A Mighty Wind
Commentary
Note: This installment was originally published in 2009.
An ancient Jewish writing declares, "Pentecost is the day on which Torah was given." According to the teaching, it was on the day that eventually became the feast of Pentecost that God gave birth to the Hebrew nation by speaking the divine covenant to them at Mount Sinai.
As the book of Acts makes clear, Pentecost was also the day on which the New Testament church was born. Just as God spoke through Moses to bring the nation of Israel into being at Mount Sinai, so God spoke through Peter to create the first elements of the new faith community.
It was symbolically powerful for these later events to take place on Pentecost. In its first use, "Pentecost" was essentially a nickname or label. The feast of Passover was one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish community, since it recalled the manner in which God miraculously brought the nation out of Egypt. Seven sabbaths and a day later (7 X 7 + 1 = 50) the people celebrated this next major religious event as harvest season began in Palestine. Since it occurred fifty days after the Passover, people started referring to it as the "Feast after Fifty," or Pentecost.
Yet the real significance of the event was more clearly understood through its original name -- Feast of Firstfruits. Regulations for the celebration required all Israelites to assemble at the temple in Jerusalem bringing with them the first sheaf of grain from their fields. As the time of harvest approached across the land, even before the regular reaping started, a single bundle of grain was cut on each farm and toted off to the temple.
There it was "waved" before the Lord as an offering (Leviticus 23:11) along with two loaves of bread that were baked from the newly harvested grain (Leviticus 23:17). Furthermore, to broaden the impact of the event, two male lambs were also brought from the first castings of each flock (Leviticus 23:12).
As these gifts were presented to God in the temple courts all of the men danced around the altar that carried the smoke of the gifts toward heaven. The crowds of women, children, and elderly men too old to jump around energetically formed a large circle around these revelers and sang Psalms 113-118. According to historical reports the celebration was often wild and uninhibited.
We might ask what the purpose was behind these religious revelries. The instructions of Moses declared that the feast was a theological testimony. The nation was making a confession that no general harvesting for profit would begin until God had laid claim to the "firstfruits" of the fields and the flocks. By devoting the first of the new produce to God the people were acknowledging that everything came from God and belonged to God. Whatever benefit they might receive from the harvest that year was a direct result of God's care and providential intervention.
With that background the significance of Pentecost as the birthday of the Christian church takes on new meaning. A new era of God's kingdom began that day, as God claimed the firstfruits of a worldwide faith harvest. The mission of the church began only after God had first miraculously owned the original converts from each nation represented in Jerusalem that day.
In that context, the Holy Spirit is the powerful presence of God, shaping the big plans God has for the world and the church, just as Jesus had told his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. At the dawn of creation God sowed a world of hope and possibility. Evil storms and tragic seasons may have slowed the harvest of greatness on planet earth. However, if anyone wants to know what the true and best harvest will look like, according to Paul as he writes about the Holy Spirit and its influence, he should check out the church.
That may seem funny to us. We would have a hard time seeing the church as a picture of God's profit margins. Too often the "sinful passions" of our baser natures come through. Yet for God the church is the firstfruits of the great harvest.
Maybe that's why we ought to take ourselves less seriously and more seriously at the same time, in the church. Less seriously because there is an awful lot of humor in what God is up to. More seriously because God's humor is the first smile of love that the rest of creation around us needs desperately to see. For that reason, says Paul, we really do need to keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25).
Acts 2:1-21
The momentum of the stories told in the book of Acts is derived from a single critical incident that took place in Jerusalem during the Jewish religious festival known as Pentecost. Jesus' instruction for his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for a special gift (Acts 1:4) must have seemed vague at the time, but the arrival of the explosive power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost made sense. This celebration was both a harvest festival and a time for recalling the gift of the original covenant documents to Moses at Mount Sinai. These two themes intersected marvelously with what was taking place. First, there was the dawning of a new age of revelation and divine mission, paralleling that first covenant declaration in the book of Exodus. Second, during the Pentecost harvest festival, the first sheaves of grain were presented at the temple, anticipating that God would then bring in the full harvest. This expression of faith served as a clear analogy to the greater missional harvest of the church that was begun through a miraculous "firstfruits" in Jerusalem that day.
