The Rev. Dr. Barbara Ewton
First Congregational Church of Verona
A: Pentecost
Wind…Fire…Spirit
Acts 2: 1- 38, selections
When the day of Pentecost came, the apostles were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a fierce wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, from Crete, and Arabs-- we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?" …
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say…This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy…and you [also] will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.
It's the day of Pentecost. And Mothers’ Day. And so, I thought it would make sense to start this sermon by talking about a mother. But I don’t want to talk about just any mother – I want to start by talking about Mary, the mother of Jesus.
The Bible tells us that, when the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her "You're going to have a baby, and you're going to name him Jesus," Mary was uncertain and asked, "How can this be?" The angel’s answer was that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her. When Mary said yes, the Holy Spirit, who once moved upon the waters of chaos and brought forth creation, moved like a shadow upon the waters of Mary's womb and brought forth Christ.
One of the first things Mary did was to run to her cousin Elizabeth and share God’s dream for the new world that was coming, a world of justice where mercy would flow from generation to generation, where the powerful would come down from their thrones, the lowly would be lifted up and the hungry would finally be filled.
Later, when Elizabeth’s son baptized Mary’s son in the Jordan river, the sky above Jesus opened and the Holy Spirit came down like a dove as he stood in the water. Soon after, Jesus began preaching and teaching about God’s dream for the new world that was here because Jesus was here. The gospel of Luke tells us that he stood in the synagogue and announced that, "The Spirit of God is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." The liberating, jubilee ministry of Jesus – healing the sick, calling together the disciples, bringing the good news of grace – was powered, he said, by the Spirit of God.
When his earthly ministry was ended, the last thing Jesus said to his friends was this: "This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."[1]
And so, Mary, along with all the disciples, gathered in a locked room in Jerusalem. They waited and prayed and planned together. But they didn’t do anything. They didn’t tell anyone about their hopes or even their fears. They knew what they knew of God’s dream, but no one had the courage to share it.
Finally, the day came when God poured out the Spirit on the people gathered in that room. But this time it was not like a gentle shadow, as the Spirit had once come to Mary. Nor like a quiet dove, hovering over baptismal waters on a sunny afternoon. This time, the Spirit came like a flame and a rush of fierce wind. And, while the fire might have "rested" and remained on them, the disciples certainly couldn't rest or stay where they were anymore. When there's a fire in the house, it's time to get out, and get out they did. They were blown out into the street. With courage to speak. To speak about Jesus, this same Jesus who was crucified, who is the Christ.
And as the disciples, filled with the fire of the Spirit, gave testimony to the risen Jesus, the Church came into being. Peter declared that the God’s dream for a just and new world had begun for every nation, and for all people. And the proof was in the courage of those disciples out in the street: mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, slave and free, young and old. They were a community of equals, all out there together – dreaming God’s dreams, living God’s life and speaking the truth of Jesus Christ to all who would listen.
Now, all the disciples were like Mary, bearing the presence of Jesus within them. Now they were Spirit driven, like Jesus, proclaiming the good news to the poor. Now they were a Church, bearing witness to the crucified and risen Christ and the life he had taught them to live.
Their lives were changed forever because something new was in them and through them and that spark of new found courage, let loose in the world. And it began for them – as it always does – when the Spirit came. As a shadow. A dove. A wind. A fire.
So that is what the Bible says. But – if God’s Spirit is to come upon us – how might we tell? We can begin to wrap our minds about the concept of God as creator, and we have actual stories about Jesus, but who is the Holy Spirit? Well, we might try to close in on an answer by searching for her characteristics and one way to start is by following the wind.
The words the Bible use for “spirit” have multiple meanings: wind and breath and spirit. So the book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning, Ruach Yahweh, hovered over the deep. Some translations say that by saying that the “Spirit of God hovered over the waters” and some say a “wind from God swept over the waters.”So one of the characteristics of spirit is that – like the wind – it can’t be confined to a particular time or location. The Spirit was present at creation, at Pentecost, and today.
Moving past words to images, tradition says that mighty cherubim stood guard in the Holy of Holies at the temple in Jerusalem. Cherubim are mythical beings with the bodies of animals and the wings of birds. The ancient Israelites did not believe that God was in the cherubim, but that God was in the air between the cherubim's wings. Their sacred object of worship was invisible – mysterious. Like the wind.
At the school on Long Island where my sister used to teach, there’s a windmill. Long ago, it provided power for the village of Southampton – sustaining its people’s lives from day to day. Imagine God being like the wind that blew through that windmill.
Imagine the wind that fills a sail and carries a boat across Long Island Sound. Imagine the wind as it lifts a kite and keeps it soaring higher and higher, much to the delight of the child holding its string. Imagine the wind which fills a parachute and brings it gently to earth.
Imagine God like the wind – the amazing, invisible un-touchable power to toss the kite, move the sail boat, cool the summer afternoon, fuel the exhilaration of a parachuter, sustain the life of a village.
God’s spirit is not the wind. It is like the wind because to this day we sense a presence beyond us, ultimate, unrestricted and loving. God’s spirit is the energy that caused creation, that brought the Christ to human life, that empowered his life and redeemed his death. Then the Spirit blew into the future so that we too might have the power to dream God’s dream of a just new world and the energy and creativity to bring that vision a little closer to life in our time.
William Loader wrote a poem about God’s holy Spirit and it ends like this:
O wind, wind,
you breathed upon the clay and there was life,
you danced down to the forehead of a Galilean and there was hope,
you shook the foundations of community and there was Pentecost…
O wise, wise wind, whisper to us your grace. [2]
In this holy season – in our lives, in our church – let us be blown along by God's Spirit, let us listen to the whisper of the wind. Amen.