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On Pentecost, let's ponder the Holy Spirit

Lynne Baab • Saturday May 19 2018

We celebrate Pentecost this Sunday, the day when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit to the people gathered in Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival. You can read about it in Acts 2 (which you can access here.) Almost two millennia after Pentecost, we benefit every day from the presence of the Holy Spirit with us.

One of my seminary professor called the Holy Spirit the “shy” member of the Trinity. This professor was referring to the fact that the Holy Spirit’s role is to bring glory to the Father and the Son. Thus the Holy Spirit is the least visible...

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An AHA moment on Mother’s Day

Lynne Baab • Saturday May 12 2018

The setting: a worship service on Mother’s Day

The AHA moment: the prayer that gave permission for people to struggle on that day

About 20 years ago on Mother’s Day, my good friend and colleague was leading the prayer time in the worship service. Over the years, I had sat through many prayers on Mother’s Day that expressed thanks to God for mothers, a good thing to do.

This was the first time I heard a prayer that expressed those appropriate thanks to God, but also acknowledged that Mother’s Day is hard for some people. My friend mentioned couples who struggle with infertility or...

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Nature speaks about God: The Bible and nature

Lynne Baab • Friday May 4 2018

In our Seattle church, children bring flowers on Easter Sunday, mostly daffodils and tulips, with a few hot house flowers like carnations thrown in. The flowers are inserted in a cross specially designed for Easter. At my friend’s church in Oamaru, New Zealand, children also bring flowers on Easter to place on a cross. Because Easter is in the late summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the flowers are mostly roses and dahlias.

Different flowers, different seasons, different locations. Same God, same Easter, same celebration of Jesus’ triumph over death.

The cross speaks of Good Friday, Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and God’s great redemption...

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Nature speaks about God: Patterns in God’s speech

Lynne Baab • Friday April 27 2018

When we think about the ways God speaks through nature, a key passage is Psalm 119:1-4:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

The first verse tells us the content of the words: the glory of God. The remaining verses describe the nature of the speech. It goes spreads to the end of the earth, speaking without words or audible...

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