Peter capitalized on these themes when he preached a sermon explaining Joel's prophecy of the "Day of the Lord." Peter tied together God's extensive mission, the history of Israel, the coming of Jesus, and the splitting of the Day of the Lord so that the blessings of the messianic age could begin before the final divine judgment fell. The pattern for entering the new community of faith was clearly outlined: repent and be baptized. The first indicated a transforming presence of the Holy Spirit in individual hearts, while the latter became the initiation rite by which the ranks of this missional society were identified (over against the badge of circumcision in its unique application to the nation of Israel, which was now being replaced -- see Colossians 2:11-12).
All of this is announced in a divinely spectacular manner by way of symbols that would draw attention to themselves and make clear points. First, there was the sound of wind. Not the actual movement of the air itself, but the noise that would usually accompany it. The lack of any noticeable breeze, coupled with a distinct whoosh in the ears, would alert those in Jerusalem to the intriguing confluence of ideas wrapped up in a single term. Both in the Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) languages, one noun serves to designate "wind," "breath," and "spirit." Thus the sound of a rushing wind without stirring atmosphere captured the attention of all who were about to breathe in the Spirit of God.
Second, a single blaze of fire descended from heaven, becoming multiple flames above the dozen heads of the disciples. Jesus' cousin John had said that he [John] baptized with water, but that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 1:16). In a single allegorical image the prophecy literally came to light. This vision represented the single divine Spirit baptizing all at the same time.
Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be a conscious undoing of the troubles that started at Babel through the miracle of multiple-language communications at Pentecost. In Genesis 11, the human race was becoming unified against its creator, and the divine solution to dissipate this rebellion was to multiply the languages spoken, forcing the community to become segmented into competing groups. At Pentecost this action is reversed, and the many people who communicate in their diverse local languages suddenly all hear the same message of grace and are knit together into a new common humanity of the church. Babel is undone by Pentecost!
Romans 8:22-27
If Paul's letter to the Romans is the summary of his preaching and the essence of the good news about Jesus, the eighth chapter is the heart and soul of the missive. Paul has already outlined the human plight (alienation from God and human dignity, irreversible through human means [1:19--3:20]) and has nearly finished sketching the amazing redemptive love by which God brings remedy to this situation (the teaching model provided by Abraham [4]; the re-creation of humankind through the second Adam, Jesus [5]; the painful process of spirituality taking hold -- [6-7]). Now, in chapter 8, Paul gushes with grace in a true Trinitarian roundup, focusing first on the incredible gift of Jesus' atoning sacrifice (vv. 1-4), then on the marvelous ministry of the Holy Spirit (vv. 5-27), to be followed immediately by the powerful claim of the Father on our lives for both time and eternity (vv. 28-39).
On this Pentecost Sunday it is very appropriate to reflect for a time on Paul's powerful testimony regarding the Holy Spirit. First, Paul reminds us of the pervasiveness of sin and evil, affecting not only the human condition, but interacting with all of creation itself. In other words, the problem of the world is not like a board on a house that needs to be nailed down again because it has come loose, but rather that of plywood in which the glue no longer holds and each layer is completely warped and twisted in a manner that prevents the whole from ever being restored and undermines the very strength it was created to exhibit. Such a complex conundrum requires attention greater than human brilliance or resilience is able to give it.
That, second, is where the presence of the Spirit plays a critical role. Only an all- pervasive, all-knowing, all-responsive engagement of an outside force could simultaneously diagnose and address every dimension of evil in all forms. So it is of great comfort to know that the Spirit of God is at work everywhere, assessing and addressing all that is warped and twisted. This is a clean-up job of maximum proportions, something only God could embark upon.
Third, the critical message of hope for us is that the central element of this divine do-over is our own human situation. While the Spirit is pervasive in reconnoitering battlefield earth, the focus of attention is the sickness inside the sons of Adam and the damage done to the daughters of Eve. The Spirit wrestles with our spirits, helping us to cry and moan and pray even before words or thoughts have articulated our condition.
Fourth, the work of the Spirit is marvelously life-affirming. While it would be clear comfort to have our souls or spirits snatched out of this wasting wilderness, the redemption bought by Jesus and brought by the Spirit is physical as well as spiritual. The creation lovingly nurtured to life by its maker will be just as caringly transformed by its Redeemer to regain its full expression of goodness, wholeness, and beauty.
