Pentecost! Synod! Deacon!

Pentecost!  Synod!  These words go together – or they ought to!   And CHURCH, and INCARNATION.   What could be more incarnational than hundreds of people sitting together day after day, praying and working and drinking coffee and conversing -- doing the work of the Church?  And without the Spirit, what would incarnation be?  And without incarnation, where would the synod be?

The Synod is only one expression, but it IS an expression, of the  Body, the enfleshed Body, animated by the promised Spirit!  And that’s what deacons are too!  And elders and pastors and every member – the Spirit of Jesus Christ incarnate.    His incarnation was without sin; ours is all too sinful.  In gatherings like synod we come to know that all too well.  But we celebrate too!  Even the gates of hell cannot prevail against his Church!

So, Pentecost deacons, What do you think?  Do we work typically, normally, routinely empowered by the Spirit of Jesus? 

Yes, I know , this is more like a sermon than a deacons’ blog.   But it just seemed like the right time to hammer away on the most important stuff.  Either we’re empowered by the Spirit, or not.  And if we are, and I DO believe we are, then THAT is the reality that shapes our thinking, our feeling, our imagining, our fantasies and our plans.   We are on THIS side of Easter, on THIS side of Ascension, on THIS side of Pentecost, and on THIS side of the return…  and that makes all the difference.