Holy Spirit Holes

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Acts 2:1-13

June 8, 2014 • Portage First UMC

We had gotten up very early in the morning, packed our things and loaded the bus. There were eight of us who, after having spent ten days in Israel, were headed to Egypt to trace both Jewish and Christian stories in that ancient land. We sort of traced the route of the Exodus in reverse, as we left Jerusalem, we passed into the desert near Jericho and headed along the Jordan River down toward the Dead Sea. After a lengthy border crossing that felt a bit like a prisoner or hostage exchange, we entered Egypt and got on another bus. Next stop: Mount Sinai, but that was to be several more hours on the bus, going through an inhospitable desert. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for those ancient travelers, carrying everything either on their backs or on donkeys, walking through the heat and the sand in what must have seemed to be an endless wasteland. What was it that kept them going? What made them put one foot in front of the other, day after day after day—for forty years? It was hope, pure and simple. It was the hope that God was fulfilling a promise made to their ancestor, Abraham, when God had told him that he would give his children this land, this promised land, this holy land.

Their first stop was the place where we were headed: Mount Sinai, in the midst of the desert. Fifty days after escaping from slavery in Egypt, the people had arrived at this mountain where, not all that long before, God had called Moses to go and rescue them. When our bus stopped at the foot of this mountain range, as we walked up a slight hill to the monastery that is there, I was tired. But how much more tired had those first travelers been? I had ridden in a bus; they had not. And yet, they gathered there at Sinai, and they received God’s direction for life. If they wanted to be God’s people, this was the way they were going to have to live. After this place, they walked with renewed hope because here they had begun to be shaped into the people of God.

Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, the people of God gathered on another mountain, Mount Zion in Jerusalem, in the last place they had been together with Jesus. They, too, were exhausted, though the weariness was more spiritual and emotional than physical. The crucifixion had nearly killed them, too, and then he had been raised. The last time they had seen him, though, was ten days ago, when he had ascended back to the Father, and at that point they had been told to “wait” for the “gift” God the Father had promised to send (Acts 1:4). In the very near future, they were assured, they would be given everything they needed to be able to live the way God called them to live. In fact, they are specifically told they will be given “power” to be God's people (1:8). And so they waited. For ten days, they waited and they prayed and they waited and they prayed. And then, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, after he had rescued them from slavery to sin and death, something happened.

It was the day of Pentecost, one of the three great festivals that all Jewish men who lived within twenty miles of Jerusalem were legally bound to attend (Barclay, The Acts of the Apostles, pg. 21). That was no problem for these followers of Jesus; they had, in fact, not gone far from Jerusalem since Jesus was crucified and raised. On the day of Pentecost, Luke says, they were all together in one place. They had withdrawn to wait and pray, knowing the next move was up to God (Willimon, Interpretation: Acts, pg. 27). Now, I’ve often wondered why God made them wait ten days. Why not just send the “gift” immediately after Jesus left planet Earth? Well, I don’t know for sure, but I do know that we usually need time to prepare for seismic shifts, radical changes. In those ten days, as they prayed, I believe God was preparing their hearts, opening them up to what God wanted to do among them. They needed those ten days—in fact, they needed the fifty days since the resurrection—to really be ready to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, O God.” It takes time for us to realize that only God can give us what we most desperately need (Willimon 27).

And so, as they are praying, the Holy Spirit comes. In an experience that is somewhat beyond words, the Spirit comes to dwell among these followers of Jesus. Now, lest we assume that God’s Spirit just now showed up, we need to remember that there are many times, going all the way to creation, where the Bible tells us that the Spirit is present, moving, working. The Spirit is present in every age, but on this particular Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes in a mighty rush of wind and in tongues of fire that rested on everyone’s head. These things, symbols really, Luke says came from heaven (2:2) and surrounded the community as a whole but also rested upon each individual person. Wind and fire. Wind to clear out the chaff, the useless stuff, and fire to purify the good that is left. And these disciples, these followers of Jesus, are forever changed. The rest of the book of Acts—the rest of the New Testament, really—is the story of what happened to these followers and to the world because of the coming of the Spirit.