Fifth, the Holy Spirit is a kind of down payment promising so much more. As we sense the healing graces of God already because of the work of Jesus and the showering of the Spirit, we are aware that full restoration takes time and is as yet incomplete. But the same Spirit that whispered within us to restart the conversations of prayerful crying, is the One who points us to the future and grows in our heart the restless seed of hope. We who have begun to see the graying of the Easter sky are eager to catch the first rays of dawn and become confident of the promise of high noon in heaven, in the best possible way.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
A really wonderful treatment of Jesus' farewell discourse, including insights that help explain the repetitions of these verses, can be found in The Literary Structure of John 13-17: A Chiastic Reading (Society of Biblical Literature, 2000). If macro-chiasm organizes Jesus' thoughts and John's reporting, the central element of the discourse is found in John 15:1-7. Here Jesus uses the vine and branches teaching to remind his followers to "remain in me." But how can this connection be retained when Jesus uses the same monologue to tell his disciples that he is leaving them and that his parting will cause them a great deal of trouble from the world?
The secret lies in the Spirit, the "paraclete" who takes Jesus' place in and next to his disciples. The Spirit, as Jesus articulates it, is not an amorphous mist that slinks around providing a security blanket on cold nights. Instead, the Spirit is actually a second Jesus, a kind of holographic beaming of the actual presence of Jesus to and for all Jesus' disciples everywhere at the same time. In this manner it is possible for all followers of Jesus to remain in him at all times and in all circumstances.
Notice the strong connection Jesus draws between the Spirit and himself. There is no distinction between their perspectives or understandings or teachings or encouragement. What Jesus would say the Spirit will intone. What Jesus would advise, the Spirit will counsel, as well. In Jesus' teaching here, there is a firm and absolute correspondence between Jesus and the Spirit; the only difference between them is the physical limitation Jesus has, tied to his finite body, which the Spirit does similarly experience. It is for this reason that Jesus says that his leaving is a good thing for the disciples. After he goes back to heaven the confinement of having his presence only in one place at a time will be overcome by the pervasive expression of his stand-in, the Spirit.
Application
Some years ago, in a comedy spoof on the folk music industry, a film called A Mighty Wind, showed the lives of folks well past their prime reflecting on their early years of writing songs and enthusing crowds and changing the direction of popular balladry. While the movie was less than spectacular and the people in it were often raunchy, there was a kind of energy analogous to the passion engendered by the first winds of Pentecost. Ordinary people, with all their warts and foibles, were transformed by a power from beyond themselves and went out as ambassadors of something awesome. The allegory is weak, of course, but the trajectory, amplified a million times, can be a picture of what this day means for the Christian church.
Alternative Application
Romans 8:22-27. Singer and songwriter Don Francisco paraphrased Paul's words in Romans 8 as God's tender call to us. You can hear the whisper of heaven in his words of a song titled "I'll Never Let Go Of Your Hand." The lyrics can be found at http://www.lyricstime.com/don-fransisco.
This is the message that calls our faith to life. No fear in the world could ever promise so much. That is why the purpose and meaning of our lives are not found in doubt or fear, but in faith and flight and the fullness of divine love. We are at our best when we ride in the love of God, when we get back into the saddle of faith and turn our face toward the Son, when the Spirit of grace surrounds us with divine care and fills our sails with the winds of heaven.
When Alexander the Great was a boy, a man from Thessaly brought a horse to his father. The horse was for sale, and it was a raging beauty. No one at court had ever seen a horse so glorious.
King Philip had his grooms test the horse, but they returned discouraged. "The horse is no good," they said. "He's skittish. He's wild. No one will ever tame him."
Philip was about to send the man and his horse on their way when young Alexander stopped him. "Let me try," he said.
Philip was worried. He did not want the horst to throw his son. But Alexander knew how to coax his father, and Philip finally gave in.
Alexander walked quickly to the horse's head and turned its face toward the sun. He put his mouth to the horse's ears and spoke softly to it. When he got on its back, the horse carried him like an old friend. The two flew together as if they were one.
