Come, Holy Spirit, fill the
hearts of your faithful
and kindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we
shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Amen.
Pentecost, the third major celebration of the church year,
first
there is Christmas, then Easter, then Pentecost.
Now, Christmas and Easter get a lot of popular support from the
culture.
We have Santa Claus and gift giving,
and
the Easter Bunny and Easter egg hunts.
But Pentecost hasn’t caught the public’s attention in the same way.
We can quip about “C and E Christians,”
those
who show up only at Christmas and Easter,
but where are they today?
Why
don’t they show up on Pentecost if it is such a significant day?
I would say that it is because we really don’t know what Pentecost
is all about.
Some say that it is the birthday of the Church.
Yes, that can be said; there is some accuracy in that.
But the word birthday immediately gets associated with birthday
parties,
each
year having an occasion for an annual celebration
of
an event from the past,
marking
the years as they go by, adding another candle to the cake.
Now, do understand,
all
these red candles surrounding the congregation
are
not birthday cake candles.
They represent the fire of the Holy Spirit above our heads.
What they represent is more like the burning bush that Moses turned
aside to see
and
when he then heard the voice
he
takes off his shoes for this is Holy Ground.
Let the soles of your feet come in contact with the Holy.
But
I digress.
This isn’t a birthday party here today.
Pentecost
is not to be celebrated as a memorial of some past event.
If we were to look more closely at the birthday idea,
then
we are looking at the process of birth.
And birth itself is much more interesting.
Here’s the context for the birth:
After
the gestation period, the pregnancy so to speak.
in
which Jesus had worked for a few years with his disciples
preparing
them for this birth which would be a huge transition for them.
His passion and death was active engagement in labor for us,
blood
and water flowing from his pierced side,
and then the bursting forth from the tomb, a cave, a womb for
resurrection life.
And now,
now
that his disciples were finally grasping the reality of resurrection,
Jesus breathes that same Resurrection Spirit, his own Real Presence,
into
his spiritual sons and daughters
to
be born into Resurrection Life.
Pentecost is the word that becomes associated with and names this
birth.
You see, Pentecost is not a memorial or anniversary
nor
is it a doctrine, a particular article of belief held intellectually.
Pentecost was and is an experience
and
an identity.
It is coming to know through experience that one's life is in Jesus,
that
there has been a significant spiritual shift in the way of being,
that
one has in essence been born again
or
born anew.
Pentecost is not simply the historical event described in Acts,
chapter 2.
There are multiple Pentecosts,
as
many as there are individuals who have been set on fire,
those who have experienced the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection Spirit
of Jesus,
personally,
directly, intuitively,
in
prayer, in crisis, or in the midst of the mundane,
surprised
and astonished,
those who know in the depths of their being that something has changed,
that
everything is seen in a new way,
a colossal paradigm shift,
like
the radical shift from the confinement of the womb
to
the expansive and as yet unknown space of the beginning of new life.
In the Gospels and in particular in the Gospel of John
there
are multiple Pentecosts:
Whenever we see the phrase, “in that day,” or “the day of his coming”
know
that “the day of his coming” is the moment of realization.
There is no Pentecost without realization.
In that breakthrough moment
the
resurrection life of Jesus has come into them and is realized,
and
everything is different. There is
no going back.
What I am talking about here is a spiritual process
which
is much more than having a great insight,
more
even than a holy moment or experience having an impact on you.
It is transformation.
Now, transformation is a word that has been devalued
through
overuse and application to what technically is on the level of insight.
One can have great insights and never change.
Transformation
means change.
On the Day of Pentecost the disciples were forever changed.
It was a whole new life and a whole new way of being for them.
Now they were alive in a way they hadn’t been before,
alive
in a way that could not be contained,
and
which overflowed out into the street.
Now they were apostles – useful agents
through
whom the Holy Spirit could work,
because, you see, the purpose of Pentecost is
empowerment
for ministry in the world,
empowerment for the sake of the world.
That is the immediate practical function of the new community.
The idea is to love one another, as John’s Gospel emphasizes,
so
the world will know that Jesus was sent by the Father.
Now you need to get this – the Pentecost experience of the Holy
Spirit
is
not a repair job.
It is not to make us better, more effective persons
with
the same ego by which we have heretofore identified ourselves.
Not a repair job, but a new way of being.
If we take our personal encounters with the Holy,
and
try to apply that like a cosmetics
to
our mortal bodies
with
whom our self identity is so tightly linked,
what we have is something old wearing a mask.
There has been no transformation.
One way to tell whether there really has been any transformation
here
is
that one test by which the world will know –
Do
they love one another?
Do we love one another?
really
love one another in that agaph love,
that
love that unites one with another and one with God,
that
love which enables differing persons to be one in heart and mind.
As long as there is even one word that disparages another,
directly
or indirectly,
here
in this place,
we are not yet transformed,
we
are not yet the Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered Church.
Look at the first church community,
burning
with Holy Spirit fire.
The Acts of the Apostles gives
the account of this new way of being,
this
new community.
What happens in this community?
Acts 4:24-35
24 When they heard it, they raised
their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the
heaven and the earth, the sea,
and
everything in them,
25 it is you who said by the Holy
Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant: 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain
things?
26 The kings of the earth took their
stand,
and the rulers
have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah.'
27 For in this city, in fact, both
Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with
the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,
gathered
together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed,
28 to do whatever your hand and your
plan had predestined to take place.
29 And now, Lord, look at their
threats,
and
grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness,
30 while you stretch out your hand
to heal,
and
signs and wonders are performed
through
the name of your holy servant Jesus."
31 When they had prayed,
the
place in which they were gathered together was shaken;
and
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and
spoke the word of God with boldness.
32 Now the whole group of those who
believed were of one heart and soul,
and no one
claimed private ownership of any possessions,
but everything
they owned was held in common.
33 With great power the apostles
gave their testimony to the resurrection
of the Lord
Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
34 There was not a needy person
among them, for as many as owned
lands or houses
sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.
35 They laid it at the apostles'
feet,
and it was
distributed to each as any had need.
They were of one heart and mind.
The basis for this was Jesus
giving the Holy Spirit.
Now they had become a
Resurrection Community.
They
loved one another.
One result was holding all
things in common.
And this was a way of saying, “We
are all in this together.
So today, look beyond the flashy banners and lights and
candles and altar frontal.
Don’t let the dramatic effect of
the decorations
stand
in lieu of the authentic meaning of Pentecost.
It’s all so much theater,
unless
in some small way it helps to move us into Holy Spirit experience.
So may our prayer some day truly
be:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the
hearts of your faithful
and kindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we
shall be created,
we
shall become new beings,
and then you shall renew the face of the
earth.