When we think of the Holy Spirit, many of us have different ideas, maybe even frightening ideas. For some, the name “pentecostal” brings up images of wild, uncontrolled worship services. Or we think of that mysterious act, “speaking in tongues.” In fact, maybe some of us have been told that you’re not really “filled with the Spirit” unless you speak in tongues because, they say, that’s what happened on the first Pentecost! And yet, what happened here seems a miraculous event geared for that day. These followers of Jesus are given abilities to proclaim the good news about Jesus in real languages they haven’t learned so that all of those gathered in Jerusalem can understand the message (2:11). There’s not any evidence that these disciples retained that ability. No, the real evidence of the filling of the Spirit, according to the New Testament, is when the fruit of the Spirit begins to grow, begins to be in evidence in our lives. Growing that fruit (love, joy, peace, forbearance [or patience], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—Galatians 5:22-23) is what it means to be more and more like Jesus. After all, the Spirit’s job is to make us more like him in every way.

But there are some specific ways the book of Acts says the Spirit moves and works among the community of believers. First of all, the Holy Spirit is the source of guidance for the believer (Barclay 19). There is story after story in the book of Acts of ways the Spirit provides preparation for the various disciples for situations they’re about to find themselves in. One of them is in Acts 8, when Philip, one of the lesser-known disciples, is directed to go to a particular location. He’s not told why, but when he gets there, he meets a political official from the country of Ethiopia, one who is in charge of all the money for the queen. And when Philip sees this chariot passing by, the Spirit tells him to go over by it, and it’s then he gets into a conversation about matters of faith. At the end of the conversation, he baptizes this official and sends him as an ambassador of the Christian faith back to the country (8:26-40). Now, in my own life, I’ve not heard the Spirit speak quite so clearly as he appears to speak in the book of Acts. But there have been numerous times when the Spirit has given me a nudge in my heart to go some particular place or to do some particular thing. One time, I felt a nudge to go visit Barbara who was in the hospital. It wasn’t part of my plan for that morning; I was planning to go that afternoon. But the nudge wouldn’t go away, so finally I got in the car and headed there, and when I arrived, the nurse was just leaving. Barbara had just been told she had inoperable cancer, and her family was nowhere around. I got to be there and pray with her and talk with her, for the last time as it turned out, and it was just the right time because the Spirit nudged me, guided me. Another time I had been trying to connect with a young man who was seriously ill, and we kept missing each other. His many doctor’s appointments kept him quite busy. One day, though, I got that same nudge, and I had learned from the previous experience to pay attention to that. (Yes, he can be taught!) So I drove the two miles to his home, and he had just gotten home that day. We shared time around the table, and prayed together, and not long after, I got the call to do his funeral. Now, there have been just as many if not more times when I haven’t listened to that voice or paid attention to that nudge. I’m always praying to do better, because one of the Spirit’s works in our lives is to give guidance.

Another way the Spirit works is to give us courage and power (Barclay 19). Jesus, in fact, said that the Spirit would do this. To his followers who, he knew, would be risking their lives in following him, he said, “When they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:19-20). In Acts 4, we see Peter being brought in front of the Sanhedrin, the same group that not that long ago had condemned Jesus to death, and Peter seems unafraid. This ordinary fisherman who, just a couple of months before, had run and hid when Jesus was arrested, now stood before the ruling body and boldly spoke of his faith in Jesus (4:1-22). The Spirit gave him courage. The same Spirit gave courage to a young missionary named Jim Elliot, who was called to give his life to reach the Auca people in Ecuador. And he literally gave his life. He and four other missionaries were speared to death on the banks of a river by the Auca people. For quite a while, no one knew what had happened to them, and even after the truth was learned, his wife Elisabeth returned and spent two years with the people who had killed her husband, sharing the gospel about Jesus. That takes courage! She lived by the words her husband had once wrote: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose” (paraphrased). I confess most of the time I don’t anywhere near that type of courage. There are times when I have done hard things, but it’s been mainly because I had to, not because of any particular amount of courage that I found within myself. And therein lies the problem: I look for courage within myself when all the time the Spirit is waiting to give it to me if I’ll just ask. Elisabeth Elliot didn’t have that kind of courage herself. That is a gift from God’s Holy Spirit. I’m praying for more courage because the days are difficult and we all need to be able to stand firmly for our faith.