"How did you do it?" people asked him later.
This was Alexander's secret: "I saw he was afraid of his shadow. So I turned his face toward the sun, and I told him I was his friend. And when we rode together, there was nothing to fear."
Beautiful, isn't it? That is the meaning of our lives -- to be turned toward the Son of God! To be strengthened by his glory and guided by his grace. To hear his great love whispering in our ears. To feel the healing energy of the Spirit within, and the help of divine comfort in a world troubled by sin and evil and the pains of the curse.
Suddenly the shadows of fear fade, and the horizon of faith is limitless and on the Spirit we soar.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Anyone who has ever served on a personnel committee can recall looking over the resumes of people who wish to work for the organization. Usually these documents include schooling, work experience, and a little detail about goals and interests. Hopefully the information on the page is enough to arouse the committee's interest and call the candidate for an interview. If not, the document is relegated to the rejection pile and a kind, but clear letter of rejection is sent.
A good resume gets the committee's attention right away. Glancing down the page, one can see the training and the accomplishments. This person clearly cared about what he or she was doing and backed up their assertions with a number of references! More than that, the list of references included phone numbers so that an easy check of this information might be accomplished.
This psalm reads like the reference from one of those good resumes. This God is impressive indeed. Shall we grant an interview? (He) certainly seems to have a lot of experience. Lots of creatures created, and he even feeds them! That's good. That's very good. Come to think of it, this is a God I would want for myself.
All kidding aside, this pouring out of the wonderful works of God is powerful. The list of God's wonderful accomplishments is full and detailed, but it offers more than mere information. Here is a testimony. Here is a witness to God's creative mastery. This is more than a reference on a job application. This is more than a recounting of jobs well done. This psalm is an act of worship.
This writer carves out words in the shape of awe and serves them up as sculptures of praise. Praying this psalm moves one, with the writer, to expressions of praise. Praying this psalm lifts one, with the writer, to a loving submission to a wonderful God. This psalm is much, much more than a reference. It is a love letter to the holy. It is a statement of faith, a signed confession of loyalty and commitment.
Send the committee home. Scrap all the resumes. We found the God we want. We located the one we choose to worship.
An ancient Jewish writing declares, "Pentecost is the day on which Torah was given." According to the teaching, it was on the day that eventually became the feast of Pentecost that God gave birth to the Hebrew nation by speaking the divine covenant to them at Mount Sinai.
As the book of Acts makes clear, Pentecost was also the day on which the New Testament church was born. Just as God spoke through Moses to bring the nation of Israel into being at Mount Sinai, so God spoke through Peter to create the first elements of the new faith community.
It was symbolically powerful for these later events to take place on Pentecost. In its first use, "Pentecost" was essentially a nickname or label. The feast of Passover was one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish community, since it recalled the manner in which God miraculously brought the nation out of Egypt. Seven sabbaths and a day later (7 X 7 + 1 = 50) the people celebrated this next major religious event as harvest season began in Palestine. Since it occurred fifty days after the Passover, people started referring to it as the "Feast after Fifty," or Pentecost.
Yet the real significance of the event was more clearly understood through its original name -- Feast of Firstfruits. Regulations for the celebration required all Israelites to assemble at the temple in Jerusalem bringing with them the first sheaf of grain from their fields. As the time of harvest approached across the land, even before the regular reaping started, a single bundle of grain was cut on each farm and toted off to the temple.
There it was "waved" before the Lord as an offering (Leviticus 23:11) along with two loaves of bread that were baked from the newly harvested grain (Leviticus 23:17). Furthermore, to broaden the impact of the event, two male lambs were also brought from the first castings of each flock (Leviticus 23:12).
As these gifts were presented to God in the temple courts all of the men danced around the altar that carried the smoke of the gifts toward heaven. The crowds of women, children, and elderly men too old to jump around energetically formed a large circle around these revelers and sang Psalms 113-118. According to historical reports the celebration was often wild and uninhibited.
We might ask what the purpose was behind these religious revelries. The instructions of Moses declared that the feast was a theological testimony. The nation was making a confession that no general harvesting for profit would begin until God had laid claim to the "firstfruits" of the fields and the flocks. By devoting the first of the new produce to God the people were acknowledging that everything came from God and belonged to God. Whatever benefit they might receive from the harvest that year was a direct result of God's care and providential intervention.
