+ The Feast of the Pentecost is the day the church was born so today’s our birthday! It’s a day when we remember that this bringing the kingdom of God to reign here on earth thing? It’s our job…a job we are well-prepared to do IF we’ve followed the teachings of Jesus Christ and make room for the Holy Spirit to enfold us in her fiery wind-blown ways. Yes I said “she.”
In orthodox traditions, of which we are one, The Holy Spirit is referred to in the feminine.
Now, onto the story. The disciples were gathered in one spot because it was the Day of Pentecost. Yes, Pentecost, in ancient Judaism, is the culmination of the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which commemorates Moses receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai. Why is the last day of the Feast of Weeks called Pentecost? Because it falls 50 days after the first night of Passover. The Jewish Day of Pentecost was also one of the three holidays in ancient Israel when all Jews were required to be at the temple to make their sacrifice. This is why, on that first “Christian” Pentecost, Jerusalem was teeming with people. The city was packed and because a crowded city puts everyone on edge and an edgy city didn’t bode well for the followers of Jesus, the disciples were hiding, caught between the traditions of their Jewish faith and the bewildering happenings of the previous few weeks—crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and now, today, crazy wind and flames falling from the sky.
Of course, Jesus NEVER does anything by happenstance, so sending the Holy Spirit on this day, at this time was by design. It was another example of Jesus saying, “this is the new way….the Torah got us this far, but now we have farther to go, we have a different way to try.” And, just as he’d promised, Jesus has sent us an instrument through which His work of redemption for this world can and will continue.
But, much like the dramatic ascent into heaven of last week, the Holy Spirit on this last day of the Easter season, on this 50th day, arrives in style, on tongues of fire and gusts of violent wind.
OK so now we know what to call her and where the name of Pentecost came from and why the disciples were all in one place…but just what or who is the Holy Spirit?
Well, she isn’t anything. Or she’s everything.
We can’t see her, but she’s everywhere, we can’t hear her, but she speaks volumes, we can’t touch her, yet we do feel her.
The reality of the Holy Spirit is this:
she can’t be explained, she needs to be experienced.
She can’t be defined, she needs to be felt,
she can’t be corralled, she must be allowed to run free.
Oh and she’s everywhere, all the time…we just need to perceive, welcome and embrace her.
The scripture writers have given us this story of the Holy Spirit arriving at a very specific time, in a very specific way, but the truth of the matter is, she’s always been here, moving among us, between us, through us.
Always.
But, as is often the case with human beings, we didn’t notice. Not because we’re really bad at this thing called faith, but because, in spite of the fire and wind for the most part the Holy Spirit is really subtle.
---She’s that still small voice whispering deep within us. The voice we can’t hear unless we quiet ourselves enough, still ourselves enough to notice.
----She’s that sense of inspiration, acknowledgement or realization that comes when you’ve finally left a nagging issue behind, when you’ve turned to another task and in the middle of something completely different you have that “eureka” moment.
----The Holy Spirit is when everything falls apart and we are angry, lost, sad, hopeless, confused and then, days later, months later, years later, we realize that if we hadn’t experienced that loss—the loss that felt overwhelmingly painful at the moment---we never would have experienced the joy of something altogether unexpected and new.
[For Good Shepherd, Brookside: The Holy Spirit is when a group of people decide to tackle a problem like the lack of quality education for all children as witnessed by the Eaton Reading Camp and Grace’s school project plus the MOPS program at St John’s as well as their community meal and all the other works of the spirit evident in the churches represented here today.]
The Holy Spirit moves among us and gives us the courage to do what we never thought we could. The Holy Spirit moves among us and gives us the audacity to do the things other people are shocked that we will actually do.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t have a cute birth story or a miraculous resurrection tale. She may not be describable or definable, but She is here and we must, in all things and at all times, do everything in our power to experience her.
The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us. She‘s the whisper in our ear, the shout in our heart, the hope in our soul. She‘s the nudge that leads us places we never thought we could go, she’s the detour that feels frightening but ends up being enlightening.
She’s the love we feel for one another.
She’s the hope we share with the world.
She’s the frustration we feel with the status quo, the anger we feel with injustice, the disgust we feel with evil.
She’s our conscience, she’s our longing, she’s our passion. So let us welcome her, and follow her as she leads to where we are called to go.
The Holy Spirit Has Arrived. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! Amen.
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