Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

If you believe the Bible, then there is no better proof that Jesus was who he said he was than the before-and-after pictures of the disciples.  Before Pentecost, they were dense, timid bumblers who fled at the least sign of trouble.  Afterwards, they were fearless leaders.  They healed the sick and cast out demons.  They went to jail gladly, where they sang hymns until the walls fell down.  How did this transformation happen?  We hear all about it in today’s second reading from the book of Acts.

The last thing Jesus told his disciples to do before he ascended into heaven was to go back to Jerusalem and wait there for God’s promises to come true.  They would be baptized by the Holy Spirit, he told them, and they would be clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49).  With little or no idea what any of that meant, they did as they were told.  They went back to Jerusalem—not to the temple but to an ordinary room in an ordinary house—and there they waited, along with the women who had come with them, including Jesus’ mother and his brothers (Acts 1:14).

Did you ever have to wait for something you knew nothing about?  We can expect those disciples waited the same way—really nervous but desperately trying not to show it—grabbing a magazine and pretending to be interested in it—looking out the window having no idea what you see because your racing mind is blinding you and then there is your nervous toe tapping and nail biting-- you don’t even notice them either.  It’s sort of like whistling in the dark except your anxiety closes down your windpipe and nothing comes out of your pursed lips.  Maybe you’re so scared your stomach turns upside down or a tiny tear crawls down your cheek.  Maybe you run and hide.  Maybe you just run.

No doubt at least some of those disciples were demanding God reveal not just a few hints about what they were waiting for.  How would they know when the power had fallen on them?  Would it tingle?  Would it hurt?  How did the Holy Spirit go about baptizing people, exactly?  Jesus had said something about fire, which sounded pretty dangerous.  Did he mean real fire or spiritual fire?  Maybe they should fill some jars with water just in case things got out of hand.

They did not have to wait long.  On the day of Pentecost, a Jewish festival set fifty days after Passover (for us this day is the fiftieth and last day of the Easter season), the disciples were all together in one place when they got a crash course in power.  First there was wind, then there was fire, then they were filled with the Holy Spirit and overflowed with strange languages: one spoke Parthian while another spoke Latin, and two others found their tongues curling around the exotic sounds of Egyptian and Arabic.

They may not have known what they were saying, but the crowd they drew did.  Devout Jews from all over the world stood in the doorways and windows, listening to a bunch of Galileans tell about the power of God in their own tongues so that no one was left out.  The Holy Spirit turned out to be a phenomenal linguist, whom everyone present could understand.

And still it baffled them all, the speakers as well as the listeners.  They were in the grips of something that bypassed reason and some of them could not bear it, so they started hunting for a reason.  “They were filled with new wine,” someone said (drunk, in other words), but Peter said no, it was only nine o’clock in the morning—meaning, I suppose, that if it had been later in the day drunk might have been a real possibility.

Then he got up and delivered a sensational sermon, based on the second chapter of the book of Joel. “In those days,” the prophet proclaimed, quoting Joel quoting God, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”  That is what is happening now, Peter tells them.  The Holy Spirit of God is being poured out on them and this is how it looks: wind like the wind that revived the valley of dry bones, and fire like the fire that led Israel through the desert, and tongues like the tongues that erupted at Babel, but in reverse this time.  We heard in today’s first reading from Genesis that at Babel, God confused human speech so that people could not understand each other anymore: at Pentecost, God reverses the curse.  What sounds like babble is intelligible speech—better yet, is gospel—and everyone present understands it.

According to Acts, three thousand people were baptized that day.  It was a miracle.  It was the birthday of the Christian church, when a dozen bumblers received power from Jesus and proceeded to turn the world upside down.  What happened in that room spread from Jerusalem to Athens to Rome to Alexandria.  It spread across nations, across centuries, across cultures as far removed from Israel as we are from the moon.  Because of what happened in that room, people who do not speak a word of Hebrew have come to believe in a Hebrew Lord, who is worshiped today in every language on earth.

It happened by the power of the Holy Spirit, which the Bible talks about in at least two ways.  First, as the abiding presence of God in Christ, with all the safety and comfort that relationship promises.  This is the Spirit most of us know and love—the Spirit of peace and concord—that one that smoothes our ruffled feathers and revives our weary souls, the one that—lo!—is with us always, whenever we have the good sense to breathe in and say thank you (breathe in, breathe out and say, “Thank you, Jesus”).   

But there is another way the Spirit acts—that is not nearly so comforting.  This is the Spirit who blows and burns, howling down the chimney and turning all the lawn furniture upside down.  Ask Job about the whirlwind, or Ezekiel about the chariot of fire.  Ask anyone who was in that room on Pentecost what it was like to be caught up in the Spirit, and whether it is something they would like to happen every Sunday afternoon.

When I was in seminary, my worship class was assigned to go experience several kinds of different worship services.  The last one we attended was at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in downtown Rochester, New York, where the service began at eleven and ends around two.  There was a huge choir, a three-piece band, and a sound system turned all the way up.  There was a church overcrowded with people of all ages, who drifted in during the first thirty minutes of the service.  Sunday school attendance was announced, the offering was taken, and the music began to build—listless at first, then gathering volume and focus until the service was in full swing.

For three full hours, we sang and clapped and raised our hands in the air.  Children stood stomping their feet on the pews or crawled around underneath them while their mothers praised God and danced in place.  Different members of the choir stepped forward to sing solos, as the band changed tempo to match each one’s style.  All of the songs had pounding rhythms that built and built until people began to be slain in the spirit.  One woman right in front of me bolted from her pew and ran around the perimeter of the church twice, while another one nearer the front stood up and did a jerking dance until she fell on the floor.  An usher threw a white sheet over her so that her slip would not show, and several members of the church knelt around her until her convulsions stopped.

I felt like I was caught in the middle of a thunderstorm, so I did what you are supposed to do: I made myself very small and held perfectly still.  Lightning did not strike me, which was an answer to my prayer, but afterward for days I wondered about my reaction.  Was it simply a reaction to that kind of worship or was it more than that?  If I had been in that room on the first Pentecost day, would I have done the same thing?  “Oh God, if you are about to pour out your Spirit and this is what it looks like, would you please skip me?”

Am I the only one?  Who else wants an umbrella when it looks like the Spirit is about to start coming down with wind and with fire?  Only a fool would pray for the Holy Spirit.  Only fools for Christ do.  I say that because I believe that the Spirit is most present at three open spaces in our lives: in the unpredictable, in the place of risk and in those areas over which we have no control.

Which was exactly where those disciples were.  And that is where we are, more times than we would like to admit—not only as individuals but also as members of this body that was born two thousand years ago.  It is no crime to pray for the gentle Spirit at such times—to ask God to restore order and routine, to remove us from risk, to give us back the comfortable illusion of control that helps us sleep at night.

But Pentecost is our reminder that there is another side to God’s Spirit—one that can set us on fire, transform our lives, turn the world upside down.  It is not predictable.  It is very risky and it is beyond our control, but one thing we can do is fold our umbrellas and put them away.  If we want to be fools for Christ, that is.  If we want to be clothed with Jesus power that turns us into movers and shakers for the sake of his gospel.  Amen .