With that background the significance of Pentecost as the birthday of the Christian church takes on new meaning. A new era of God's kingdom began that day, as God claimed the firstfruits of a worldwide faith harvest. The mission of the church began only after God had first miraculously owned the original converts from each nation represented in Jerusalem that day.
In that context, the Holy Spirit is the powerful presence of God, shaping the big plans God has for the world and the church, just as Jesus had told his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. At the dawn of creation God sowed a world of hope and possibility. Evil storms and tragic seasons may have slowed the harvest of greatness on planet earth. However, if anyone wants to know what the true and best harvest will look like, according to Paul as he writes about the Holy Spirit and its influence, he should check out the church.
That may seem funny to us. We would have a hard time seeing the church as a picture of God's profit margins. Too often the "sinful passions" of our baser natures come through. Yet for God the church is the firstfruits of the great harvest.
Maybe that's why we ought to take ourselves less seriously and more seriously at the same time, in the church. Less seriously because there is an awful lot of humor in what God is up to. More seriously because God's humor is the first smile of love that the rest of creation around us needs desperately to see. For that reason, says Paul, we really do need to keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25).
Acts 2:1-21
The momentum of the stories told in the book of Acts is derived from a single critical incident that took place in Jerusalem during the Jewish religious festival known as Pentecost. Jesus' instruction for his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for a special gift (Acts 1:4) must have seemed vague at the time, but the arrival of the explosive power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost made sense. This celebration was both a harvest festival and a time for recalling the gift of the original covenant documents to Moses at Mount Sinai. These two themes intersected marvelously with what was taking place. First, there was the dawning of a new age of revelation and divine mission, paralleling that first covenant declaration in the book of Exodus. Second, during the Pentecost harvest festival, the first sheaves of grain were presented at the temple, anticipating that God would then bring in the full harvest. This expression of faith served as a clear analogy to the greater missional harvest of the church that was begun through a miraculous "firstfruits" in Jerusalem that day.
Peter capitalized on these themes when he preached a sermon explaining Joel's prophecy of the "Day of the Lord." Peter tied together God's extensive mission, the history of Israel, the coming of Jesus, and the splitting of the Day of the Lord so that the blessings of the messianic age could begin before the final divine judgment fell. The pattern for entering the new community of faith was clearly outlined: repent and be baptized. The first indicated a transforming presence of the Holy Spirit in individual hearts, while the latter became the initiation rite by which the ranks of this missional society were identified (over against the badge of circumcision in its unique application to the nation of Israel, which was now being replaced -- see Colossians 2:11-12).
All of this is announced in a divinely spectacular manner by way of symbols that would draw attention to themselves and make clear points. First, there was the sound of wind. Not the actual movement of the air itself, but the noise that would usually accompany it. The lack of any noticeable breeze, coupled with a distinct whoosh in the ears, would alert those in Jerusalem to the intriguing confluence of ideas wrapped up in a single term. Both in the Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) languages, one noun serves to designate "wind," "breath," and "spirit." Thus the sound of a rushing wind without stirring atmosphere captured the attention of all who were about to breathe in the Spirit of God.
Second, a single blaze of fire descended from heaven, becoming multiple flames above the dozen heads of the disciples. Jesus' cousin John had said that he [John] baptized with water, but that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 1:16). In a single allegorical image the prophecy literally came to light. This vision represented the single divine Spirit baptizing all at the same time.
Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be a conscious undoing of the troubles that started at Babel through the miracle of multiple-language communications at Pentecost. In Genesis 11, the human race was becoming unified against its creator, and the divine solution to dissipate this rebellion was to multiply the languages spoken, forcing the community to become segmented into competing groups. At Pentecost this action is reversed, and the many people who communicate in their diverse local languages suddenly all hear the same message of grace and are knit together into a new common humanity of the church. Babel is undone by Pentecost!
