As Christians we believe in God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We also know we have received the Holy Spirit through our baptism. But if we were asked by someone who knew nothing of Christianity – so what does “receiving the Spirit” mean? what happens? – Would we have a good answer?
For all the references to receiving the Spirit in the New Testament it doesn’t seem to help us in explaining what this is all about. Today in our first reading (Acts 2:1-11) we have the highly dramatic story that Luke tells in the Acts of the Apostles of the first Pentecost, when the disciples received the Holy Spirit. In that case the result was their ability to speak “in tongues” and to convert thousands of people. That’s probably not your experience of receiving the Spirit. In the Gospel reading (Jn 20:19-23) John gives us a totally different account of the disciples receiving the Spirit. No drama here. Jesus simply breaths on them and the result – they have the power to forgive sins. For most of us that’s not in our playbook either.
Paul’s explanation to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13) may help us more. Firstly he points out something that we can connect to – “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit”. The effect of receiving the Spirit is that it gives us the power to acknowledge our faith, to say “yes, Lord, I do believe”.
But Paul goes on to explain that the Spirit isn’t one trick pony – “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit” and “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit“. We shouldn’t expect any commonality in our experience of the Spirit. Receiving the Spirit isn’t like receiving a diploma or some sort of gift. It’s not a specific item or action. Despite the drama of Luke’s account, and even the singular nature of John’s description of Jesus’s final gift to the disciples, the frame of reference for all this is a process or relationship. John’s lengthy explanation of what it means for Jesus to depart and leave behind his / the Spirit sets this out in theological terms. Paul makes it more tangible or practical for his first converts.
If we are “receiving” something, it’s more like receiving an education than a birthday present. And maybe the whole idea of receiving anything, since we are so obsessed with “stuff”, is part of the problem. We’d probably be better off not thinking about some sort of transaction in any sense at all. The best analogy for what’s going on here is falling in love! And there is certainly no recipe for that, or any single explanation or description of what that is like. Every case is truly unique.
So if someone asks us what receiving the Spirit is like, we can say “just like falling in love”. And maybe no one is any the wiser, but we can get on with living out that relationship, each in our own particular way, each with that particular benefit which our Father has gifted to us.