Pentecost 2007: 27th May 2007: Acts 2 v 1-21: St. Mary’s and St. Michael’s: Revd. Julia Boothby
Today we celebrate Pentecost, the day when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the first disciples, as we heard in that reading from Acts. But the third person of the trinity is one that people often struggle with, often perhaps because of his name…Holy Spirit. It is very easy to imagine the Holy Spirit as some kind of nebulous force or power that drifts around, particularly in Churches. A theological student once said, God the father I can understand and God the Son, Jesus I can also understand, but the Holy Spirit is just a grey, oblong blur. I heard of a young boy once who saw a preacher trying to explain the Holy Spirit by blowing a piece of paper off her hand. “ the Holy Spirit is like that she said…you can see the paper moving even though the wind is invisible”…to which a young boy blurted out… “But I want the wind to be un-invisible”. There are lots of adults who can feel the same way. If we had the time we could easily spend a whole morning looking in the Bible at the references to the Holy Spirit up to the day of Pentecost…but since we haven’t let me try and give you a whistle stop tour!
In the Old Testament we first see the Holy Spirit being involved in creation. In Genesis 1 v 2 we read of the wind, or the Spirit, of God was hovering over the waters and a little later in Genesis 2 we read of God breathing into Adam the breath of life, and that word for breath is the same Hebrew word as Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings new life. In the Old Testament we read of people being filled with the Holy Spirit for particular tasks. For example Bezalel was filled with the Spirit of God to enable him to be skilled in all kinds of craftsmanship so that he could make beautiful objects for the tabernacle. The prophets were filled with the Holy Spirit to enable them to prophesy and see visions. Others like Gideon were filled with the Holy Spirit so they could lead the people in times of war.
As we get closer to the birth of Jesus so we read about many being filled with the Holy Spirit as his birth is predicted and fulfilled. Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah and then of course in time John the Baptist are all Spirit filled. Jesus himself if filled with the Spirit on the day of his baptism;
"When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove."
Jesus promises his disciples that he will not leave them alone, he promises the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth as we heard in our reading from the gospel of John. And then we have the day of Pentecost itself, the fulfilment of the prophecy made by Joel that there would be a time when God would pour out his Spirit on all people.
The Holy Spirit then is there in all of our history with God, right from our creation. He is described throughout the Bible in terms of a person who teaches, guides, convicts and inspires. Paul calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Christ, as one contemporary Christian writer has put it;
‘He is the Spirit of Jesus, the way in which Jesus is present with his people…’
and maybe that helps us to understand more about who he is.
But what has he got to do with us? Well, let me answer that question by asking you another question. What have Gordon Brown, nuclear power stations, and an ice island adrift in the Arctic all have in common? The answer is 'power'. Headlines such as “Is Gordon Brown fit for power” and “ Gordon Brown assumes the mantle of power” have been much in evidence in the last couple of weeks as he counts down the days to taking over as PM. This week the Government unveiled its White Paper on energy which said that new nuclear power stations would have to be built. And finally it has been fascinating, if worrying, to watch reports from the ice island which has broken off from one of Canada’s largest ice shelves. Reporters and scientist have been alike in talking of the very powerful tremors that were felt when this happened and of the powerful effects of global warming that this piece of ice is evidence of. Power, political, natural, human, power in all its different guises fills our newspapers and makes headlines. But who really has the power? This week Gordon Brown at a meeting just down the road in Knebworth said; “We need a new kind of politics, one in which government gives power away so that people in the community can have more power.”
As I heard that I was for a moment transported back to the days of that TV comedy starring Robert Lindsay, “Citizen Smith” for which the slogan was always, power to the people!!
The issue of who hold power is one that is often debated. Is it the people, is it the rich, is it the Government, is it celebrities? What about the power of the media, of commerce? The questions seem to go unanswered and perhaps the answer is different for each generation, but for Christians the answer does not change. God has the power and through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we as Christians have the power.
But, and it is a big but, this is not the power that the world debates and struggles over. This is not a power that the world can have. Jesus makes that clear. This power is the power of God to build his kingdom. A kingdom where justice and peace reign, a kingdom which, as led by the Spirit Isaiah first and then Jesus himself proclaimed would be one of good news to the poor, release for the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed. This was the power of the Holy Spirit that was at work in the life and ministry of Jesus as he went about bringing God’s kingdom in. This is the power that God offers us, as a free gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit for each one who follows Christ, the power to bring freedom and release, hope and renewal.
If we look back to the Acts passage we read of the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples with the sound of a mighty wind and with flames. This is the power of God coming upon the believers. And the immediate effect of this was that they communicated the wonderful news of the gospel to all those who were around them. The lived out the message of the good news in their lives of fellowship, prayer and worship together, they went around doing great things in the name of Jesus, they took the name and the love of Christ into all the world. Read Acts and see all that follows from this life changing event. And surely we need to be able to do as they did. To be able to communicate with the society in which we live in a language that they understand. This is a huge challenge, one that we cannot ignore, one that the Holy Spirit can give us the power to do. To live out our lives in Christian fellowship and love, in prayer and worship as a witness that speaks loud and long to a world that seems to live with a fear of commitment, to a world torn apart by division and conflict. To go out and take the good news to our neighbours, our friends, to our parish and out into the world, to do great things in the name of God. This is the power that the Holy Spirit offers us. Surely we should long for him, because when he comes then we are changed and transformed by him.
So how do we know the person of the Holy Spirit, how can we be changed and transformed by him? The answer is simple, we just need to ask. God gives him as a free gift to all who ask. Remember what Jesus said;
“Ask and it will be given to you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish will give a snake instead of a fish? Of if the child asks for an egg will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”
We just ask, but not just once, but daily. The problem is not that Holy Spirit does not fill us up but rather, as that great preacher Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones once said, we leak!! He will come and keep on filling us up if we ask. Sometimes he will come like a powerful wind, sometimes he will be the still small voice. He may come as the dove, he may come as fire. But come he will if we are open to receive.
Let us pray