With the church of all ages, we confess the Holy Spirit as “the Lord and Giver of life” (Nicene Creed). Pentecost celebrates how the Lord of life gave life to the church.

What happened at Pentecost is similar to what happened on the sixth day of creation. In Genesis 2 we read,

Yahweh God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

It was not enough to fashion man from the elements that form the human body. That was only a clay vessel. For Adam to live, God had to breathe life into him. God had a big job for Adam and his offspring. He had created Adam to be his image so that he might discover and declare his glory in all creation. In order for him to begin this, God imparted to him the gift of life.

That gift of life is intimately connected to the Holy Spirit. The spirit that is in all living things is God’s Spirit. In the book of Job, Elihu thinks that way about the spirit in a human being, for he says of God, “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust” (Job 34:14). The spirit in us is God’s Spirit. What Elihu applies to human beings, the Psalmist applies to all living things, for he describes the spring season as the sending forth of God’s Spirit:

When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.Psalm 104:30

That is why the church from very early on referred to the Holy Spirit as the Lord and Giver of life.

At Pentecost, the Lord of life exercised his power in the most wonderful way. Just as on the sixth day when Adam was but a lifeless vessel until the Lord of life gave him life, so the church was like a lifeless vessel until the Lord of life breathed life into her. When Jesus died, the church had forsaken her faith. She did not believe in the Lord. Instead of going to the tomb to meet the risen Saviour on Sunday morning, they all mourned because He whom they had hoped would redeem Israel was dead, or so they thought. When told that Jesus has risen, they would not believe it. Thomas would not believe it for yet another week.

But when Jesus met the disciples, He greeted them and then He breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He imparted to them the Lord of life. They were spiritually dead (they did not believe in Jesus), but Jesus needed them to live. He had a big job for them to do. He pointed to that in his first words to them:

Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so now I send you.John 20:21

He wanted to send them out to bring the message that gives life to every nation on earth. In order that they might fulfil that mission, He gave them his Spirit. He made them live. He breathed the Spirit on them.

But on Pentecost, that Spirit came mightily on God’s people. Suddenly, the church was bursting with life. Right there on that day, the message of God’s grace in Jesus Christ symbolically reached the ends of the world, because many visitors from distant nations were there in Jerusalem: they all heard the believers declaring the wonders of God in their own language. Peter, who two months earlier was so afraid to acknowledge Jesus that he swore he did not know him, now stood up and preached in the middle of the temple about the victory of Jesus Christ. The apostles became brave, fearless and powerful because they had been made alive by the Holy Spirit.

It is the Holy Spirit who makes the church a living power in the world, by creating in us faith in Christ’s victory, and confidence in his glory. May the Lord of life give life to his church so that she might fulfil her great calling for the salvation of our fellow man, and the glory of our God.