In the following passage, Frederick Buechner describes Fire from Beyond Words:
“Fire has no shape or substance. You can’t taste it or smell it or hear it. You can’t touch it except at great risk. You can’t weigh it or measure it or examine it with instruments. You can never grasp it in its fullness because it never stands still. Yet there is no mistaking its extraordinary power.
A pillar of fire was what led the children of Israel through the wilderness, and it was from a burning bush that God first spoke to Moses. There were tongues of fire leaping up from the disciples on the day of Pentecost.
In the pages of Scripture, fire is holiness.”
This Sunday, we will celebrate the holiness of that Pentecost moment that happened 50 days after Easter Sunday. Truly, the people gathered were both afraid and amazed by the power that swept through the place where they gathered, and from there a spiritual fire was lighted that moved the earliest Christians to live in the spirit of the Christ they had come to know. Perhaps we, too, will find ourselves swept up in the moment, and God will use it to inspire us to be about God’s work in this world.
Wear something red Sunday and be ready for God to surprise you!
~Rev. Diane
