The Holy Spirit:
“Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.” - Nina Simone, 1964
Growing up, I absolutely loved stand-up comedians, and I especially loved it when they would do impressions. In the 80’s, Saturday Night Live was the highlight of my week, my family and I would order pizza, grab some throw blankets and plant ourselves on the couch excitedly awaiting those infamous words “Live from New York It’s Saturday Night.”
My favorite character from that era of SNL was hands down Ed Grimley played by Martin Short. Ed is an excessively cowlicked, voluble, hyperactive manchild who is obsessed with popular culture, particularly Wheel Of Fortune and its host Pat Sajak. He also loves to play the triangle, which for him consists of playing a recorded musical piece, striking the triangle once, and then wildly dancing to the recording. His catchphrases include “I must say”, “Let’s face it”, “totally decent”, “makes me completely mental” and “give me a break”.
I loved this skit so much as a kid, and I rehearsed it over and over and over; so much so, that I had it memorized by heart, I even performed a full length version of it at my elementary school talent show and won first place! I’ve got the polaroids to prove it!
Impressions are great, however, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, I think we’ve had enough. We’ve seen people supposedly “slain in the spirit”, when a preacher waves his arm and a bunch of people collapse to the ground trembling and convulsing like there’s something seriously wrong with them. We’ve seen preachers blow on people, and immediately they hit the ground. We’ve seen preachers who supposedly have “the gift of knowledge” read people’s minds. We’ve seen preachers put their hands on people’s heads and they miraculously collapse under the “power”. We’ve seen preachers who are allegedly operating under the power of the holy spirit tell people to give them money and God will “bless” their finances, and the list goes on and on. The point is this, people can get away with damn near anything when they do it in the name of God, but they are only impersonators, and they don’t even know who they are impersonating; if they did, they wouldn’t do what they do. It’s a joke.
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)
Then we read…
“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?” (1st Corinthians 6:19)
Your human body is over 60% water, you are literally a body of water; and the Spirit of God is hovering inside you. Holy, living water. The place where Jesus was crucified is known as Golgotha, which means “The place of the skull.”
Are you connecting the dots?
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is when you are immersed in the holy living water of your own divinity. You are absorbed in the truth of your I Am-ness. You emerge, awakened to the truth of who you really are, as if you were born again. You change the way you speak, your words are the word of God, and you begin to speak life into your world, creating, manifesting, “calling those things which be not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17) or we could say speaking in new tongues.
Let there be______________________? Fill in the blank. It’s up to you.
In love and light,
-J
