The Easter Community - Filled with the Spirit

WORD 2day - Thursday, Second week in Easter

April 11, 2024 - Acts 5: 27-33; John 3: 31-36

We and the Holy Spirit - this phrase that we hear from the apostles today is as intriguing as the fact that these apostles were unstoppable in their proclamation of the Risen Lord. They were no more the ignorant and afraid lot that they were - what made the difference? The Spirit. They were broken in their heart, but God filled them with the Spirit! To those who earnestly ask, "God gives the Spirit without reserve"! That was what had happened with the new community, beginning with the apostles; God had filled them with the Spirit and all that they did, they chose in the Spirit. 

In the Gospel, we see Jesus differentiating between those who are born of the earth and those who are born of the Spirit. The difference lies here: that when we become persons born of the Spirit, we become persons who can challenge anything, persons who can face any crises, persons who would be frightened by nothing or no one! The Sanhedrin had a tough time with the apostles and the new community that was born - because they were not acting alone. They were acting: they and the Holy Spirit. 

This is what they had learnt from their Master and Lord, the Risen Christ. Christ when he lived among this community yet in formation, insisted perennially that all that he did, he did not by himself but in the One who sent  him, through the finger of God, the Spirit who enables everything to be done according to the will of God. It was this teaching and example that the new formed community realised in their own experience: they were doing everything in the Spirit. They were being told what to do, what to say, where to go and where to remain - they did everything; they and the Spirit. 

Today, at times, we have ideas and interests and we go ahead with enthusiasm,  only to soon face with a block and remain stuck. But when we go by what the Spirit wants of us, come what may, we would see the way ahead. Let us therefore resolve to say or to do, everything, we and the Holy Spirit.