Pentecost!

Today is Pentecost which is one of my favorite holidays. On Pentecost we celebrate the coming down of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples (Acts 2). At Plainsboro Presbyterian they have been folding origami cranes for prayer doves for weeks, and they were installed yesterday in the front of the church. They asked people to write prayers in any language they speak or read on the white side of the origami paper. The theme was that the church is a house of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56:7). They were beautiful and colorful, and they had several members of the church read prayers and scripture in their first languages.

At Pentecost the Spirit empowered the disciples to overcome the barriers of geography and language to preach the Gospel. And not everyone received the Gospel the way we would normally think. People openly sneered at the disciples and said they were drunk. Some completely dismissed the good news they were hearing, and some heard and believed and were transformed. Their lives were transformed by the power of the Spirit, and the patterns of their behavior changed. That is the beauty of Pentecost. The Spirit working in our lives and in other people's to overcome barriers and to change us inside and outside.
May we be fired up and empowered to preach the Gospel in all we say and do. May we be changed that every thought and action be made into the will of Jesus Christ.