Romans 8:22-27
If Paul's letter to the Romans is the summary of his preaching and the essence of the good news about Jesus, the eighth chapter is the heart and soul of the missive. Paul has already outlined the human plight (alienation from God and human dignity, irreversible through human means [1:19--3:20]) and has nearly finished sketching the amazing redemptive love by which God brings remedy to this situation (the teaching model provided by Abraham [4]; the re-creation of humankind through the second Adam, Jesus [5]; the painful process of spirituality taking hold -- [6-7]). Now, in chapter 8, Paul gushes with grace in a true Trinitarian roundup, focusing first on the incredible gift of Jesus' atoning sacrifice (vv. 1-4), then on the marvelous ministry of the Holy Spirit (vv. 5-27), to be followed immediately by the powerful claim of the Father on our lives for both time and eternity (vv. 28-39).
On this Pentecost Sunday it is very appropriate to reflect for a time on Paul's powerful testimony regarding the Holy Spirit. First, Paul reminds us of the pervasiveness of sin and evil, affecting not only the human condition, but interacting with all of creation itself. In other words, the problem of the world is not like a board on a house that needs to be nailed down again because it has come loose, but rather that of plywood in which the glue no longer holds and each layer is completely warped and twisted in a manner that prevents the whole from ever being restored and undermines the very strength it was created to exhibit. Such a complex conundrum requires attention greater than human brilliance or resilience is able to give it.
That, second, is where the presence of the Spirit plays a critical role. Only an all- pervasive, all-knowing, all-responsive engagement of an outside force could simultaneously diagnose and address every dimension of evil in all forms. So it is of great comfort to know that the Spirit of God is at work everywhere, assessing and addressing all that is warped and twisted. This is a clean-up job of maximum proportions, something only God could embark upon.
Third, the critical message of hope for us is that the central element of this divine do-over is our own human situation. While the Spirit is pervasive in reconnoitering battlefield earth, the focus of attention is the sickness inside the sons of Adam and the damage done to the daughters of Eve. The Spirit wrestles with our spirits, helping us to cry and moan and pray even before words or thoughts have articulated our condition.
Fourth, the work of the Spirit is marvelously life-affirming. While it would be clear comfort to have our souls or spirits snatched out of this wasting wilderness, the redemption bought by Jesus and brought by the Spirit is physical as well as spiritual. The creation lovingly nurtured to life by its maker will be just as caringly transformed by its Redeemer to regain its full expression of goodness, wholeness, and beauty.
Fifth, the Holy Spirit is a kind of down payment promising so much more. As we sense the healing graces of God already because of the work of Jesus and the showering of the Spirit, we are aware that full restoration takes time and is as yet incomplete. But the same Spirit that whispered within us to restart the conversations of prayerful crying, is the One who points us to the future and grows in our heart the restless seed of hope. We who have begun to see the graying of the Easter sky are eager to catch the first rays of dawn and become confident of the promise of high noon in heaven, in the best possible way.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
A really wonderful treatment of Jesus' farewell discourse, including insights that help explain the repetitions of these verses, can be found in The Literary Structure of John 13-17: A Chiastic Reading (Society of Biblical Literature, 2000). If macro-chiasm organizes Jesus' thoughts and John's reporting, the central element of the discourse is found in John 15:1-7. Here Jesus uses the vine and branches teaching to remind his followers to "remain in me." But how can this connection be retained when Jesus uses the same monologue to tell his disciples that he is leaving them and that his parting will cause them a great deal of trouble from the world?
The secret lies in the Spirit, the "paraclete" who takes Jesus' place in and next to his disciples. The Spirit, as Jesus articulates it, is not an amorphous mist that slinks around providing a security blanket on cold nights. Instead, the Spirit is actually a second Jesus, a kind of holographic beaming of the actual presence of Jesus to and for all Jesus' disciples everywhere at the same time. In this manner it is possible for all followers of Jesus to remain in him at all times and in all circumstances.
Notice the strong connection Jesus draws between the Spirit and himself. There is no distinction between their perspectives or understandings or teachings or encouragement. What Jesus would say the Spirit will intone. What Jesus would advise, the Spirit will counsel, as well. In Jesus' teaching here, there is a firm and absolute correspondence between Jesus and the Spirit; the only difference between them is the physical limitation Jesus has, tied to his finite body, which the Spirit does similarly experience. It is for this reason that Jesus says that his leaving is a good thing for the disciples. After he goes back to heaven the confinement of having his presence only in one place at a time will be overcome by the pervasive expression of his stand-in, the Spirit.
