Come, Holy Spirit

(From the back of the Church) What are you waiting for? Jesus’ disciples were waiting and wondering. What are you waiting for?

There they were, gathered in Jerusalem. There they were, waiting, waiting, patiently waiting. Jesus had told them to wait. Most of them had seen him after he’d been raised from the dead. Some of them had been with him ten days ago, when he was taken up from them, when he’d told them to go back to Jerusalem to wait. Just before leaving them, he’d reminded them that he would send them what the Father had promised them. He reminded them that John had baptized them with water, but that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. He told them that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. They prayed in the temple, they chose another leader of their group to replace Judas, and they waited. Now it was fifty days after Passover. It was the day of Pentecost, one of the three great Jewish festivals. It was the day when, as Jews, they’d offered the first fruits of their harvest to God, and they’d celebrated God’s gift of the Law, the Torah, on Mt. Sinai. Now they were all together, perhaps 120 of them, the twelve and all those others, some women, some men, some younger, some older. Probably even some kids. Perhaps they were gathered in someone’s courtyard after their temple worship.

They were good Jews who knew their Scripture. They knew about the fire on Mt. Sinai when Moses received the law. Perhaps some of them remembered the other times God came to people in fire: when God sealed the covenant with Abraham; when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush; when the Pillar of fire led the people through the desert; when the angel purified Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal as God commissioned Isaiah to be a prophet.

Perhaps some others remembered how God came to people as wind: how the east wind sent by God allowed the people to cross the Sea of Reeds from Egypt; how God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind; how Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. In their temple worship perhaps they had heard the lector read the passage telling of Ezekiel’s vision of how God commanded the four winds to breathe new life into the dry bones of the house of Israel. And they all knew the psalms. Perhaps they sang the psalm we said today. Perhaps they remembered that God sends forth God’s spirit and creates the entire world, that God continually renews the face of the earth. As they sat there, perhaps they remembered Jesus’ that he had made when he was at dinner with them for the last time, his promise that, because he was going away from them, he would send a Paraclete, a helper, to guide them and lead them into all truth.

And then it happened! They felt something like a great rush of wind. As they looked at each other, they all seemed to be on fire! They knew that God was with them, and that Jesus’ promises had come true. They rushed out of the courtyard and starting addressing the people who had gathered round, people from all over the Jewish Diaspora, who had come to Jerusalem to worship on Pentecost. They were empowered! They were filled with the Holy Spirit! They were out there laughing and dancing, hugging, and singing. They spoke in new languages. They might have been Galileans, but they could talk about God’s mighty acts in Jesus to everyone, whoever they were! And then Peter gave a wonderful sermon, telling how they were all doing what the prophet Joel had promised they would, explaining that it was God’s Spirit through Jesus crucified and risen who was empowering them. After it was all over, 3,000 people believed Peter and were baptized!

Could such an event happen again? Did it ever happen again? It did, believe it! The Holy Spirit was there when St Francis heard Jesus’ command to rebuild his church, and when Julian had her visions, lying, as she thought, mortally ill. Don’t you think the Holy Spirit was there when John Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed” at the Aldersgate meeting? The Holy Spirit was certainly present to Zilpha Elaw, an African American Methodist preacher. Zilpha was 27 when the Spirit literally knocked her down at a camp meeting in 1817. Lying on the ground she felt her own spirit ascend to heaven and a voice assuring her that she was sanctified. After she recovered from her vision, she began to lead those around her in prayer.

Could such an outpouring of the Spirit happen here? Like the disciples, we’re all gathered together. We’ve heard readings from the Scripture. We’re singing songs and praying. We’ve been hearing all these fifty days again what it means to be disciples of a risen Lord. We’ve heard Jesus’ promises. We know about the Holy Spirit. What are we waiting for? Are we sitting on our hands waiting for throngs of new people to find their way through the red doors? Wait a minute. Suddenly we too feel something like a mighty wind blowing through us. In the sanctuary the light fixtures begin to shake, the wonderful old windows begin to rattle, and we worry about the stained glass. The electric power flickers, and we feel caught up in something mighty and overpowering. We feel as if fire is coursing through us. We want to shout out loud. We want to dance and sing. We want to shout, “Hallelujah!” Then we rush out through the doors and run down to the park. There’s a crowd gathered out there, people from all over, black and white, rich and poor, young and old, native-born and immigrants. They’re just milling around, as if they’re waiting for something to happen. We start talking to them about Jesus! Some of them think we’re drunk – perhaps we’ve had too much of that Episcopal communion wine -- but others get it! The church is alive, and they want to join it! And they do, hundreds of them! The pastors can’t keep up!

Can’t happen here, you say? Not so. The Holy Spirit doesn’t work that way anymore? Yes, she does! Believe it! The Holy Spirit is still very much alive in our churches, in us as the priesthood of all believers, in us who were sealed with the Spirit in baptism and born anew. She has changed our born flesh with her touch, and she is still leading us into all truth. She is still calling us to be prophets. She is still teaching us how to proclaim the good news of God’s love for us and God’s promises of renewal for all creation. She is still sending us out into the world to tell everyone that God’s kingdom has come near, that God’s future has broken into our present, and that we have a glimpse of that future in Jesus and in the communities gathered in Jesus’ name. She is still sending us out to remind people that God is remaking the world, and that we are empowered to share with God in God’s great work. She is still teaching us not to be “however” people: people who see, for example that children are hungry and say, “However, we can’t….” The Holy Spirit is teaching us to be “therefore” people: people who see that children are hungry and say, “Therefore, let’s….”

And our churches are reborn. Wherever we gather, to hear Scripture read, to pray with every fiber of our being, to sing with all the fullness of our hearts, to thank God for God’s great gifts to us, to share God’s love with those around us, whenever we trust God to do more than we can ask or imagine, there the Spirit joins with us, renewing and rebirthing us. And we cry out, O come, Holy Spirit, move us, blow us away, make us laugh, shout, dance, sing, speak, preach, make us joyfully seize your presence among us.

“We name you wind, power, force, and then,
Imaginatively, “Third Person.”
We name you and you blow…
blow hard,
blow cold,
blow hot,
blow strong,
blow gentle,
blow new…
Blowing the world out of nothing to abundance,
blowing the church out of despair to new life,
blowing little David from shepherd boy to messiah,
blowing to make things new that never were.
So blow this day, wind,
Blow here and there, power,
Blow even us, force,
Rush us beyond ourselves,
Rush us beyond our hopes,
Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.
Come, come spirit. Amen.”1

1. Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 2003, p.167.