Acts 2.1-12
Today is Pentecost. 50 days after Easter, the church celebrates the Holy Spirit coming to Jesus’ followers. Promised by Jesus in the gospel, dramatically portrayed in our reading from Acts, the Holy Spirit is at work in us, too. The catechism of the prayer book says, “we recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit [in our lives] when we confess Jesus as Lord and are brought into love and harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation.”
In the Bible, there are a variety of images to picture the Spirit and give meaning to what and who this third person of the Holy Trintiy is. In the Old Testament, the Spirit is the very wind of God. At the beginning of creation in Genesis 1, “The wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Or in another translation, “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The wind of the Spirit is like a bird spreading its wings over creation. The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy uses that same hovering image to describe God’s care for his people. “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions,” the Lord carries his people. The Holy Spirit is God’s wind and God’s protecting power.
In the New Testament, this same hovering Spirit overshadows Mary, and she is filled with God’s life, the Son of God conceived and taking on flesh in her womb. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; will be called Son of God.” The Holy Spirit is God’s wind and power, God’s protection and energy for life, the very thing Ezekiel describes today. In a place where life seems most unlikely God says, “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” This, St Paul says, is true for us, too. “If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you.” The Spirit is God’s wind and power and life for you.
One thing the Holy Spirit is not is tame. In art, the Spirit is often pictured as a dove. In the chapel, in the window high up above the altar, that’s how the Spirit is shown—as a dover. It’s a biblical picture. When Jesus is baptized, the voice of the Father speaks delight in the Beloved Son and the Spirit descends on Jesus ‘like a dove.’ It’s a scene of peace and gentleness, of identity and assurance. But that’s not where the Spirit’s work ends. Because the very next thing that happens is that Jesus, “filled with the Spirit,” is sent into the wilderness to do battle with Satan—forty days of fasting and temptation. The Spirit is not tame. For us, that means there is more going on through the work of the Spirit in our lives than warm experiences to guide us on a placid inward journey of the soul.
And that ‘more’ leads to a unique image of the Spirit—another bird image and one matches nicely with the geese that recently nested in the church yard. In Celtic Christianity, the tradition that comes to us from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, the Holy Spirit isn’t depicted only as a peaceful dove but as a wild goose. Doves have a reputation for gentleness and calmness; geese are a different bird altogether. As we’ve been talking about our own geese, Werburgh and Cuthbert, you’ve told stories of experiences you’ve had of geese spreading out their wings to show their protective power when you walked by, or of even being chased if you got too close. Maybe it was the Spirit as a wild goose that chased Jesus into the wilderness!
As for our geese? If you looked at Werburgh when she was nesting, even looking at her through the Sunday School classroom window, and she sensed you were near, she would stretch out her neck and lower her head to show that she was ready to protect her young. A Wild Goose as an image of the Holy Spirit shows the untamable power of God. And this Spirit is at work in us. Celtic Christians believed the same untamable Spirit would lead us in new adventures with God. “The wind blows where it wills,” Jesus says, speaking of the Spirit at point in the Gospel of John. “You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Aren’t there times when God swoops into our lives, hard to ignore, leads us in new ways. And unlike the calm cooing of a dove, a wild goose’s call is boisterous, a bit unsettling, and gets your attention. The Spirit of God can disrupt and surprise, too, get us to pay attention to God.
‘Untamed,’ ‘disrupting,’ and ‘surprising’ are also words to describe the scene in today’s second reading from Acts, the account of the Day of Pentecost itself. The Holy Spirit descends from heaven like the sound of the rush of a violent wind, shakes the house where the disciples are gathered, and ignites flames of fire on their heads. There is the boisterous noise and the unsettling joy of people speaking all sorts of languages. That leads to Peter’s disclaimer about the disciples’ behavior. “These men are not drunk as you suppose. It’s only 9:00 o’clock in the morning.” The passage that Peter then quotes from the Old Testament prophet Joel as he tries to explain what it all means is equally vivid and untamable with talk of blood, fire, and billowing smoke. The Holy Spirit, at Pentecost, gets the attention of fearful and uncertain followers of Jesus and transforms them into people of faith and conviction. The Holy Spirit is wind and power, energy and life. Filled with the Spirit and sent by the Spirit, ordinary disciples—then and now—are propelled on a mission to live as God’s people in the world.
When Jesus ascends into heaven forty days after his resurrection and ten days before Pentecost, just before he is taken out of sight of the disciples, he says to them, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” To make ordinary people like the disciples, and us, witnesses of the marvelous works of God, Jesus says the Holy Spirit will come and give power. The biblical word that Jesus uses when he promises the power of the Spirit in the lives of his followers the source of our word ‘dynamite.’ Like an explosive charge dropped in a body of water with concentric circles of waves expanding out from the center, the Spirit’s power explodes on his followers in wind and fire and sends them out in ever-widening circles of mission and ministry.
And we’re a part of it, caught up in it, too—we who are born of the Spirit in Baptism. Like the Spirit hovering over creation, the Spirit is God’s power for our life of faith and good works, for each of us and all of us together. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” St Paul says. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Some of these gifts are dramatic: Paul mentions the working of miracles and speaking in tongue. Others are quieter, more basic: faith itself is a gift of the Spirit; simple day-to-day faith means the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. With the apostles on that first Day of Pentecost, the Spirit gets our attention and gives us the faith, courage, and purpose to live for God’s kingdom in our lives and in the world.
Wind and breath of God, fire, hovering bird, gentle dove, wild goose—we need all these images to get a full picture of how the Spirit is at work in us and through us. We may be a long way from the scene described in our reading today from Acts. Our coffee hour between services is often filled with joy but is never so boisterous that the Lutherans across the parking lot or the Baptists across the street suspect us of being drunk this time of day. Do prayer book Episcopalians even ‘do’ the Spirit? We do! The Holy Spirit can come gentle as a dove, silently planting the seeds of God’s wisdom in our hearts. And sometimes the Spirit is as untamable as a wild goose, chasing us from our sedentary ways and inflaming us with God’s love. The Holy Spirit is wind and power, energy and life, filling us and sending us to live as God’s people in the world.
Come, Holy Spirit. Come.
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