And that brings us to the third thing the Spirit does: he makes us into the sort of person God the Father wants us to be (Barclay 20). In Acts 5:32, during a sermon Peter is preaching to the religious leaders, he says that the Holy Spirit is “given to those who obey” God. Peter reminds them, these folks who chose to help put Jesus to death, that obeying God is a choice. God gives us that choice. We have free will, to do good or do harm, to love or to hate, to obey or disobey. But, Peter is saying, only those who obey are given the Holy Spirit. To follow Jesus fully, we must make the choice to obey. We don’t just “happen” to follow Jesus. We don’t just end up in his company by accident. It’s a choice. And when we make that choice, we begin to find the fruit I mentioned earlier growing within us. Sometimes we will claim we don’t know what to do, how to follow Jesus. The Bible is confusing, we say, and the pastor is even moreso! I love the quote from Mark Twain, who once said it wasn’t the parts of the Bible he didn’t understand that concerned him; it’s the parts he did understand. The question is whether or not we’re putting off obeying until we understand it all, because we likely never will! What if we just got busy doing the stuff we know we’re supposed to do, like loving one another, loving our neighbor as ourselves, loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength? What if we just obeyed those things? What if we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, reached out to the outcast? What if we stopped worrying about the things we have no control over and focused on the things we already know God has called us to do? The Spirit shapes us into the people God has meant us to be, and he begins to do that when we take the first step of obedience.

So the Spirit gives guidance, gives courage, and shapes us into Christlike people. But, some of us may be thinking, the Spirit doesn’t seem to be working in those ways, or in any way, in my life! In fact, I feel sort of spirit-less. The question those first followers of Jesus would ask us then is this: are we open to his moving in our life? Or are we closed off? It’s a bit like eating. Since he’s graduating from high school tonight, it seems only fair that I tell a “baby Christopher” story today. Some of you know that he is a picky eater. Very picky. He adds maybe one new food a year, if that. And he’s always been that way. In fact, very early on he had certain baby foods he would eat and certain ones he most definitely would not. And when he didn’t like a certain food, he would clamp his mouth shut and there was nothing either of us could do to get him to open it. No matter how softly we spoke or tried to convince his baby mind that it was good for him, he wasn’t opening his mouth to it. And sometimes we are just like that with the work of the Spirit in our lives. We read about what he did in the Bible. We understand that the Spirit works with some people, but we’re not going to allow him to work in us that way. John Wimber, who later went on to found the Vineyard Churches, once told about the first time he went to church as an adult. He went expecting dramatic things to happen, things like what are described in the Bible. After visiting several Sundays in a row, he went over to an official-looking man and asked him, “When do they do it?” “Do what?” the man replied. “The stuff,” Wimber answered. “What stuff?” “The stuff in the Bible.” “What do you mean?” “You know, multiplying loaves and fish, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind. That stuff.” “Oh,” the man said, “we don’t do that. We believe in it, and we pray about it. But we don’t do it” (http://citppc.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=553) We may believe the Spirit works in particular ways, gives guidance, courage and life-transformation, but are we open to it? Do we have Holy Spirit holes in our lives?

What is known as the middle ages is sometimes called the Dark Ages because it was a time of cultural loss. Rome had been destroyed and this time period was basically a six hundred year Great Depression. Food was scarce, people had very little and civilization hung on by a thread. And yet, in the midst of that was the church. Many of the great cathedrals were built during this time, and that not only gave people jobs, it gave them hope. Even in small towns, the church became the place of beauty, culture and life. Stained glass windows began to be used during this time to tell stories so that those who couldn’t read could learn the stories of the faith.

