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SPIRIT OF THE LIVING GOD...
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The celebration of Pentecost is the celebration of the birth of the Church. The outpouring of the Spirit was the driving force that empowered the beginnings of evangelization of the Good News of salvation and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Oh, the joy!
But the title of this essay comes from a hymn very popular in communities of the Charismatic Renewal. Let me finish the lyrics:
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me (x2)
Melt me, mould me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
All of a sudden there’s a “dark side” to the hymn!
It’s not because of the Spirit but because of the dark side that would have to be melted and moulded before we could be filled and used. And we’re very often not so sure we want to go through with the experience. Perhaps it'd be easier (and, we think, safer?) to let the Spirit work on others and have us just cheerleading on the sidelines? After all, we’d still be “on the team,” wouldn’t we?
All ores (whether gold and silver or iron and copper) have to be melted down in order to remove the slag and recover the purified metal. Remember the words of Psalm 12: “The promises of the Lord are sure, silver refined in a crucible, silver purified seven times.” That is beautiful purity, but there is a price to the process.
And if I’m a “worthless lump of clay” (from “Wonder of Wonders,” Fiddler on the Roof), the Potter can make a beautiful vessel, but only if moulded into the likeness of His desire (Isaiah 64:7). Again, it’s not easy…
“Fill me” sounds wonderful, but we have to remember that that happens only after the melting and moulding, and only for the purposes of “using.” What might the Holy Spirit have in mind for us? How might God desire to use us? Just before his martyrdom, Thomas More wrote to his daughter Margaret: “…do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever it may be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.” Would we have the courage to say that, even if torture and death were not part of the picture?
There are many, many ways God’s Spirit can use us, if we are open to being changed (the technical word is “converted”). The Greek word for this is metanoia, literally meaning a change of mind, a change of the way we think and see and act. Think of Saul becoming St Paul. Think of Juror #4 (the most educated of the jurors) in Twelve Angry Men. Though almost everyone believed a boy committed a murder, when a critical piece of fact was presented, he said, “I’m convinced. I don’t think I was wrong often, but I guess I was this once. There is a reasonable doubt in my mind.” He changed his mind, he thought in a different way; he was converted.
So Pentecost is really all about being a genuine and full and docile and willing member of the Body of Christ, empowered by the Spirit, and ready for whatever purpose God may have in mind for our salvation and the salvation of the world. We can be a tool in the process—if we are willing to be melted, moulded, filled, and used.