LIKE A MIGHTY WIND (AND A QUIET BREATH)

 John 14: 15-31

      In the book of Acts we see the coming of the Holy Spirit when the believers were gathered--- the Holy Spirit, with a loud noise from the sky which sounded like a mighty wind, filled the house where they were sitting.   The Spirit spread like fire, filling all who were there so that they were able to speak in other languages.   There was excitement, amazement, wonder—most of all, power--- as God’s own power was busting loose in the world to bring a whole new life to humankind, in Jesus Christ.

      That is the way we normally look at Pentecost.   We see it as a great and powerful outpouring of the Spirit that enabled men and women to witness with boldness.   Peter, right after being given the Holy Spirit, preached a smashing sermon proclaiming Jesus as the Savior, risen and alive.   The Holy Spirit took some ordinary citizens and turned their lives around.   Before Pentecost they had returned to their fishing boats, their homes by the sea or huts in the city and waited.   And then the Holy Spirit struck with power and turned their lives around.

      How does that first Pentecost relate to us here in Wallingford in 2007?   Have you ever tried to put yourself in the place of those disciples on Pentecost morning?   It seems so out of place to us—so very unlike ourselves—so foreign to anything we do or could imagine ourselves doing.   Most of us are a little shy, soft-spoken--- that’s why we’re Presbyterians.   We like our lives to be decent and orderly, especially orderly.   We don’t get too excited about anything.   Some have good-naturedly labeled Presbyterians as “the Frozen Chosen.”   But we’re not frozen—or chosen.   We just tend to shy away from the limelight, for the most part.   Few of us are used to getting up in front of crowds, especially crowds that are eagerly listening to us.   Back before I started doing this regularly, I was petrified of speaking to groups of people and still find myself exhausted on Sunday afternoons from the tension of being in front.   It takes a lot of energy for me to stand in front of you and speak.   And I don’t think I’m that different from others.   We are fallible people, we get scared, we make mistakes, we quake in our boots, we feel fear, we get carried away sometimes and mumble on, we get off track.   Now where was I?

       One preacher’s sermon was too long.   The preacher paused for a moment and asked,  “What more can I say?”   And a little voice from the back whispered,   “Say,  ‘Amen.’”

      People sometimes comment when they shake my hand on the way out of church.   One time several years ago a lady gushed,  “Pastor Smith, every sermon you preach is so much better than the next one!”

     Sometimes we hit.   Sometimes we miss.   A good preacher knows her or his fallibility, humanity, commonality with others.

       So putting ourselves with those early disciples on Pentecost morning seems out of place—unlike ourselves, foreign to anything we could imagine ourselves doing.   Now I’m not talking about the speaking in unknown languages, as the first disciples did in reaching the rest of the world.   I am talking about the power to witness those people possessed.   What a difference between Jerusalem and Wallingford!   Me—them?   Them--- me?   Certainly not—at least in that way!

      But to learn a little more of that Holy Spirit this morning, let’s back up before Pentecost to the time when Jesus, talking to his disciples, promised the Spirit’s coming.    (Read John 14:15-20, 25-27)    

       This scripture tells us much about the Holy Spirit.   Note just a few of the significant things it tells us about the Spirit and the Spirit’s function in our lives.   First of all, the Holy Spirit is not some ethereal ghost, some eerie and haunting force or presence which floats through the air and lives in our houses when we are gone.   Unfortunately, with today’s preoccupation with the word “ghost,” we sometimes picture the Holy Spirit in that way.   Rather, the Holy Spirit is the very Spirit of God which lives in each believer when he or she receives Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.   When God was here in the person of Jesus, the Spirit was embodied in Jesus—as you remember at his baptism the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove—and remained with him the rest of his earthly life.   But as he was about to be crucified and risen Jesus promised God’s presence would come in another form to stay with the disciples forever.   “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever,” he said.   “The Spirit.”

       What does the Spirit do?   Jesus said that this Advocate or Helper is the “Spirit of truth.”    The Spirit reveals the truth about God.   Primarily the Spirit helps us know that in Jesus Christ we have the truth of God—not one who might speak truth about God, like the prophets did, but we have the truth embodied in the person of Jesus.   Jesus said,  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”   And this Spirit of truth will continually point us to Christ.   If any group or philosophy attempts to draw your life away from Christ to some organized set of rules or “enlightenment” that goes, as they say, beyond Jesus, a higher revelation, so to speak, you can be sure that the Holy Spirit is not behind that—it’s a deception.   The Holy Spirit convinces you of the truth that is in Christ.

    Then it says, the world cannot receive the Spirit, “because it neither sees him nor knows him.   But you know him, because he abides with you and he will be in you.   I will not leave you orphaned (alone).   I am coming to you.   In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.   On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

      So you see, the Holy Spirit gives assurance—assurance that just as God was in Christ, Christ is in us.   Among the students of a well-known college was a young man who walked with crutches.   He was a stumbling, homely sort of person—but intelligent, very friendly, and always optimistic.   During his four years in college this crippled young man won many scholastic honors.   And on the day of his graduation, in an interview he was asked what caused his deformity.   And he answered,  “Infantile Paralysis.”   “Then tell me,” said the interviewer,  “with a misfortune like that, how can you face the world so confidently and without bitterness?”   The young man’s eyes smiled, he tapped his chest with his deformed hand, and replied,  “It never touched my heart.”

     The very presence of the Holy Spirit assures us that no matter what happens to us on the outside, there is someone on the inside greater than ourselves, someone whose love breaks through all the layers of confusion, deception, and defenses constructed to protect us from pain.   The Apostle Paul said,  “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.   For the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”   The Spirit gives us assurance that “nothing, absolutely nothing, is able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.”   It is a peace that grows more certain with the years as Christ’s presence within us carries us through every situation of life.   That is why the dove is a symbol for peace.   The dove symbolized the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus after his baptism.   The Holy Spirit brought a peace to Jesus, an assurance that he was about to begin the work for which he came, and that his heavenly Father was with him always.

      But please understand about this peace.   This peace that the Holy Spirit brings is not at all a peace that comes because you know that circumstances are always going to be peaceful and right, smooth and good.   Rather, it’s an inner confidence that is there often in spite of external circumstances.   Certainly Jesus’ life was not always outwardly peaceful.   Nor were the lives of the disciples.   Nor has my own life been anything close to peaceful the last nine months.   Painfully traumatic would better describe it.    But Jesus, and his disciples then and now, had and have the assurance that we are not traveling alone.   The Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, went with them and goes with us.   It is a different sort of peace of which Jesus speaks when he says,  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.”

       This morning I simply want to leave you with the idea that you too can be people through whom the Holy Spirit carries the power and peace of God like a mighty wind, yes, but also like a quiet breath at times.   For it is not the force of the wind that makes it effective, that makes it blow like it does.  It is the assurance that lives within the believers through whom the Spirit speaks.   The message itself is powerful.   The messenger doesn’t have to be.   The Holy Spirit gives you the peace and assurance that the message is true and needs to be shared, and that God is in you so you can do it, by sharing your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, your struggles, your faith with others in daily life.

     Go out this week, asking yourself these questions:   How much of a reality is God’s presence in my life and what does the Spirit prompt me to do in my everyday time with the message I carry in my heart?    What is the Spirit saying to me in this moment?

      And may the unique and special peace of Christ be with you.

                                                                 AMEN