Word for Today

From Isaiah 43:

  ⁴Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you,

I give people in return for you,

nations in exchange for your life.

  ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

and from the west I will gather you;

  ⁶I will say to the north, "Give them up,"

and to the south, "Do not withhold;

bring my sons from far away

and my daughters from the end of the earth — 

From Acts 8:

¹⁷Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

This is my hand in Esther's. She is in her 90's, I in my 40's. I thought about this picture when I read about the disciples Peter and John laying their hands on Samaritan Christians, thereby giving them the Holy Spirit.

Hands move in accordance with the intentions of the mind. Your intentions will be sometimes evil, sometimes holy, sometimes related to work, sometimes love.  The intentions of the disciples that day were to give and gather. The giving and gathering happened in a single swipe, touch, of the hand.

What was given? The Holy Spirit; the very same Spirit that coursed through Jesus when he walked Samaritan roads, when he made a paste of mud in the palm of his hand, and when he wrote in the dust. This is not a replica or a symbolic gesture of any kind, it/she/he is the Spirit that belongs to Jesus. This is the Spirit that allowed the hands of Christ to be held down and nailed to a cross-beam. This Spirit was given that day through the disciples to new disciples.

And in the giving, the gathering has just happened. The verse from Isaiah proclaims that God gathers those who belong from the north and south, from all reaches of the earth. To be gathered into Christ isn't to be gathered to a place, but rather to a people. That's you and me!

I think of Esther often. I visited her yesterday and she has slowed down quite a bit. But the Spirit of Christ (whom we share) is still bright and hopeful, helping her long for the next gathering. She spends a lot of time looking out her window.

I hope you experience (and recognize) the touch of the Holy Spirit this week.

James Aalgaard

St. Paul Lutheran Church

Ontario Oregon