Application
Some years ago, in a comedy spoof on the folk music industry, a film called A Mighty Wind, showed the lives of folks well past their prime reflecting on their early years of writing songs and enthusing crowds and changing the direction of popular balladry. While the movie was less than spectacular and the people in it were often raunchy, there was a kind of energy analogous to the passion engendered by the first winds of Pentecost. Ordinary people, with all their warts and foibles, were transformed by a power from beyond themselves and went out as ambassadors of something awesome. The allegory is weak, of course, but the trajectory, amplified a million times, can be a picture of what this day means for the Christian church.
Alternative Application
Romans 8:22-27. Singer and songwriter Don Francisco paraphrased Paul's words in Romans 8 as God's tender call to us. You can hear the whisper of heaven in his words of a song titled "I'll Never Let Go Of Your Hand." The lyrics can be found at http://www.lyricstime.com/don-fransisco.
This is the message that calls our faith to life. No fear in the world could ever promise so much. That is why the purpose and meaning of our lives are not found in doubt or fear, but in faith and flight and the fullness of divine love. We are at our best when we ride in the love of God, when we get back into the saddle of faith and turn our face toward the Son, when the Spirit of grace surrounds us with divine care and fills our sails with the winds of heaven.
When Alexander the Great was a boy, a man from Thessaly brought a horse to his father. The horse was for sale, and it was a raging beauty. No one at court had ever seen a horse so glorious.
King Philip had his grooms test the horse, but they returned discouraged. "The horse is no good," they said. "He's skittish. He's wild. No one will ever tame him."
Philip was about to send the man and his horse on their way when young Alexander stopped him. "Let me try," he said.
Philip was worried. He did not want the horst to throw his son. But Alexander knew how to coax his father, and Philip finally gave in.
Alexander walked quickly to the horse's head and turned its face toward the sun. He put his mouth to the horse's ears and spoke softly to it. When he got on its back, the horse carried him like an old friend. The two flew together as if they were one.
"How did you do it?" people asked him later.
This was Alexander's secret: "I saw he was afraid of his shadow. So I turned his face toward the sun, and I told him I was his friend. And when we rode together, there was nothing to fear."
Beautiful, isn't it? That is the meaning of our lives -- to be turned toward the Son of God! To be strengthened by his glory and guided by his grace. To hear his great love whispering in our ears. To feel the healing energy of the Spirit within, and the help of divine comfort in a world troubled by sin and evil and the pains of the curse.
Suddenly the shadows of fear fade, and the horizon of faith is limitless and on the Spirit we soar.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
Anyone who has ever served on a personnel committee can recall looking over the resumes of people who wish to work for the organization. Usually these documents include schooling, work experience, and a little detail about goals and interests. Hopefully the information on the page is enough to arouse the committee's interest and call the candidate for an interview. If not, the document is relegated to the rejection pile and a kind, but clear letter of rejection is sent.
A good resume gets the committee's attention right away. Glancing down the page, one can see the training and the accomplishments. This person clearly cared about what he or she was doing and backed up their assertions with a number of references! More than that, the list of references included phone numbers so that an easy check of this information might be accomplished.
This psalm reads like the reference from one of those good resumes. This God is impressive indeed. Shall we grant an interview? (He) certainly seems to have a lot of experience. Lots of creatures created, and he even feeds them! That's good. That's very good. Come to think of it, this is a God I would want for myself.
All kidding aside, this pouring out of the wonderful works of God is powerful. The list of God's wonderful accomplishments is full and detailed, but it offers more than mere information. Here is a testimony. Here is a witness to God's creative mastery. This is more than a reference on a job application. This is more than a recounting of jobs well done. This psalm is an act of worship.
This writer carves out words in the shape of awe and serves them up as sculptures of praise. Praying this psalm moves one, with the writer, to expressions of praise. Praying this psalm lifts one, with the writer, to a loving submission to a wonderful God. This psalm is much, much more than a reference. It is a love letter to the holy. It is a statement of faith, a signed confession of loyalty and commitment.
Send the committee home. Scrap all the resumes. We found the God we want. We located the one we choose to worship.
