Waiting for the Holy Spirit to Come

Tomorrow is the Feast of Pentecost. In the week and a half since Ascension we have been waiting for the One Christ called the Holy Spirit to descend and meet us here. We have been opening our hearts and asking the Holy Spirit to come. 

The Spirit who will descend on us tomorrow is the One who “was hovering over the face of the waters” when the earth was a formless deep. He is the Breath the Word breathed into the first human’s nostrils. He is the pillar of smoke and fire who led the Israelites in the wilderness. The One who dwelled in the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies. The One whose holiness is so holy that someone who touched the Ark in an attempt to rescue it from falling in a parade died instantly. 

The Spirit who will come is the same Holy Spirit by whom Mary became pregnant with the Son of God, who — by the power of the Spirit — was made man in her womb. He is the One who descended on Christ at his baptism. That day, the Spirit came in the form of a dove as the Father declared Christ “my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” and then immediately drove Christ into the wilderness to fast and be tempted. The Spirit who will come is the One who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who is one with them.

At Pentecost we, with the disciples, wait and ready ourselves for the Holy Spirit to come. 

It is perhaps easier for us to practice a waiting that forgets how strange the One who will come truly is. How the Spirit is a mystery; how the justice the Spirit effects is not always something we can understand; how the magnitude of the Spirit’s power is beyond human comprehension. It is easy to forget how holy the Spirit is. 

Perhaps this is because we often take God for granted as a being that we can comprehend. We want God to be comfortable to live with. We want to be able to please Him without too much trouble; to describe Him adequately with our morals, theology, or good choices. But I’d wager it’s also easy to take God for granted because God draws so near. It’s almost impossible to register just how near. The Holy Spirit is the breath of life in us. And the breath we breathe is not something we are inclined to notice until it goes wrong.

The Holy Spirit dwells within us — in our limbs, in our nostrils, in our hearts. And the Holy Spirit is coming again tomorrow like “a rushing mighty wind” that will “fill the whole house” where we will be sitting. The Holy Spirit is coming again tomorrow to renew us. To make us holy as Christ is holy. To encourage, strengthen, and embolden us to be like Christ in the world — as the disciples, many of whom were martyred, were also emboldened.

We can have no way of knowing how the Holy Spirit will come to us tomorrow. It could be like the first Pentecost, when “there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” We could receive revelations. We could receive sudden clarity about questions of life or faith. We could feel strong feelings, or receive a new vocation, or feel sudden peace.

Or the Holy Spirit could arrive in total silence, and we could find ourselves confused, wondering where He is. He could take up a dwelling in our hearts with little to no fanfare. He could make himself known simply, as the One who will co-labor with us in the day-to-day housekeeping of the home of this life. 

The Holy Spirit could arrive tomorrow in ways that confuse or bewilder us. We could, like Christ, find ourselves suddenly alone in a wilderness, besieged with temptations. We could find ourselves embroiled in the pain of loneliness, suffering, interpersonal conflict, or loss. We could find ourselves not covered in peace, but awash with fear, called upon to seek the Spirit as the One who is present where He seems invisible. We could find ourselves inconveniently compelled to receive the Spirit as the One who gives us His life and strength where we are suddenly and utterly aware that we are like infants, and have none of our own. 

Our task on Pentecost is to be ready. To wait in the upper room. To be open and willing to receive the Spirit however the Spirit may choose to come. It is perhaps to let the Spirit surprise us; to trust that, if the Spirit chooses to come in a way we do not like, perceive, or understand, He has still come. 

On Pentecost we remember that the Holy Spirit is indeed among us. The Life who gave life to the world at Creation lives in us. He unites us to Christ and continually renews the work of creation in our souls. 

We are one with the One who hovered over the face of the deep; who covered Christ like a dove at his baptism; who is the Comforter, the Strengthener, the Intercessor, the One who gives us peace. 

Alleluia.