives a more whole life.
    Why not?  Because Jesus has done greater things than these through us.  So much so that we have gotten to a point where we forgot who it came from in the first place.  So what is the aid worker is an atheist?  So what if the doctors, engineers, and therapists don't claim to be working for Christ.  God's love and miracles continue to happen under our eyes.  My question in all of this comes from that last part - how come, if all of these awesome miracles are happening daily, people aren't more excited about Jesus and the life he offers?
      Perhaps it is because, as I said at the outset, that people don't celebrate the Holy Spirit anymore.  Perhaps it is because we, like the rest of the world, have become so used to stories of healing that we, too, have forgotten the true source of it all.  Or maybe we chalk it up to science, or modern medicine, or being nice. 
     Yet where does any of this come from but God?  How else would the engineer have come up with a prosthetic unless they saw a vision of a world where war veterans and accident survivors could return to some semblance of a normal life?  How else could the researchers have developed new vaccines and medications unless they dreamed of a cancer-free world?
     Each of us see visions and dream dreams of a world that looks a little more like God's kingdom, and each of us have gifts and treasures that, with the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, can change the world.  And the best part of all is that this vision and dream starts with God.  It is God's vision and God's dream of a kingdom where love and peace reign and where wholeness and justice are the reality for all.  Nowhere do we see this more clearly than gathered together in worship.  Each of us, differently gifted, gathers together to live out God's vision of a world where all are fed, where everyone can experience peace, unconditional welcome, forgiveness, and love.  And in this we are living in the Spirit so we can live out our mission.  It's all about living in to live out.
     I don't know about you, but just writing this makes me excited to go share with someone how awesome God is.  Wow!  What an amazing gift we have!  I have been the grateful and humble recipient of God's grace and love and now am called by the Holy Spirit to get it out of myself.  Living in to live out.  The mystery this makes me ponder is how others have experienced the living in of the Holy Spirit?  How has God in you made a difference in your own life?  How has the Spirit lived in you so you can live out your calling in the world?

*Martin Luther, The Small Catechism, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 355-6.