Acts 2:1-21

May 23, 2010 

“WHERE ARE THE HALLMARK CARDS FOR PENTECOST?”

            Professor and gifted preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says that Pentecost is the third biggest day of the Christian year.  She lists Easter first because of Jesus’ resurrection from the tomb.  She lists Christmas next when God came to us through Jesus.  Pentecost, the day the Church was born, the day the Spirit swept upon and into disciples, the day when foreign languages were spoken instantly without three years of practice, doesn’t get enough credibility, says Barbara Brown Taylor.  She says, “We have Christmas pageants and Easter parades, but where are the Pentecost festivals?  If Hallmark has a line of Pentecost cards then I have not seen one yet, and I don’t know anyone who invites the whole family over for Pentecost dinner.  You wonder what is going on here.”

            Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit’s presence in different ways.  In John’s Gospel, after the resurrection when the disciples were hiding in a locked, darkened room for fear of the Jews, Jesus appeared in their midst.  He spoke words of peace, he gifted them with a sabbatical from worry.  He breathed on each of them; that’s right, he breathed on each of them, and Jesus said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  One description of the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit is God’s breath.  However, when we look at Acts 2, we again find the disciples in a room, but there are more of them gathered now.  The timing is both after Jesus’ resurrection as well as after Jesus’ ascension into Heaven.  Jesus had told them, “go and wait.  Wait for the coming of the Spirit.”   So they waited and prayed and sang songs and reminisced.  Luke the Gospel writer, who also penned the book of Acts, describes the Spirit’s entrance, not so much like breathing, but more like a violent wind, more like the wind of a helicopter landing, more like an approaching tornado, the sound of which is like a locomotive.  Instead of God’s breath, it was more like the Almighty’s sneeze.  A quiet breath; the rumbling of an approaching train; both signifying the presence of the Holy Spirit.

            Some view the Holy Spirit as a she, that part of God that dances, swings to the tune of the Gospel, and gently floats into soon-to-be disciples.  Others describe maybe a different kind of she, or maybe a he who might do a head-but or a body slam on someone who needs to focus attention back on God.  Both bring God to and in people, calling them to faith, gathering them together as believers, enlightening them with a new and renewed relationship with Christ, a growing deeper in the Lord, and setting believers apart as God’s own and as God’s servants, witnesses now of the Spirit’s work, proclaimers of the Gospel. 

            I was thinking about all of this for the last couple of weeks.  I asked myself the question, what do we have or what wouldn’t we have with or without the Holy Spirit? Here is just a partial list.

• There is no faith without the Holy Spirit, because faith is a gift; it comes from beyond us into us through our ears.  We respond to this wonderful gift of faith, hopefully with the answer of “yes.”

• Because God is love, we don’t experience love without the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.  Spirit brings God’s love into us, and that love then embraces others.

• Without the Spirit we would never desire to worship.  Spirit brings holy desire to us so that we want to worship, we want to serve, we want to give.

• Without the Holy Spirit we would not experience those aha moments of the faith when a passage is suddenly clarified, when connections are made in understanding Scripture, when we read the Word and realize it was written for us, too.

• The Spirit is at work wherever there is community, wherever there is church, because the Spirit created church, and still does.

• The Spirit is at work wherever there is gratitude.  Thankfulness is birthed by the Holy Spirit as a response to God’s love and grace.

• The Spirit hears our sighs or our groans, and the Spirit looks underneath those wordless sounds to turn the sighs and groans into words, into prayers, transporting them as prayers to God.

• Whenever there is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, The Spirit is there, because these are the fruit of the Spirit’s planting.

• You and I cannot forgive without the power and the presence of God’s Spirit.  God forgives, and then God sends His Spirit into us to help us to forgive.

• Without the Holy Spirit the seed of Jesus is not planted in Mary’s womb. 

• The Spirit’s power brings wholeness…and healing.

• Those gifts that are a part of each of us, those special spiritual qualities that are unique to us all, were all grafted into us long before we were able to identify or live them. 

• Because of the Holy Spirit we can look at death and feel more hope than dread.

• The Holy Spirit brings resurrection power.  Just ask Jesus.

• The Holy Spirit is like a seed that is growing.  She is like wind, invisible, refreshing, transformative.  Spirit is like water, refreshing, cleansing, and powerful enough to knock us down.

• The Holy Spirit brings new life into us at baptism.

• The Spirit prays for us, prays with us, prays in us, prays through us.

• The Spirit can be convicting, like a judge in a courtroom, but she can also be comforting, like a mother cradling a frightened child during a thunderstorm.

• The Spirit leads whenever there is faith in the person whose spouse has just died.

• The Spirit is there whenever strangers assist in areas where there has been a natural disaster.

• It was the Holy Spirit who empowered the firefighters to run up the stairs of the Twin Towers while so many victims of terrorism were trying their best to get down the stairs.

• The Spirit is present when there can be grace shared after a difficult, painful discussion.

• Through the Spirit your eyes opened this day to encounter a new day.

• So, is Jesus real to you?…has Jesus become personal for you?…is Jesus now more than a historical figure, more than a story in an old book?…is Jesus in you now?  Don’t forget to thank the Holy Spirit who put Jesus there.

• Amen.