For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit, – 1 Thessalonians 4-6 (NRSVUE)
What do we mean when we talk about the Holy Spirit? This is a question that I am frequently asked. From the point of view of our experience, we can say that the Holy Spirit is the first person of the Trinity. That is, our first experience of God is an experience of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic presence of God in our day to day life. The Holy Spirit gives life, and also gives faith. Thus the experience of having faith is an experience of the Holy Spirit. That faith allows us to see God in looking at Jesus and recognizing him as the Christ and the image of the invisible God. In experience, then, the Holy Spirit comes to us and gives us faith in Christ. Having faith in Christ allows us to know the heart of God. Therefore our experience of faith works from the Spirit through the Son to the Father.
Yet even as the Holy Spirit is central to our everyday experience of faith, too often we feel intimidated talking about the Spirit. It seems too fuzzy or subjective for some people, or simply too hard to understand. Yet the work of the Spirit is central to our understanding of life as Christians, and specifically as Lutherans. With that in mind, over the next few weeks these devotions will focus on what Martin Luther had to say about the Holy Spirit. Hopefully getting a sense of what this one strand of traditional theology has to say will be helpful in having a sense of what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives today.