During this dark time, Pentecost became a huge celebration for the church, and many of them were built with Pentecost specifically in mind. Those high, domed ceilings hid a number of trap doors, holes in the roof, that were used on Pentecost. During the liturgy, these holes would be opened and down would come live doves, swooping over the congregation as living symbols of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The choir would make whooshing and drumming sounds to represent the violent windstorm. Then, as the doves flew back and forth, the trap doors would be opened again and bushels of rose petals would be showered down on the congregation. These red petals were meant to represent the tongues of fire falling on the gathered congregation (http://stjohns-online.org/pentecostCOT.html). Can you imagine what that would have been like? Of course, building codes would never allow us to get away with that today, but these trap doors were known as “Holy Spirit Holes,” and to me, they remind us of the need for us to make “holes,” to make room for the Spirit to enter our lives. If there is no entry point, we will not experience all that God has for us.

So where are some places in our lives where we might be able to make “Holy Spirit Holes,” ways for the Spirit to transform our lives? Let’s start “close to home,” as we might say, with our relationships, those who are closest to us. We’ve just been through six weeks of talking about relationships and how to maintain them, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time here, but the question we have to ask when we seek to form Holy Spirit holes is whether or not there is greater evidence of the fruit of the Spirit growing in our relationships than there was, say, a year ago. Let me remind you of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Right before that list, Paul mentions actions, attitudes and behaviors that he calls “works of the flesh;” in other words, they are things that come from us and not from the Spirit of God. Now, usually when we read that list, we like to focus on the so-called “big” things, the really obvious “sins,” or at least the ones that we’re not (currently) participating in. So we remember that things like “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft…drunkenness, orgies, and the like” are on Paul’s list (Galatians 5:19-21). But we forget that Paul also includes in that list “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy.” He even goes so far as to say, “Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (5:21). Now, at times we all end up feeling those feelings and harboring those resentments, probably especially with those who are closest to us. It really does seem to be true that familiarity breeds contempt. So, with the disciples, we might wonder, “Who then can be saved?” (cf. Luke 18:26). Is there any hope? Thankfully, with God there is always grace, and by allowing the Spirit to work in our own hearts, to grow that fruit, we begin to find our relationships open to his work and we grow in love, joy, peace, patience and the rest. Are we willing to make room for the Spirit to work in and heal our relationships?

Another area of life for the Holy Spirit to work is in our spiritual life, our relationship and walk with Jesus. Actually, this is the crux for me. When I am allowing room for the Spirit to speak to me daily, to work in me minute by minute, I find my emotional and mental health is better because my spiritual health is better. Relationships are better. Work is better. Life is better. My routine is usually to get the kids up and use the time while they are getting ready for school to pray and to read the Bible and to get my thoughts focused on Jesus for the day. However, there are days when that doesn’t happen, and with school out, it will be different. But there are days when the schedule gets too busy, or when I have to be somewhere early in the morning. And the “holes” that I have put in place for the Spirit to work get closed up. There are some times when I get to the end of the day and I’m rather frazzled, and then I glance over to the place where I normally have my devotions and I remember I didn’t do that. I didn’t make room. So I sit down and open myself back up to the work of the Spirit. Martin Luther, the great German reformer, was known for his prayer life, and when he was especially busy, he would get up even earlier to pray. One time, he said he had so much to do that day that he would spend the first three hours in prayer. Would we do that? I confess I’m put to shame by Luther’s example. I would be one who would “get busy, it needs to be done.” But we need to make “holes” (room) for the Spirit to meet us and fill us daily, because we leak.

