Eastertide Leadership, Part II: Peace, Power, and Courage
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Eastertide Leadership, about how Jesus’ disciples, in the weeks following Easter, lived with death and resurrection at the same time and how this is the reality of our lives, too, in a time of much disruption, uncertainty, and injustice. The disciples struggled with how to lead in the midst of both death and resurrection. This is the challenge we face, as well.
Today, I’d like to continue on that theme, with Jesus’ promise to empower the disciples with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus anticipated the anxiety and powerlessness that the disciples would feel after his death, and he prepared them with his promise of the Holy Spirit. Just before the Last Supper, just before his crucifixion, Jesus tells the disciples that he will send the Holy Spirit. In response to anxiety and powerlessness, Jesus offers the peace and power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, the disciples don’t understand what he is saying and they ask many questions. When Jesus answers, they still don’t get it.
It is only after Jesus’ death and resurrection, after Jesus breathed on the disciples and gave the gift of the Holy Spirit, after Pentecost when the power of the Holy Spirit became evident, that everything changed. From a small, frightened group, hidden away from the world, to bold preachers traversing the entire known world, the disciples, manifested massive transformation. The Holy Spirit replaced their anxiety with peace, their powerlessness with power, and their fearful paralysis with courageous action.
As I continue to ask, “What is mine to do?” in my country where I witness the death of so many things I hold dear, I have been musing on the power of the Holy Spirit. When I feel anxious and powerless, just like the disciples did, I remind myself that this is normal, living in the midst of these unprecedented times. At the same time, I wonder how the Holy Spirit might offer me the kind of peace, power, and courage that the disciples experienced.
For a more recent example of the Holy Spirit’s manifestation of peace, power, and courage, I turn to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. A leader who combined deep prayer, profound courage, and extraordinary imagination, Tutu saw beyond the confines of the world’s construction of reality. As a Black man living under apartheid rule in South Africa, Tutu prayed to see the world as God desires it to be, and he saw a world of justice and freedom for all. Tutu’s commitment to regular listening prayer opened him to the Holy Spirit, resulting in the same thing that Jesus’ disciples experienced: peace in place of anxiety, power in place of powerlessness, courageous action in place of paralyzed fear. He experimented boldly. He worked with others to build community. He led his clergy to stand between police and threatened township residents, he spoke out against the oppressive regime, he led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The Holy Spirit gave him and his colleagues what they needed to transform their world.
I know that the Holy Spirit is available to me, as well. Just as the Holy Spirit provided the disciples and Desmond Tutu with peace, power, and courage in the face of impossible challenges, so the Holy Spirit will provide me, will provide us, with what we need today. I look forward to seeing what is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. May we trust and listen and experiment, and then watch in amazement as the Holy Spirit does unexpected things through us in the midst of the impossible challenges we face in our time and place.
Thank you, Margaret, for these encouraging and inspiring words!
So beautifully said. Love and more love to you, dear Margaret.
Margaret, I am very grateful for your insight and your spirit of hope. Your writings have helped me as I lead a congregation that is in transition, and trying to discern God’s plans for them.