Last week we were commemorating two important historical life changing events in the Christian Church. The first one is the coming of the Holy Spirit where “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them (Acts 2:4). We are a Spirit filled and Spirit led Church of God. Such Spirit presence and leadership must be seen in the way we talk, we live and do things.
Secondly, the 24 May is an important day in the life of the Methodist Church. On this date, Mr John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, having been a minister for a long time and having heard about the heart changing gospel from Moravians, he attended an evening service and according to his journal “It was at quarter to nine p.m. when someone was preaching from the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans, when as I listened, I felt may heart strangely warm. I felt I had a trust in God.” From this day the life of Rev Wesley was never the same. The Spirit convicts and adopts us. Praise God we are in a movement which is Spirit founded and Spirit driven. It is in this context that today’s lectionary leads us to a very important day – The Trinity Sunday in which God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit is one God in three persons. Romans 8:15-16 says, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of son ship. And by Him we cry Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” St Paul further qualifies these “children” by stating “Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”
In the same way the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. As human beings we are so limited that we do not always even know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit of God in us intercedes for us “with groans that words cannot express… the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
AMEN
Jacob