14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2Co 13:14 ESV)
TODAY! Sunday Jun 5th we recognize our connection to the church calendar in the celebration of Pentecost.
When we say "I believe in the Holy Spirit - the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins," These are two great impossibilities not only in our world but especially so in our hearts.
What communion do we have with each other in a world torn by war? What communion do we have with one another when our relationships are torn?
Who can forgive sins? Our tendency is to go toward one of two extremes: either in terms of being sinners, we are not that bad, we justify whatever we do, "hey you should see the other guy" and so forgiveness is something that needs to be expressed toward us (we forgive ourselves) but not so much about our expressing forgiveness to others. The other extreme we tend toward is that when it comes to sin, we are just too far gone to be saved let alone forgiven.
But the gospel says that because of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, God has forgiven our sins and through his spirit he has united and is uniting us to his son and through the spirit we have communion with him.
But do we forgive and are we in communion with others?
The pandemic has been tough. We are self-justified having every personal reason to NOT be in community and more so communion with those around us. And as for forgiving others: you don't have to forgive who you don't see.
But the Holy Spirit in whom we believe is able to do the impossible even when it comes to our hearts is the Spirit of forgiveness and fellowship.
As 2 Cor 13:14 says, which by the way is the passage from which we get our commonly proclaimed benediction each week, "Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God the Father, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forever more."
The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and with me and with us.
Let us deepen in our understanding of the impossible forgiveness and fellowship that the Holy Spirit enables us to have.