Growing up and studying the New Testament, I often wondered what it would have felt like to be there on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on the assemblage. It felt like this [yesterday's meeting]. It was the great rushing of the Spirit that has entered into our hearts as we have heard each other's witnesses of the gospel.
And, as with that ancient group of saints, we may ask the question, "what shall we do?" When we feel the Spirit like this, we feel the impulse to act, but we don't always know what to do. How can we each maintain the sense of spiritual fulfillment we have felt today? Like Peter, our priesthood leaders give us a clear, simple, timely response to this pleading: "Repent and be baptized."
Most of us have been baptized already, so for us it is simply a matter of repenting, daily, continually. We have been lifted higher by the testimonies we have heard today, and the only way to keep that feeling in our lives is to change where we need to change, to pray more fervently, to study the scriptures more seriously, to serve others more selflessly.
There are among us those who are not members of the Church, and to you the invitation is what Peter said, to make your own repentance more complete by accepting the ordinances of the gospel and making the baptismal covenant, which invites the Holy Ghost to be with you as you have felt it today.
2 comments:
at the conclusion of the "fat and testimony" meeting eh?
The idea of pentecost is one that seems so alien to Mormonism but is really foundational. We are a faith that believes fundamentally in Revelation, personally and organizationally. We believe in the manifestation of deity into our daily lives. Spiritual gifts are accepted as a forgone conclusion. We go so far as to say any joe-blow moved upon to speak by the Spirit is speaking scripture.
Yet as holy roller as all of that sounds, we seem to believe in these things in a very New England Puritanical way. I'm certainly not calling for speaking in tongues from the pulpit, nor for us to suddenly be handling snakes during Church. I am saying that F&T comes as close to the Pentecost of Acts as we typically get in the Church.
I wonder if that's a problem for us? Is this the reason growth in the Church has slowed and why 2/3s of our membership is inactive? Are we so stoic culturally that we don't allow the Spirit to exercise its full power and influence on us? I'm not sure. I do know that personally I often have a hard time finding inspiration from the talks that are read in a monotone.
Nice perspective. Maybe we need to loosen up, invite the spirit more, and let that touch people's lives. Being involved in planning sacrament meetings, I take this as a serious and important challenge, to find ways to make our worship experience more meaningful.
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