NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Sermon: “The Spirit Wind”

Scripture: Acts 2: 1-21

Reverend Larry Gerber

On the day of Pentecost, a holy hurricane whipped through Jerusalem and blew away the expectations of all who were gathered there.

“I know it when I see it.”

That’s what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said back in 1964. He was trying to get a handle on one of the trickiest issues faced by the court over the last half century — the definition of obscenity. About the best he could do, in an attempt to nail down a very slippery concept, was to say, “I know it when I see it.”

We can certainly sympathize with Justice Stewart. There are so many powerful forces in our lives, both positive and negative, that are difficult to measure. Think of Quality. Goodness. Kindness. Gratitude. Envy. Lust. And these difficulties are not limited to human characteristics — when you step out of the house in the morning, how do you define the beauty of a sunrise, the gracefulness of a bird in flight, or, say — the strength of the wind?

The question of wind comes up, because a wind is mentioned in the text for today, and because we’re soon headed into hurricane season, thankfully not near us.

The wind. That’s an invisible but truly powerful force. We know it when we feel it, but how can we describe it?

“The wind blows where it chooses,” Jesus said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3:8). Significantly, he goes on to say, “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

For thousands of years, no one thought that the wind could be measured. But then, in the late 1700s, a cabin boy in the British Navy began to keep a meteorological journal so that he could stay on top of weather conditions. His name was Francis Beaufort, and he grew up to become a Rear Admiral, serving the Navy for 68 years. Over the course of his career, he developed a method for describing the wind that became known as “The Beaufort Scale.”

According to Beaufort, you’ve got your “calm.” You’ve got your “light breeze.” And then a “moderate breeze,” and then a “gale,” then a “storm,” and then a “hurricane.”

Perhaps he hadn’t heard of tsunamis. But then, they’re usually generated by earthquakes, not wind.

Beaufort’s definition of “calm” is a “sea like a mirror.” How many times have you looked over a lake and say: “It is as smooth as glass.”” Now that is a calm lake, it is serene, and peaceful.

When a “light breeze” is blowing, you see small wavelets on the water, and the crests don’t break, but the calmness begins to ebb.

A “moderate breeze” creates small waves, while a “strong breeze” generates large waves, white foam crests and probably spray.

When a “gale” is beginning to blow, you see moderately high waves and crests that begin to break into sea spray.

A “storm” is defined by very high waves with long, overhanging crests. The surface of the sea takes a white appearance, and the tumbling of the sea becomes heavy.

And at the top of the scale is a “hurricane” — a wind condition you don’t want to see firsthand! “The air is filled with foam and spray,” says Beaufort, and the sea is “completely white with driving spray.”

With his descriptions of every condition from calm to hurricane, Francis Beaufort created a way to describe the wind — a scale that is still in use today.

It was a windy day in Jerusalem when the apostles gathered to celebrate the harvest festival known as Pentecost. Acts tells us that there came a sound like the rushing of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where the apostles were sitting. Firelike tongues rested on each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit — they began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability (Acts 2:1-4). Suddenly, the international crowd that had gathered in Jerusalem could hear the apostles speaking about God’s deeds of power — they could understand what the apostles were saying, because they were speaking the native language of each and every person (2:5-11).

But the force of the wind did not end there. It inspired the apostle Peter, who had acted like a Christ-denying coward just a few months earlier, to stand in front of a mob of mockers and shout, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem ... listen to what I say.” Peter proclaimed that the coming of the Holy Spirit matched the words of the prophet Joel — words that told of how God would pour out his Spirit upon all people. Your “sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” said Peter to the crowd, and “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (2:14-21).

What a mighty wind it was, whipping through Jerusalem and blowing away the everyday expectations of everyone who was gathered there. People were impacted, lives were changed, and it was — for apostles and members of the crowd alike — the storm of the century.

But how can we measure the force of this holy wind?

If we were to apply “The Spirit Scale,” what would that look like? How do we experience the Holy Spirit in our lives today?

