In Luke, you have to wait until the sequel (Acts) to get the giving of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew and Mark, the giving of the Holy Spirit doesn't show up. But in John, the Holy Spirit is given in the midst of the resurrection appearances. The effect is the same- the giving of the Holy Spirit is in direct relationship to mission.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (vss 21-23).
The Holy Spirit is crucial to mission. The Holy Spirit bears the fruit that does God's transformational work in our world. The Spirit reminds us of Jesus Christ and of our union with Him. The Spirit sends us to places we don't normally go (just as the Spirit pushed Jesus into the wilderness). We couldn't be involved in God's mission without the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, mission would just be us trying to work a human agenda, fraught with power corruption and the other issues present when human agendas get to work.
The first work of the Spirit, however, is to draw us toward God. In the case of Thomas, the Spirit caused Thomas to commit treason. At the time of the writing of John, the Roman Emperor demanded a title that could be bestowed on no one else- "Lord and God." When Thomas shouted out that Jesus is indeed Lord and God, he was laying down a pattern that God's mission and God's Spirit would often push us outside the range of "acceptable" behavior. The Spirit leads us take a prophetic stance, revealing the purposes of God even against the purposes of the powerful. And by the Spirit, we can be okay with doing that.
What becomes more terrifying to me is not that God would want me to take that kind of stance, but that I won't ever seize the opportunity before me. Today my prayer is that the Spirit will move through my (sometimes) thick skull to see all the possibilities before me.
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