Sermon – May 31, 2020 – Pentecost
It’s Pentecost, and one would think there would be more birds. It is, after all, the Holy Spirits big day and in his most recognizable appearance in the gospels, at the baptism of Jesus, the Spirit comes down from heaven dressed as a bird. That was the first impression, and it really stuck. If you view the early paintings and drawings of the baptism of Christ, you usually see the same picture, an old man, a young man, and a bird. And many of our Pentecostal hymns sing of a dove or wings. I guess once you take on the appearance of some creature, you are remembered as that forever. Even most Pentecost bulletin you get a dove.
But today’s scripture lessons today are totally bird less. No birds in Acts, no birds in John, no birds in the Psalms, none in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. And the readings just would not make much sense if you put bird images in them. So no birds in todays readings. Just wind.
Just wind, and just us, trying forever to grasp the wind. As the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us, is vanity. There are many reasons to cling to the bird image, the number one would be that we could actually cling to a bird. You can see, hold, touch, cage a bird. But you cannot see the wind, you cannot touch it, you cannot hold it, you cannot cage it. It is a mystery that sweeps through our world that has no beginning or ending. Sometimes gentle and refreshing, sometimes violent and devastating, always out of our control.
And although it is difficult to paint wind into these ancient drawings with young man and old man, grasping wind is a much more accurate description of our relationship with the Holy Spirit than is birdwatching. Our human minds delight in solving problems and unraveling mysteries and decoding codes, we like to figure things out, we like to put our trust in the proven.
And our faith is hard, because we are asked to put our trust in things we cannot see or understand. We are grasping at wind, finding that we are forever empty handed. I have baptized Brecken and Kollins Dybdahl into the body of Christ and I hope to do many more. When I baptized these twins, no dove from heaven descended on them. Instead, the Holy Spirit hid in the air around them and us, unseen. I invoked the Holy Spirit in the water over the font and the water stayed perfectly still. I traced the cross on their foreheads and declared to them that they were sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism. There is no way to display this seal permanently. It is quite a thing to give ones life to an unseen mystery. But that is what we as Christians are asked to do.
What potentially makes it easier is that we do it all the time. We live by the breath of life and we cannot see it. Our souls are sustained by the beauty of music, and we cannot see it. Our bodies are grounded by the force of gravity, and we cannot see it. Our spirit runs on hope, and we cannot see it. Love is the most powerful thing in the universe, and we cannot see it. There is more going on than meets the eye. This Spirit, this Holy Spirit is so close to us, that we have difficulty finding our focus. We live and move and have our being in the Spirit of God. The Spirit envelopes us. The Spirit holds us and sustains us whether or not we believe it. Even though we cannot see it. Even though we cannot hold it firmly in our hands.
What actually happened in John’s gospel is that Jesus breathed on his disciples. He simply breathed on them. Just air coming from his mouth. The average person does that 23,000 times a day. It’s amazing on how our mysteries are so wrapped up tightly in simplicity.
Jesus pushed the Holy Spirit into this world through his lips. No birds, just wind. The Spirit moved on the breath of Jesus, entering and leaving and entering and leaving the lungs of the disciples. All of them, breathing together. So the Spirit rolled on every breath they took, and on every word they spoke. Jesus filling their lungs, and Jesus filling their world. Spreading like a virus. Unseen, and impossible to grasp. Unseen, and impossible to stop.
What actually happened in Acts was a violent wind pushed the disciples out of the room and into the streets. Like a tornado that could not be resisted the Holy Spirit carried them into their mission field to speak the gospel of Jesus into the world, so that what was in them could now be breathed in by others. Jesus filling their lungs, and Jesus filling their world. Spreading like a virus. Unseen and impossible to grasp. Unseen, and impossible to stop.
You are breathing the same air. Air passed through the lungs of those who came before us. You are held in the same wind. Jesus is filling your lungs, and you are breathing Jesus back into your world. Inspiring those who are suffocating, breathing life into dead places.
We live and move and have our being in this Holy Spirit. The very atmosphere that envelopes us. We truly are surrounded. And our only recourse is surrender. To allow the wind to blow us away.
Birds are ok, birds are nice. Dove on a bulletin cover, very sharp. But our destiny is blowing in the wind.