Loving | Empowered

We will pray that as you come to know the love of G-d in Christ that you will welcome the Holy Spirit’s movement for yourself. Know Milana, that the Holy Spirit is not oppressive, forcing itself upon you, but rather the Holy Spirit, just like Christ, is life-giving. The late Phyllis Tickle wrote that we today are living in the age of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is moving us within the Church and those outside the church, in a moment of Holy Revitalization so that Christ’s Lordship may be known throughout creation. The confirmands and Milana are joining us, the body of Christ, in proclaiming Jesus to be Lord and everything to be…

Milana, you are becoming part of the Body that seeks to end suffering and oppression around the world not by our own hands but rather by the movement of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ. This means the Holy Spirit may not act like an anesthesiologist numbing you or us to the suffering of the world. To the contrary, the Spirit of G-d may just place the suffering of the world front and center in your life, front and center in our lives.

Milana, just like the confirmands upstairs, the weather that is about to be placed on your head - an outward sign of an inward and invisible grace - seals you as a beloved child of G-d and in that same moment marks you. Our faithfulness to the leading of the Spirit results in our adoption as heirs to the Kingdom of G-d, right there alongside Christ himself. The Holy Spirit is coming for you!

It may not seem like it but you Milana, and all of us, have been set free from the bondage and slavery to sin and death. Through this sealing and marking, you are now part of a community of freedom and as you emerge out of the baptismal waters, dying to yourself, you will receive new life, being adopted in the New Creation established by Christ’s death and resurrection.

The Good News Milana, and everyone who has nodded off by this point, is that we are not in this alone. We are a community of believers, doubters, and skeptics. But Milana, we are committed, just as your parents are, to doing this with you and with one another as part of Christ’s Universal Church. As the Holy Spirit works within you, and as the Holy Spirit works within us - sustaining us in times of suffering, sealing our adoption, and empowering us in the life changing ministry Christ has called us to, and will call you to.