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I will give you new hearts. I will give you a new spirit that is faithful to me. I will remove your stubborn hearts from you. I will give you hearts that obey me. I will put my Spirit in you. I will make you want to obey my rules. I want you to be careful to keep my laws (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

Over the past weeks, I have been reflecting with you on the Holy Spirit. As of yet, I have not referred to Acts 2 which records the story of Pentecost. And I do not intend to go there either. The reason is that the Holy Spirit is often associated only with the spectacular. Who can deny that what happened on Pentecost was spectacular? And what about speaking in tongues, healings, and prophesying? Magnificent stuff.

The problem is that if we are not into such things, or if we have tried and failed, then we try our best to ignore the Holy Spirit because, well, He is just not our thing. But such thinking ignores the story told in the Bible. There, we find the Holy Spirit involved in everything God does. He was there at the beginning, giving shape to the cosmos. He was there with Jesus in his earthly ministry. He continues to this very day, God in us, shaping the church and building the kingdom.

Maybe, because we used to refer to him as the Holy Ghost, we find the Spirit less tangible than Father and Son. We understand those terms, but ghosts and spirits, they are not physical. Maybe that makes us a little suspicious? Ghosts and spirits generally do not get a good rap in our literature, just ask Ebenezer Scrooge. We are not sure what to make of this Holy Spirit.

The Biblical image for the Holy Spirit is not ghost or spirit, in any modern sense, but wind. We know the power of wind. And that is, at least in large part I think, the point. The Spirit is power, God\u2019s power. That is the image of Pentecost, wind and fire, both powerful agents. As fire and wind, the Holy Spirit purifies and cleanses, but also builds up.

This is what our text says, I will give you new hearts. I will give you a new spirit that is faithful to me. I will remove your stubborn hearts from you. I will give you hearts that obey me. I will put my Spirit in you. I will make you want to obey my rules. I want you to be careful to keep my laws.

In theological terms we talk about sanctification. The Spirit makes us holy. He causes his fruit to grow in us. True, many of us find that we are still not very good at this. We are not very careful to keep God\u2019s ways. And sometimes we don\u2019t even want to. Is it possible that, at least in part, this is because we have not given the Holy Spirit enough credit?

The Holy Spirit was there in the beginning, giving shape to creation. He is present in our coming to faith in Christ, giving us new life in Jesus. But the Spirit continues on with us and in us, cleansing and purifying, chipping away at our stubborn hearts and replacing them with hearts that beat to God\u2019s drum.

When we become discouraged with ourselves, when we think we will never change, then we need to turn our eyes away from ourselves and see the Holy Spirit. We need to see him there at creation, we need to see him sustaining life through the eons, we need to see him at Jesus baptism and in the garden of tears, we need to see him breath new life into Jesus\u2019 dead body, we need to see him in our own hearts making all things new, including us. What\u2019s more spectacular than that!