A Reflection for Pentecost Sunday

There they were, a house full of them, Luke says, all moping around wondering what they were going to do without Jesus, when they heard a holy hurricane headed their way. Before any of them could defend themselves, that mighty wind had blown through the entire house, striking sparks that burst into flames above their heads, and they were filled up with it – every one of them was filled to the gills with God’s own breath. Then something clamped down on them and the air came out of them in languages they did not even know they knew.

Like a room full of bagpipes all going at once, they set up such a racket that they drew a crowd. People from all over the world who were in Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost came leaning in the windows and pushing through the doors, surprised to hear someone speaking their own language so far from home. Parthians stuck their heads through the door expecting to see other Parthians, and Libyans looked around for other Libyans, but what they saw instead were a bunch of Galileans – rural types from northern Israel dressed in the equivalent of first-century overalls – all of them going on and on about God’s mighty acts like a bunch of Ph.D.’s in middle eastern languages.

Before the day was over, the church had grown from one hundred twenty to more than three thousand. Shy people had become bold, scared people had become gutsy, and lost people had found a sure sense of direction. Disciples who had not believed themselves capable of tying their own sandals without Jesus discovered abilities within themselves they never knew they had. When they opened their mouths to speak, they sounded like Jesus. When they laid their hands upon the sick, it was as if Jesus himself had touched them. In short order, they were doing things they had never seen anyone but him do, and there was no explanation for it, except that they had dared to inhale on the day of Pentecost. They had sucked in God’s own breath and they had been transformed by it.

The Holy Spirit had entered into them the same way it had entered into Mary, the mother of Jesus, and for the same reason. It was time for God to be born again – not in one body this time but in a body of believers who would receive the breath of life from their Lord and pass it on, using their own bodies to distribute the gift.

The book of Acts is the story of their adventures, which is why I like to think of it as the gospel of the Holy Spirit. In the first four books of the New Testament, we learn the good news of what God did through Jesus Christ. In the book of Acts, we learn the good news of what God did through the Holy Spirit, by performing artificial resuscitation on a room full of well-intentioned bumblers and turning them into a force that changed the history of the world.

The question for me is whether we still believe in a God who acts like that. Do we still believe in a God who blows through closed doors and sets our heads on fire? Do we still believe in a God with power to transform us, both as individuals and as a people, or have we come to an unspoken agreement that our God is pretty old and tired by now, someone to whom we may address our prayer requests but not anyone we really expect to change our lives?

Of all the persons of the Trinity, I suppose the Holy Spirit is the hardest to define. Most of us can at least begin to describe the other two: God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, who makes the sun shine and the rain fall. God the Son, who was human like us: our savior, teacher, helper, and friend. But how would you describe God the Holy Spirit to a five-year-old child? Even Jesus had a hard time with that one. “The Spirit blows where it chooses,” he said in John’s gospel, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (3:8).

There is some very fine teaching available on the Holy Spirit; and I hope none of you is satisfied with it. I hope none of you rests until you have felt the Holy Spirit blow through your own life, rearranging things, opening things up and maybe even setting your own head on fire. There is nothing you can do to make it happen, as far as I know, except to pray “Come, Holy Spirit” every chance you get. If you don’t want anything to change in your life, then for heaven’s sake don’t pray that, but if you are the type of person who likes to stand out on the porch when there is a storm moving through so you can feel the power that is pushing the trees around, then you are probably a good candidate for the Holy Spirit prayer…

Once you get the hang of it, the evidence is easier and easier to spot. Whenever two plus two does not equal four but five – whenever you find yourself speaking with eloquence you know you do not have, or offering forgiveness you had not meant to offer – whenever you find yourself taking risks you thought you did not have the courage to take or reaching out to someone you had intended to walk away from – you can be pretty sure that you are learning about the gospel of the Holy Spirit. And more than that, you are taking part in it, breathing in and breathing out, taking God into you and giving God back to the world again, with some of you attached.

Take a breath. Now just keep breathing. This is God’s moment-by-moment gift to us. We can call it air or we can call it Holy Spirit. It counts on us to warm it up, to lend it our lives. In return, it promises to fill us with new wind, to set our heads on fire, giving us tongues to speak of things we cannot begin to understand.

Do we still believe in a God who acts like that? More importantly, do we still experience a God who acts like that? I do not know what your answer is, but if you do not have one I hope you will discover one.    Join the Gospel of the Holy Spirit Conspiracy and see what happens next.

*from Home by Another Way, The Gospel of The Holy Spirit - Barbara Brown Taylor,

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MAY GOD BLESS US TO GROW AND THRIVE – IN 2025!

May God Bless you and yours as we journey together through this Pentecost Season…

May God Awaken, Inspire and Challenge you with the Surprises of The Spirit!

As we see, appreciate and embrace the Great Gift of God with us

May God’s Spirit empower us to

“expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God”…and

May God Continue to Bless Union Church!

-Pastor Mark