Welcome to a festive day! Pentecost, marking the coming of the Holy Spirit meeting also Memorial Day weekend, honoring those who have served the country as an unofficial start to summer, coming together for BBQ afterwards, and entering this new season together.
The first Pentecost comes on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot or the Festival of Booths, a celebration 50 days after Passover in marking the harvest and the exodus, a holiday during which everyone was to make the trip to Jerusalem. The Festival of Booths was a time to somewhat go camping or at least set up tents as a sign that God was present not just in the permanent home temple structure but also on the move in the tent. The festival marked one of joy and celebration.
Yet here in the wake of the crucifixion and resurrection, we find the disciples together in a locked room with a measure of fear and grief. Perhaps we could gather their concerns and feelings at the clash of political and religious powers.
I gathered in the room with a few others, feeling some similar fears this past week. In a North Sacramento mosque, some knew the lives lost at the San Diego Islamic Center and felt the powers of Islamophobia, racism, and violence colliding. I sat in the kitchen with family members, mourning the death of their mother and grandmother, pulling through decades of photos, memories, and moments of their family’s life in the house. There were other fear-filled rooms this week, of ones struggling or some hospitalized.
Jesus meets the fear of the disciples by showing the scar marks of death carved on his body. And when the disciples were all together on that Pentecost day, “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. “
The digital signs lit up on the freeways last weekend with the phrase: “Watch for Wind”. With 40-50 mile per hour gales, vehicles were cautioned to be on guard for flying branches, but also that they not be flying.
Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high-profile vehicles. Of course, the closest eyes watch for winds that have the potential to down power lines or create fires.
If you have tried to watch the wind, good luck. Seeing the wind is impossible. Recognizing its movement, on the other hand, is easy — like all the downed tree branches in my backyard last Monday. Whether through trees’ leaves, a flag’s furling, a swirling cloud of dust, or the sense of its movement across one’s face, wind offers plenty of evidence of its passing.
From heaven comes a sound like the rush of a violent wind. A sweeping kind of swoosh, I imagine. And it fills the house where the apostles are sitting.
Spiritually speaking, what does it mean that there is no air movement? Are we stuck in our ways? Stuck in our thinking? Stuck in patterns that divide people, patterns that lead to violence and hatred?
Yet God sends these powers of nature: fire, wind and water. A great wind blew over the waters at creation. It could be read as a “strong and stormy wind.” But translators can’t help interpreting the wind at creation as the breath or spirit of God.
Sometimes the Spirit is a gentle breath proclaiming “peace” and sometimes the Spirit is a mighty gust of power, making things happen, generating energy, and bringing life.
Peter, in the reading from the books of Acts gives a “Watch for Wind” sign from the prophet Joel, of what’s happening: prophecy, visions, and dreams will break forth as unmistakable signs that God is present, inspiring awe and a call to repentance.
Jesus had told Nicodemus that being born anew is being born of water and Spirit. A spirit that is like wind. You hear it. You see the effects. But you can’t name it. Or tame it.
Wind brings movement. Sometimes gently, sometimes powerfully; life is not static. The wind-spirit energizes us. Challenges us. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” The Holy Spirit takes us out of our comfort zone. As we encounter new people. New places. New languages. New ways of thinking.
The Spirit’s movement means mission. Jesus sends the disciples to all nations. Through baptism, the Spirit sends us as well.
God’s Spirit in baptism acts through water, fire and wind. God’s Spirit moves through us as we partner with others who embody justice and love, compassion and equality.
That same wind of the Spirit blows through Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. For all the challenges in the early church that letter addresses, for all the rivalries and behavioral challenges to which it responds—or perhaps because of them—Paul asserts that one unifying Holy Spirit of God is activating all the various gifts, services, and activities.
The language of the Spirit is beyond words. Beyond belief. Beyond the boxes we religious people put God in. Or other people in. I believe the Holy Spirit is always blowing our minds, enlarging our vision, and calling us to be more than we thought we could ever be. Christ is risen, and with us forever in the Spirit’s action.
Potent, powerful, provocative, the Holy Spirit can never truly be seen, yet the evidence of God’s sure presence is certain.
In a world in which the enemy from the Tower of Babel’s work of division is multiplied today by algorithms and AI-generated content, we have more reasons than ever to seek out evidence of that Spirit of God moving and working healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, unity, driving us in a call and mission as God’s redeemed children.
Watch for the wind. From the storm to the breeze to the breath. Sense the Spirit in it all. In the wind, there is a conviction. In the wind, there is powerful new energy. Watch for it.
