Exploring the Scripture

Our scripture passage from Romans 8 does not contain images we usually associate with Pentecost. There are no stories of wind, fiery tongues resting on people, or different nationalities speaking multiple languages and understanding one another. Instead, we encounter another image of the Holy Spirit the Apostle Paul proclaims is centered in the message of hope that adopts us into the family of God.

Life in the Holy Spirit is a significant theme in this part of Paul’s message. To understand its importance, Paul notes the suffering experienced by the disciples. But it is not necessarily the suffering from persecution but suffering that comes because of our sin and choices that can feel like we are in bondage. Yet not only humankind suffers; it is all of God’s creation. In this suffering, Paul proclaims, the whole creation groans together in labor pains, waiting for God’s adoption and redemption of our lives.

At the center of this passage is a message of hope. For Paul, the hope needed is birthed from our assurance that God has a future for all creation that will come. It is a future that is more than we can see in the moment and our suffering. But in God’s trustworthiness, when our burdens become so heavy, we cannot even find the words to pray, the Holy Spirit offers that gift of interceding on our behalf to God.

Through that gift of love expressed in the Holy Spirit—which abides with us, advocates for us, and empowers us in our waiting—we are adopted and formed into that relationship with God and one another in sacred community. When we see ourselves as that sacred community in God, we are living in God’s future, which is unfolding in our lives.

Pentecost—the gift of the Holy Spirit—takes us to the threshold between what is and what will be. We experience suffering in what is. We struggle in the moment with the presence of human brokenness and creation’s destruction. And yet, as we stand at the threshold of what will be, the Holy Spirit assures us what is before us is God’s future. This informs how we can live daily as disciples.

This passage looks at what the Holy Spirit was doing for new Christians in Rome. We hear Paul’s apostolic message: In the struggles and suffering they shared with all God’s creation, something new was preparing to be birthed in their lives. As part of our exploration of this scripture lesson, we must ask what is being birthed in our lives today?

On this day of Pentecost, we take time to remember what the Holy Spirit was doing. We can then begin to look forward with fresh eyes to see better what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives and the church today. Responding to the call to compassionate action and ministry becomes a living expression of the Holy Spirit at work through us.

Project Zion Podcast

Co-hosts Karin Peter and Blake Smith consider how this week's scripture connects to our lives today.

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Central Ideas

1. Pentecost is the gift of the Holy Spirit working within our lives, which makes hope possible as we awaken to God’s future before us.
2. In our human struggles and weakness, we can find comfort and assurance the Holy Spirit is interceding for us to God, who knows our heart.
3. As the Apostle Paul proclaims, hope is birthed within us, not from what we can see, but from the assurance that is with us and continues to redeem us in our suffering and challenges.

Questions to Consider

1. How do you see the Holy Spirit working in the lives of the congregation, community, workplace, and school?
2. How does Paul’s expression of the whole creation groaning for that adoption and redemption speak to the groaning you feel inside when you look at life and the world around you? How do the words of counsel from Doctrine and Covenants 155:7 (“Know, O my people, the time for hesitation is past. The earth, my creation, groans for the liberating truths of my gospel which have been given for the salvation of the world.”) challenge us on how to live today?
3. When have you or someone in the congregation felt the heavy burden of human suffering in the world and then experienced the gift of God’s hope through the presence of the Holy Spirit?
4. How does the message of Pentecost stimulate new conversations about how the Holy Spirit is inviting the congregation to explore its mission in new ways in the community and neighborhood?