2023

Three Persons, One God: a mystical dance of union and unity, a mystical dance of wholeness and division between the creator of all things who broke into time to redeem all things, and who sent themself to draw us into their work of reconciliation… Joined to God in baptism, joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection as we are born by water and the Spirit, we are made part of the community that professes Jesus the Christ crucified and resurrected.

The breath of God, fire, God within and around us. Through our readings today, on this day of Pentecost, we get an intoxicating feeling of being surrounded and held up by the mysterious power and presence of God through the Holy Spirit. Every year on this day, as we read together from the Acts of

Come behold the wondrous mystery/Slain by death the God of life/But no grave could e’er restrain Him/Praise the Lord; He is alive!/What a foretaste of deliverance/How unwavering our hope/Christ in power resurrected/As we will be when he comes.

This is Jesus making an authoritative claim to be the way of salvation, salvation for the whole of the cosmos. Jesus’ being the way is not being the access point, a directive to turn or burn. Rather Jesus through Jesus — because of Jesus — we have the truths of God and through those truths we have life abundant….None of the Abrahamic religions’ truth claims is a call to dominance. Rather each of them is a call to their adherents to embrace the love of God and do the work God has given them to do. They’re calls to deepen one’s faith and trust in the fullness and goodness of God.