We do this through what we know as the “means of grace,” those things we do to open ourselves to what God wants to do in us by his Holy Spirit. So we read and study and meditate on the Scriptures. Do you read the Bible regularly, or is the only time you hear words from its pages here in worship? We provide a daily reading guide for every day in the bulletin, and there are many online and offline resources you can use as well. Pastor Deb and I would be happy to help you find one that helps you, that fits your personality. Being in the Scriptures, letting our lives be soaked by its message, is an essential way we open our lives to God’s Spirit. So is prayer, talking to God and listening to him. I could preach a whole series of sermons on that alone—in fact, I have before. But prayer is more than just giving a list of requests to God. It’s opening ourselves to what God wants to do, and in this case, asking God to make you more loving while at the same time helping you heal anything that might have been caused by those “works of the flesh.” Worship is another way we open ourselves to the Spirit. When we worship together, we help each other open up to what God wants to do. We celebrate God’s goodness and remember that it’s not about “me” or even “us.” It’s about what God wants to do through us. At this church, we say we expect everyone in corporate worship unless you’re sick or out of town; it’s that important. It’s here that we experience God’s grace in tangible forms, whether through the hug of a brother or sister in Christ, or through the water of baptism, or the bread and juice of communion. It’s in worship that grace becomes touchable. And, there are other, many other, means of grace we could talk about—things like fasting (everyone’s least favorite practice), healthy living, sharing our faith with others, and so on. The point is this: we need daily routines, practices, habits that open up the Holy Spirit holes in our lives so that he can get in and do his transformative work. Every day.

That work that begins in our spirit then flows out into our daily work life. That’s one of the reasons I believe it’s important, at least for me, to open those conduits for the Spirit in the morning. I need that grace to guide me all day long. Some of you find it better in the evening, so that God’s grace can settle you for the night. You have to find what works for you, but if the Spirit doesn’t impact our work life, then it doesn’t really impact us at all, because that’s where we spend most of our time. And I mean “work” whether you get paid for it or not. Whatever you do to fill your days is your “work.” Do you treat those you work with, those you encounter, with the fruit of the spirit? Do they know you are a follower of Jesus? When we were at Annual Conference, Bishop Greg Palmer told of taking his car to the dealership to have something fixed, and the man checking him in noticed his Bishop’s pin on his lapel. When he asked what that was, Bishop Palmer explained that he was a United Methodist Bishop. “Really?” the man said. “I’m a Methodist, too!” But he didn’t attend church very often. So Bishop Palmer suggested a church nearby, and then went to sit down. A bit later, he was talking with another employee who asked about the pin as well, and said he was very involved in a local Methodist church. Bishop Palmer asked if he knew the man at the counter. Of course he did. Did you know he’s a Methodist? Well, no, the man said, they didn’t talk about things like that. So Bishop Palmer introduced them to each other, and neither of them had any idea the other was part of his church! You see, the question is always whether or not people know that you’re a follower of Jesus in the way you conduct your business, in the way you treat others, in the way you live your life. We open the “Holy Spirit holes” in our work life by living out that fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things, Paul says, there is no law. In other words, there is nothing to stop us from doing and living those things, and as we open our lives to the Spirit, he will help us live that fruit more and more.

I have a friend who is a storm chaser. I think he’s nuts, but he loves to chase tornadoes and other violent weather. He’ll take his vacation time just to chase storms. He’s not content to sit in his home (as I would be) and hear about the storms from the meteorologist (who is safely in his studio). No, he wants to be out there in the middle of it, risking it all to catch a glimpse of a really big storm. As I said, I think he’s nuts, but then I begin to think about the way Luke describes the coming of the Holy Spirit. It’s not a calm, peaceful arrival that the disciples observe clinically from a distance. The picture is more one of a storm, and they are right out in the middle of it. I don’t think that’s a mistake, either that the Spirit came that way or that Luke tells us about it that way, because when it comes to the work of the Spirit in our lives, we’re not supposed to be far-off observers. It’s far more important that we are out in the middle of the storm, arms wide open to allow the Spirit to sweep through our lives, cleanse our hearts, and transform our community (cf. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part One, pg. 22). The Spirit comes to change us from listless believers into fire-filled followers of Jesus. He does not come quietly; he comes in a storm, and he comes to do a new thing. Will you allow the Spirit into your life, to guide you, to give you courage, and to transform you into who God wants you to be? Let’s pray.