by Revd Chrys M Tremththanmor
Texts: Acts 2: 1-21; John 20: 19-23
Hi everyone. I have to admit that I didn’t expect to be standing up here this morning. My GP seemed convinced that she’s managed to get me a short cut through the NHS system, and that I’d be having my operation last Monday. However, when I saw the plastic surgeon it was only for an initial consultation. Now I have to wait for a letter in the post to tell me the date and time of my operation.
Times like these I’m reminded of that old Rolling Stones song, the one which goes, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’ I’d made all the arrangements to clear the diary, expecting to be off my feet last week. So Monday afternoon I was trying to put everything back into the diary again!
We don’t always get what we want. That was the experience of the early disciples. Throughout their time with Jesus they were very clear what they wanted from him. They wanted Jesus to be a military ruler, they wanted him to make Israel a mighty kingdom again.
Even after Jesus’ resurrection the disciples still don’t understand. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read,
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’
So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’
Here we are again, even at their last physical meeting with Jesus the disciples are still fixated on an earthly kingdom. They want him to have earthly power, and perhaps they were still hoping that they’d share that earthly power with him.
But Jesus is promising them something different. They will be baptised with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will be giving them power, so that they can preach the Gospel throughout the world, ‘to the ends of the earth.’
Today we are celebrating that momentous occasion. We’ve had that annual tongue twister, listing the peoples who were gathered in Jerusalem. By the way, I don’t know how to pronounce many of those place names, so please don’t ask me! The important point is that Jerusalem was filled with people from many places around the known world.
Up until Pentecost the disciples had still been a small, frightened bunch. They were only 120 people, according to the first chapter of Acts. They devoted themselves to prayer whilst they waited for what Jesus had promised them, this Holy Spirit thingy. They didn’t quite know what to expect. They had wanted Jesus to bring in an earthly kingdom. What they got was the Holy Spirit.
But what is the Holy Spirit? The church has pondered this for centuries. If you look at the creed we recite Sunday after Sunday the Holy Spirit gets just a short bit at the end. Not much to go on, is it?
I think the Holy Spirit often gets little thought or mention in many churches. Is it hard to get our heads around what he—or perhaps she?—is? We can get the idea of God, creator, like a mother or father to us. Jesus, the one who came from God to walk this earth as our redeemer—that too is easy to visualise. But what’s the place of the Holy Spirit in all this?
We should note that the Holy Spirit is not some vague power like ‘the Force’ in the Star Wars films. Christian doctrine states that the Holy Spirit is a ‘person’ in the Godhead, even as the Father and the Son are distinct persons. The Holy Spirit is a he, or a she, even as much as God and Jesus are. The Holy Spirit is not an ‘it.’
Earlier in the Gospel of John Jesus had compared the Holy Spirit to the wind. Jesus said, ‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Like the wind, we may not see the Spirit. But we can see where she’s been by what has happened from her presence.
Jesus described the Holy Spirit as ‘the Spirit of truth’ and also called the Holy Spirit ‘the Comforter.’ The Holy Spirit is the one who leads us to Jesus, and who comes to comfort us in times of trial. When we’ve had an encounter with God, it is the Holy Spirit who has inspired and comforted us.
At Pentecost the Holy Spirit broke down the walls caused by divisions of nation and language. Remember that all those people in Jerusalem could understand what the disciples were saying to them, and they were hearing the disciples’ words in their own native language. I don’t pretend to know what happened that morning in Jerusalem, but I would point out that some things are universal and above language in the human condition. Truth and love are recognised and valued by peoples of all cultures.
Above all, what the Holy Spirit did at Pentecost was to give the disciples that power Jesus had promised to them. The disciples went from being frightened people, hiding behind locked doors, to courageous men and women who declared the Gospel in the streets of Jerusalem. The disciples had wanted earthly power. What Jesus gave them, through the Holy Spirit, was spiritual power. This spiritual power would see the disciples remain faithful to Jesus even during rather gruesome deaths, and this spiritual power enabled the early church to not only withstand persecution but to add rapidly to the number of believers.
We don’t always get what we want. But, as the Rolling Stones song continued, we get what we need. God knows what we need, better than we know ourselves. I must admit, my experience of the Holy Spirit isn’t so much of a comforter as a disturber. One of my nicknames for the Holy Spirit is ‘The Great Disturber.’ Just when I think I know where I’m going in life, what my plans are, the Holy Spirit blows in and stirs everything up. But then, I’m not here to set up my own personal kingdom. God’s plans are for me to follow and to serve him. Many times I’ve come to realise that I may know what I want--but God knows what I need. Amen.