Message Delivered at Christ Church
Saturday & Sunday, May 10th & 11th
The Feast of Pentecost
TEXT: Acts 2:1-11
Happy Birthday, everyone! It’s the Feast of Pentecost, and that means it’s the birthday of the Church. On this, the 50th day after Easter, the Holy Spirit came upon the community of believers in Jerusalem, and the Church was born.
The images Luke uses to describe what happens that day are images of power. There are tongues of fire, and magnificent acts of inspired speaking in all the languages of the Empire, and there’s wind.
We saw this week on a smaller scale here in Virginia, and on a catastrophic scale in Myanmar, what wind can do when it gets to blowing hard. Luke, of course, isn’t trying to conjure images of tornadoes and cyclones that destroy. But he is conjuring an image of power.
And when you think about it, here’s the odd thing about wind…it’s so powerful, but you can’t see it. We can’t see the wind, itself, when it’s blowing. We can only see its effects. We can only see the things it does. It’s invisible, but almost unequaled in power.
We can’t see it, but we know it’s there, and that it makes things happen. And if there is an often overlooked truth about the assumptions of the modern world, it is our acceptance of how powerful the invisible is; how much truth and force there is in the unseen. It is an irony that the modern world has been associated with a skeptical mind when at the same time we so much trust in the things we can’t perceive with our senses; we just accept them, because we see their evidence.
Here’s what I mean…here are some things we can’t see, but we know they’re true…
- You can’t see the gravity that keeps us from floating off into space, but we know it’s one of the primal forces of the universe;
- You can’t see the radio waves going from my microphone pack to the antenna by the sound booth;
- You can’t see the sound waves coming from the speakers to your ears;
- You can’t see radio waves from the cell phone towers, or from the television stations, or the radio stations, or the satellites circling the earth right now.
- Here’s one that will blow your mind…you can’t even see light. Light, itself, is invisible. What we see is what it illuminates.
- We can’t see what’s in an atom, but we live in fear of what can happen when one splits apart in an uncontrolled manner.
- We can’t see the strands of DNA that make our bodies to be the way they are.
- And it’s pretty hard to believe that there’s enough space on a pinky-sized computer memory chip to store a library’s worth of books.
We are surrounded by things we can’t see, but that we know are real. We are surrounded by invisible realities that make powerful things happen. All over the place there are things we can’t see with our eyes…but we can see what they do; and what effects they have.
Well, I have to tell you that I’ve never seen the Spirit. I can’t tell you what it looks like. But I know it’s real, because I see its effects all the time.
Its power is made manifest in churches, big and small, reaching out, and dreaming courageously, and refusing to be limited by what the world and our own reason would say is possible; communities of disciples whose purpose is not to protect themselves, but to sacrifice and reach out in order to serve and invite. Every time we dare to dream as big as God does; every time we choose to live as dangerously as these first Spirit-inspired disciples; to choose hope rather than fear…that’s the Spirit at work.
This same Spirit’s power and presence is revealed when just a few of God’s people are together, and dedicated to serving the Lord. It happens in prayer groups, and Bible studies, and mission trips, and the work of our ministry teams; when a bunch of three year olds sit in this space for Preschool Chapel; and when a Vestry seeks the mind of Christ. With the Holy Spirit in the room, it doesn’t take a lot or people to make things happen that would never have otherwise happened.
The Spirit’s comfort is made real every time we show mercy rather than judgment; offer a kind word rather than a critical one; demonstrate patience rather than anger; listen rather than speak. You know that prayer from St. Francis…that we might sow love rather than hatred; pardon rather than injury; union rather than discord; faith rather than doubt; hope rather than despair; light rather than darkness; joy rather than sadness. A prayer that we might console, understand, and love; give, pardon, and die that we might be born to eternal life. That’s what God’s Holy Spirit, given at Pentecost, does in us; and we see its effects all the time. Every time we are one rather than the other--that is the Spirit at work.
Sometimes people ask how it is they can see the Spirit in their lives. If you ever wonder that, you’re not alone. But I think mostly, if we’ll look closely at the evidence, we can see it. Again, just think about the air that surrounds us. There is always wind. Sometimes it’s so slight we don’t notice it. We would hardly say that it feels windy in here. But the light fixtures are moving. There’s a tree outside the window of my office. And all the time, all I have to do is look closely at the leaves to see that there is always some movement there. So sometimes to see the Spirit working in us, just stopping to look for it is a great way to start.
And sometimes I’ve heard people wonder out loud whether the Spirit has been given them. The answer to that question is simpler: Yes.
We reminds ourselves of our baptism on Pentecost because it is in our baptism that we receive the Spirit. We never have to ask that it be given to us. It just is…when we’re baptized. These first believers in this story, or those disciples in that locked room, didn’t ask for it. They just got it; just received it. That’s how it works for us.
It’s kind of like this…to the kids who are getting baptized today at the 11:00 o’clock service, God says this: “I’m going to love you to the end of your days, and beyond. I am never going to turn away. There isn’t something you can do, or something you don’t do, that will make me stop loving you. I’m going to love you when you think you’re so bad you don’t deserve it, and when you think you’re so good or so successful that you don’t think you need it. I’m going to love you when you’re coming towards me; I’m going to love you when you’re running away from me; and I’m going to love you when you don’t know whether you’re coming or going. You just won’t be able to stop it!” And that’s the same thing God said to us in our baptism.
But then, there’s more. Beyond all that, God gives a birthday present…the Spirit of Comfort and Peace, so that when it seems dark we still have some inkling that God is around; and the Spirit of power so that we do things for God’s sake, for the sake of others, and even for our own, that we never thought possible. That’s God’s birthday present in our baptism. “Here it is,” the Lord says to us.
You see, baptism is never just a ceremony…not the ones we do here; not our own baptisms. It’s the Lord claiming us, and giving us a new birth, and then placing in us God’s presence and power for all eternity. It can never be taken away.
So may it be that today—on Pentecost--each of us are reminded of these truths. The Spirit has been given to us. It’s here, and then it’s wherever we are. It doesn’t leave. It makes the impossible possible; and the unexpected a matter of course. Ain’t no mountain high enough; ain’t no valley low enough; ain’t no ocean wide enough to keep the Holy Spirit away from us. It turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh; it is the means by which we are made God’s people and that we know who our God really is. And it is more real and more powerful than all those other invisible things that surround us and move through us, and about which we have no doubts.
Happy Birthday, Church. If there was ever one gift that keeps on giving, it’s this gift of the Holy Spirit…given first to that small community of believers, but also given to us…now, and forever.
