Pentecost

Pentecost THAT’S THE SPIRIT! June 1 and 4, 2006

My father often cheered me up, after loosing a high school tennis match or as I shared that a paper or test didn’t receive the grade I’d anticipated, saying “That’s the spirit!” Comforting, supporting, encouraging me not to give up or “stay down,” he’d say: “That’s the Spirit!” On Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The reality of the Holy Spirit is prominent in all of Holy Scripture. Two verses into Genesis, we read of the Spirit moving across the waters, bringing order out of chaos. Five verses from the close of recorded Scripture, Revelation 22:17, the biblical writer declares, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’” The Hebrew word (ruach) and the Greek word (pneuma)-“SPIRIT”-are read 614 times in the Bible! 614 times…That’s the Spirit!

Many years ago some American League baseball strategists were in deep debate about how to pitch to the great hitter, Stan “the man” Musial. Yogi Berra, then the catcher for the Yankees, said: “The trouble with you guys is that you’re trying to figure out in 15 minutes what nobody has figured out in the past twelve years!” This is my present position when it comes to “figuring” out the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity…I cannot do in 15 minutes what we have struggled to do over the past 2000 years! One Sunday School teacher thought she had the perfect explanation for the Trinity…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. She brought an egg to class and said to her students: “Imagine that God the Father is the yolk of this egg, God the Son is the white part, and the Holy Spirit is the shell. Together, they all combine to make one egg.” The children seemed to grasp this imagery, so in order to further demonstrate her explanation the teacher broke the shell into a small bowl…a double yolk came out. One child screamed, “Yuk! What’s that?” The teacher was speechless!

The church’s principal need today is not better programs, larger budgets, greater buildings, or even more people. The church’s primary need is to rediscover and know the Holy Spirit…to be led and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. This has historically been a real challenge for the church. The apostle Paul knew the Christians in Ephesus to be very sincere believers in God, but Paul (Acts 19:1-6) probed further into their situation, asking: “’Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?’” They replied, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them…” Church-goers, believers, w/o the Holy Spirit…

Andrew W. Blackwood Jr. wrote: “Such are these believe in the half-known God.” Too many believers in the church today only half-know God. This makes a person very discontent… neither hot nor cold, neither here nor there, they can’t decide what to do with their life and their resources. To half-know God is to live in continual turmoil. Harry Emerson Fosdick once said, “Some people have just enough religion to make themselves miserable!”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus addresses the biblical question, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” (1) Jesus said, recorded in John 15: 26 : “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you…” The words “advocate” or “comforter” or “champion” are often substituted. “Comforter” originally meant “one who enables a discouraged, beaten soul to be strong”. The “Advocate” or “Counselor” is the one who represents, speaks for, and defends. Jesus promised to send us a powerful helper…one who will defend and strengthen us…in and through this life! (2) John 14:26 reads: The Holy Spirit “will teach you all things.” The working assumption is that followers of Jesus have a lot to learn! The Spirit serves as the “interpreter,” translating divine realities into earthly explanations…said another way, the Spirit enables us to better understand God. As we move into summer, will you avail yourselves of the Spirit’s teaching, or take the summer “off”? Are any of us so knowledgeable, so spiritually mature, that we can afford 3 months of indifference? The Holy Spirit instructs us to be better fathers and mothers, better prayers, better neighbors, better husbands and wives, better children, and…frankly, we have quite a lot to learn! (3) John 14: 26 further reads that the Holy Spirit “will bring to (our) remembrance all that (Jesus) has said”. The Spirit can only “bring to our remembrance” what He has formerly taught us! If we refuse to be taught, we have just that much less to remember! Through the Holy Spirit, God will not allow us to forget the spiritually important things in life. Like the elderly and infirmed faithfully singing hymns learned decades ago…tuning out the world, but tuning in when invited to pray The Lord’s Prayer! When we tend to forget such things, the Holy Spirit will “prod” and “nag” us…stir our consciences, making us restless at night…and cheer us on and sustain us when we do remember! So, we can shout together, asking you to repeat after me:

THAT’S THE SPIRIT! --- THAT’S THE HOLY SPIRIT!--- THANKS BE TO GOD! AMEN.