This encouragement is written by Mary Hulst, University Pastor at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47 NRSV)

I preached on the book of Acts this past fall.

While we may often hold up the early church as the ideal and read Acts 2:44-47 with longing admiration, it doesn’t take long before you realize that a lot of this book deals with conflict.

Peter and John run into conflict with the religious leaders because of what they preached. The Greeks are annoyed because their widows aren’t getting as much attention as the Hebrew widows. Stephen argues with Jews from the synagogue of the Freedmen, and the conflict ends in his martyrdom. Saul ravages the church and then roasts other Jews in a debate after he meets the Lord. The Jerusalem disciples don’t want to take Saul in. The Jews argue about how to welcome the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas argue about what John Mark’s role should be on their next missionary journey, leading to their split from one another.

These stories are messy. And still, the Holy Spirit is at work, bringing blessing and transformation. While we remember the Holy Spirit parts (Fire! Tongues! So many baptisms!), in truth, so much of the good and beautiful work of God is done through people just being people and trying to figure out the next right thing.

Just like us. As a University Pastor, I’ve seen the messy and beautiful up close:

“Bart and I completely disagree on most things,” a Christian school teacher said to me about her colleague. “But we have such respect for each other and work really well together. I wish more people could be like that.”

“Yeah, we have a few who haven’t had the vaccine,” said one of our athletic captains when talking about an outbreak of Covid. “So when we are out at a restaurant or watching a game on the bleachers, we all surround them to provide some kind of barrier.”

“It’s like at our church fair,” began a freshman, “we have all of these different churches in the gym, and they disagree about a lot of things, but they all believe in Jesus. That’s really good to see.”

This is a messy life, this Jesus-following life. And we do it with other messy people. The book of Acts reminds us that it has been this way since the beginning, and the only reason any of this still ‘works’ is the same reason any of it ‘worked’ back then: the Holy Spirit is always up to something. Does he come in and clean everything up? Nope. Does he solve every problem? No. Does he make all our pain disappear? I wish.

But is he here? Showing up? Right in our mess? Is he directing our stumbling steps and strengthening our weak hearts? Is he putting his hand over our mouths and opening our ears? Is he doing his Holy Spirit thing in the midst of our hapless human messes? Yes. Yes, indeed.

Blessed be his holy name.