Calm. This is the condition we experience when the Spirit leads us, equips us, and gives us serenity and peace. “Peace be with you,” said Jesus when he appeared to the disciples after his resurrection. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” giving them the power to forgive sins (John 20:21-23). When the Spirit Scale reads “calm,” we are given peace and a sense of purpose — we know that we belong to God, and that we now possess a sense of direction.

This Spirit-scale calm is something we feel even though our lives may be buffeted by hurricane force winds. We are experiencing the “calm” of the Holy Spirit.

Strong breeze. At other times, the Holy Spirit comes as a “strong breeze,” a Spirit-wind that has a creative quality to it and leads to surprising improvements and new directions in our lives. In the Bible, this is seen in the “wind from God” that swept over the face of the waters at the moment of creation, bringing order out of chaos (Genesis 1:2).

This is the Spirit-wind that came upon the anointed figures of the Old Testament when they were empowered for specific tasks and missions.

When we head into a situation where new directions, fresh opportunities and unlimited possibilities face us, we look to the Holy Spirit for the “strong breeze” to empower us according to the will of God.

Gale. Higher up the scale is the Spirit as a “gale,” a force that breaks unhealthy patterns and shakes up the status quo. In a world that so often fights fire with fire and responds to violence with even more violence, we are given the power we need to go in a different direction. “Evil is not effectively resisted with hatred and with guns” — so observes Jeffrey Burton Russell in his book The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History. “The only response to evil that has ever worked is the response of Jesus ... and that is to lead a life of love. That means what it has always meant: visiting the sick, giving to the poor, helping those who need help.”

This is a powerful wind, one that can knock us off balance and push us out of our comfort zones. We need to ask ourselves: Are we willing to be blown in this direction?

Hurricane. Finally, at the top of the chart is the Spirit as a “hurricane.” This is what hit Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, turning the lives of the apostles completely upside down. They were reoriented from looking inward at themselves to looking outward toward a world in desperate need of the gospel. They were changed from fearful disciples into fearless evangelists, and they headed off into the mission field with a powerful sense of purpose.

We used to call this “revival.” When hurricane force Spirit-winds blow across the landscape of our souls and our common life together, nothing is ever the same.

When you look at the movement of the Spirit on Pentecost, you see the power of Almighty God at work. You see the breaking down of language and culture barriers ... the empowering of frightened disciples ... the courageous sharing of Jesus Christ with the world.

Lutheran pastor Dan Mangler tells the story of a Shetland sheepdog his family owned, named Amber.

He recalls that Amber loved windy days, and no matter how windy it was she would stand on their front lawn, face the direction that the wind was coming from, put her nose up in the air ... and immediately enter doggy heaven.

She was oblivious to anything else going on around her, and Mangler thinks he knows why: It was the smells that the wind brought her. Her movements were, for the most part, confined to the house or yard, so the wind was, for her, a sumptuous blessing.

The wind brought her experiences of a world beyond her powers to visit, including the smells of a dozen kinds of trees and hundreds of wildflowers, of squirrels and rabbits, of pigs and cows.

“There is in that example, I think, a picture of Pentecost,” writes Mangler. “Pentecost is the wind that brings us experiences of a world beyond our powers to visit.”

May we all experience such a visitation!

And when we do, we know it when we feel it!

There is a beautiful hymn: “Peace in the Midst of the Storm.” Some of the words are as follows:

When the world that I’ve been living in collapses at my feet.

When my life is shattered and torn.

Though I’m windswept and battered, I can cling to his cross,

And find peace in the midst of the storm.

There is peace in the midst of my storm-tossed life,

Oh, there’s an anchor, there’s a rock to cast my faith upon.

Jesus rides in my vessel, so I’ll fear no alarm,…..

This is Pentecost – a time for re-birth; a time for speaking out about our faith in the midst of the storm; a time for knowing who your anchor is; a time of calm in our hearts, in the midst of the storms of life; a time of calm.

May the gentle winds blow Calm. This is the condition we experience when the Spirit leads us, equips us, and gives us serenity and peace.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: slumc@direcway.com, Phone: 480.895.8766