“ETA”
Joel 2:26-29
Acts 2:1-13
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O
Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen
Unlike Christmas and Easter that celebrate the presence of Jesus Christ in dramatic and
tangible ways Pentecost celebrates the mysterious indwelling of the Spirit invisible.
Professor Saldine of Austin Presbyterian Seminary calls it the capstone of the liturgical
journey that began on Ash Wednesday with the words of John the Baptist at the River
Jordan, “I baptize you with water but one who is more powerful than I is coming…he will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” (Luke 3:16b).
We traveled from the banks of the Jordan River to the city of Jerusalem to the cross and
then to an empty tomb to find inestimable joy in the resurrected Christ and today, not
ashes, but tongues of fire and the promise fulfilled, you will be clothed with power from on
high, (Luke 24:49).
Year in, year out we rehearse the story of salvation history and seek our role in the
narrative and pray to figure out how to witness to the life death resurrection and eternal
love and mercy of Jesus the Christ.
Our spiritual ancestors knew their role: they were acquainted with power from on high.
They remembered when the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,
while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters and there was light (Genesis 1:2).
They remembered the bush ablaze with fire yet not consumed at Mount Sinai and how
their ancestor Moses could not resist gazing upon it and drew nigh until God said, “Come,
no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground,” (Exodus 3:5).
They remembered the Exodus and how they worshipped at that same holy mountain on
the way to Canaan. The Lord descended on Mount Sinai. The mountain shook violently
and smoke engulfed it as the Lord descended in fire. The blast of a trumpet grew louder
and louder as Moses spoke and God answered in thunder and gave him The Law (Exodus
19:18-19).
On this Pentecost thousands of Jews had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the pilgrimage
Festival of Weeks (Pentecost) held five weeks after Passover to give thanks for the harvest
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and commemorate the day Mount Sinai breathed fire and smoke as God descended to
meet Moses in a cloud and script upon his heart, and two tablets, His commandments.
Everyone who came to Jerusalem for the feast was prepared to remember what they
knew: the mighty power of God, the sacred commandments and the blessing of harvest.
None of them were prepared for what actually happened fifty days after Christ rose from
the dead.
For the apostles the first glimpse of power from on high was no doubt terrifying: a rush of
violent wind and tongues, as of fire: the power from on high was God’s power with no
equal on earth. The Holy Spirit filled them, not with personal power, but with a sense of
the presence of their Lord and Savior. And when they spoke the words were not their
own but His.
It is disarming to land in a place where you do not know the language and it must have
been utterly frightening to involuntarily speak a language that you do not yourself
understand. Why didn’t the Spirit withhold from them an understanding of the language
they spoke to all those foreigners in Jerusalem? Perhaps because disciples do not need to
know everything: they need to point to the one who does: Jesus Christ. They must depend
entirely upon this mysterious Spirit that comes as wind and fire and is illusive and
invisible.
Thousands of Jews and proselytes from every nation heard the apostles speaking each in
his own language but all we know about what was said is this: they spoke about God’s deeds
of power. The crowd was “amazed and perplexed.” Some surrendered to the mystery of
it all and sought meaning others judged it the result of too much wine and dismissed
them. What did they hear and how did they understand it? They already knew about the
mighty deeds of God from Genesis to Exodus to Judges, Kings and the Book of Prophets.
It is ironic but what they knew so well may have precluded them from hearing about
God’s deeds of power in the present tense: his son Jesus and what this would mean for
the future.
We have countless examples of leaders who allow what they know to cloud what they
need to learn. A few days ago the Wall Street Journal featured an article by Jacquie
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McNish and Sean Silicoff about their new book titled Losing the Signal: The Untold Story
Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry.
In 2007 the Co-Chairs of BlackBerry (Research in Motion) were sure that this competitor
called Apple would fail: the battery in the phone lasted less than 8 hours who would be
willing to carry a charger around? The slow second generation network would never
handle the music, video and downloads they planned to make available and who would
want a touch screen when you could have a keyboard? How did they ever get that
exclusive with Cingular/ATT for distribution?
We know the rest: despite herculean efforts their response, a smart phone, called Storm,
was a spectacular failure. What interests me is Mr. Ballsillie’s (Co-Chair) reflection on
these past eight years,
The storm failure made it clear we were not the dominant smartphone company anymore. We’re
grappling with who we are because we can’t be who we used to be anymore…it’s not clear what --to do.
Many of the faithful gathered in Jerusalem did not know what to do with the radical inbreaking of God and the power of Jesus life, death and resurrection and the presence of
the Holy Spirit who brought an eternal perspective to salvation history.
They did not see that when Jesus broke into the world to redeem time and us the
boundaries of our existence were forever changed. Through the power of the Holy Spirit
on Pentecost Jesus would always be with us on earth and in the life to come.
The Holy Spirit is still hovering over us but the estimated time of arrival depends upon
our willingness to embrace the wind that beckons change, the fire that speaks to a searing
clarity of purpose and the charge to speak for Christ in a world tone deaf to the
miraculous.
The Holy Spirit is hovering over us. We could surrender to the presence of Jesus Christ
and let the Spirit work through us in our life, our family and our church to transform us
and the world. Will we?
We are right to think that Jesus is our comforter and our friend; our savior and redeemer
but I fear too often we fail to hear that Jesus is also the one who promised to disturb us –
yes the promise was to baptize us with the spirit and fire.
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So today we thank God Father, Son ad Holy Spirit for the mission of his church in this
time and place and the wisdom of the church leaders who composed our mission
statement: a Christ centered community of faith led by the Holy Spirit to share God’s love with
others.
The lesson of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit transforms God’s Word into Good News by
helping us to speak it, hear it and act on it.
The Reverend Dr. Barry Black, Chaplain to the United Sates Senate since 2007, defined
Pentecost when he wrote in his autobiography, From the Hood to The Hill:
As a people and a nation, we face challenges our founding forebears didn’t imagine.
Nonetheless, I take courage in the fact that God finishes what God starts. He is still in the
blessing business of bringing people and nations from nowhere to somewhere, if we will
only do our part. Perhaps this is the reason I often find myself praying a prayer that I
memorized long ago.
It is a prayer attributed to the British admiral and explorer Sir Francis Drake whatever
the provenance of this prayer it is timeless and powerful for us today and always.
Disturb us, O Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves;
When our dreams come true,
Because we have dreamed too little.
When we arrive safely,
Because we sailed too close to shore.
Disturb us, O Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess;
We have lost out thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity.
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new heaven to dim.
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Disturb us, O Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push us into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love. Amen
The Reverend Elizabeth Kuehl
Hope United Presbyterian Church
May 24, 2015e
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