Should the Holy Spirit Make us Uncomfortable?
February 3, 2010
As we walk through 1 Corinthians 12-14 on Sunday mornings, one thing we have seen already and will see again this Sunday is the radical Christ-centeredness of the Holy Spirit’s ministry. The Spirit’s initial work in our lives is to enable us to confess, “Jesus is Lord!” (12:3) as he baptizes us into Christ, bringing us into union with him and his people (12:12-13).
At one level this should allow us to relax when we read lists of spiritual gifts like miracles and healing and prophecy (12:8-10) because we know that there is no “next stage” of the Christian life beyond the Spirit’s work of uniting us to Christ by faith. This gives us a sense of bearing, knowing that whatever gifts the Spirit empowers will ultimately be focused on the gospel and will build up Christ’s body. With Christ at the center, we can open ourselves up to the Spirit’s activity without worrying about bizarre excesses we have observed in some Christian circles.
At another level, however, the Christ-centeredness of the Spirit’s work-much more than removing potential discomfort we might anticipate-actually reinforces how uneasy things could get when we experience God’s powerful working in our midst. In other words, for all our concerns over how unwieldy the Spirit’s activity might be, we forget how unnerving Jesus’ ministry was to those around him.
For instance, in our Bible reading we recently saw the disciples’ reaction to Jesus calming the storm: “they were filled with great fear” (Mark 4:41). Likewise, after Jesus cast out the legion of demons from the Gerasene demoniac, the people from the town “came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid” (Mark 5:15).
From the comfort of our living rooms it may be easy to read these stories and question why such wonderful displays of power would be so unsettling to those around Jesus. We tend to forget how disruptive these acts were to what was expected. Storms do not simply cease because a fisherman waves his hands. Unruly maniacs do not return to their right mind because a teacher from the backwoods tells the demons to go jump in a lake. These things do not belong to our common experiences, not to mention resurrection, which caused Jesus’ followers to flee “from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).
The consistent witness of the gospels is that Jesus’ ministry made people uncomfortable, afraid, astonished, taken aback. If the Spirit’s ministry of equipping the saints to build each other up in love is a Christ-centered ministry, we should anticipate that the same flavor that characterized Jesus’ ministry will characterize the Spirit’s ministry through us. While it will not be bizarre or absurd, neither will it be domesticated or predictable.
As we continue through 1 Corinthians 12-14, may God keep our bearings first and foremost on himself and the good news of what his Son has accomplished for us. In that context, may we open our hearts to whatever his Spirit wants to do through us to build one another up in love so that all who come into this community “will worship God and declare that God is really among you” (1 Corinthians 14:25).
Willing to be unsettled,
Pastor Chris