What's Next?

The Easter season is drawing to a close.  It is the 50-day period between Easter and Pentecost (which is Sunday, May 24)—and it celebrates all things resurrection and new life in Christ.  In Luke’s gospel and the book of Acts, Luke tells us Jesus appeared off and on with his disciples for 40 days, then ascended into heaven (May 14).  Then ten days later, the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples at Pentecost and the church was “born.” 

            When I did Chapel Chats with the preschoolers this week, I tried to explain why Jesus isn’t on earth with us anymore, even though God made him alive again and he’ll never die.  The Resurrection happened, so… What’s Next?  Where is Jesus?  Jesus went up to heaven to be with God again, and… What’s Next?  The disciples waited and prayed together. 

            What’s Next? is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and a whole lot of living in the Spirit, following Jesus’ teachings, going on adventures to places unexpected, places inside the mind and heart and places outside (like for me Boston and Midland MI!).  What’s next??  Three young people will be getting confirmed—affirming their baptism—this Sunday.  On the cusp of young adulthood, they will be asking that question a LOT in the next few years, about their faith and the place it’ll occupy in their lives… and they’ll be asking that when they get into high school, and graduate, etc…! 
            We might not know what’s next for our own personal lives, but from God’s point of view, God answered that a long time ago.  What’s next??  God is present with us in a way different than God was in Jesus Christ walking the earth.  God is present with us in the Holy Spirit, that feeling of “wind” and “fire.”  That feeling of comfort in adversity and struggle.  God says that what’s next for us is what happened in Christ—death and resurrection; growth and learning and letting go... being filled with the Spirit of “counsel and might… knowledge and reverence for the Lord, and Joy in God’s presence!”

Come, Holy Spirit!

Pr. Christian