We don’t tend to follow all of the seasons in the church calendar, but do celebrate the major festivals and their associated run-ups – Christmas and Advent, Easter and Lent, and Pentecost. However, an Anglican friend reminded me last week, that after Pentecost Sunday, the church calendar year returns into, what they call, “Ordinary Time”.
I was quite struck by this as I reflected on what it could mean. Arguably, the Church began at Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on people of all backgrounds, resting upon and dwelling within people, which still happens to this day. The church calendar remembers, rightly, this day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but the very next days begins ‘ordinary time’. The thing which struck me was this: God pours His Holy Spirit out upon us then we are launched into the ordinary. God fills us with His Holy Spirit, for the ordinary every day of life.
Too often we limit the powerful move of the Holy Spirit to charismatic gatherings like New Wine or Spring Harvest. Sometimes we limit the Holy Spirit to just moving within the church walls, but when we go into ‘ordinary time’, our jobs, families, mundane day-to-day living, we seem to live as though we aren’t expecting the Spirit to move in our lives or those around us.
Many times we ask for the Holy Spirit to move within our Sunday gatherings or prayer meetings; we lay hands, ask for healing and miracles – yet when we read the New Testament, the move of the Holy Spirit was always outside the fellowship gatherings, not for those already ‘in’. Throughout the book of Acts, we see people healed, we see people set free of demons and other miracles for those who don’t know who Jesus is, but after that encounter, they choose to follow Him. Please hear me right – it’s not the miraculous move of the Holy Spirit that saves people, by choosing to turn away from the old life, believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and choosing to put Him as Lord in your life. I’m also not saying we don’t ask or expect God to move in our services or for ourselves – of course we must do this – but in the Bible, we see the Holy Spirit’s move in revealing who Jesus is to those who don’t know Him. Sometimes, that’s in miraculous ways, and sometimes, people choose to trust in Jesus. The signs and wonders point to Jesus, and because of this, people may then choose to put their trust in Him.
Maybe the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us for the ordinary time. The every day. Jesus fills us with His Spirit so that we would go out and be witnesses to who He is. As the Father sent the Son, who sent the Spirit, now the Trinitarian God is sending us. In Acts 1 v 9, Jesus says to His disciples “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Maybe we don’t feel good enough as evangelists, or bold enough in our witnessing. Maybe we need the Holy Spirit to help us be a diligent employee, a caring neighbour, a positive family witness. Maybe we need to be bolder in speaking of Jesus or praying for miracles for those who don’t yet know Him. I encourage us all to ask God to pour out His Holy Spirit upon us, for the first time or afresh, that we may know the authority and power God has given us by His Spirit, for the ordinary times of life.