The verse that often gets lost in all of this is the first verse of the chapter -- they were all together in one place. We get so caught up in Pentecost that we forget how it got started. Well, I suppose we'd say that it started back in Genesis 1:2, when the Spirit moved across the waters, just as the Spirit moved here. But the disciples were all together.
Now, we don't control God, and there's no magic formula to make the Holy Spirit show up, but good things happen when we gather together. We're made for this -- we're wired to be in community. It matters -- church isn't the same without it. COVID is reminding us just how much this matters.
So may we cling a little more tightly to our communities on the other side of this, and may we be ever mindful of those who, for one reason or another, cannot be in community in the same ways. There are people with compromised immune systems that have been living in fear of viruses for decades. There are people who can't leave the house for medical reasons or psychological reasons -- may we think carefully about how to include them in community, about how to take community to them, and may we all be changed by this experience, that we may gather together and see what God has in store for us.
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