Make A Wish/ Pentecost

Several years ago the church I served was celebrating the 100th birthday of one of our charter members. I ordered a giant cake and had meticulously placed all 100 candles on top. I even had a team to help me light them all, but needless to say by the time we lit them all and sang, this man aged backwards by 50 years because at least half of them had melted into the cake. Still, he grinned from ear to ear and walked up to this glowing cake that looked more like a science experiment and gave his best breath as we all shouted “make a wish.” I don’t know what he wished for that day and I sure hope it came true, but isn’t it interesting that on birthdays our breath is connected to our dreams?

There is something sacred about our breath. I was in a yoga class recently here and I can still hear Erin gently saying “remember to breathe.” She would calmly say it as I was wobbling trying to hold a pose and I would think, “ah, breath, that’s what I’m forgetting.”

We probably don’t often treat our breath as sacred. What’s so holy about our breathing? Well, the word for Spirit in Acts is referring to the wind, to this life-giving breath. We see this life-giving breath or Spirit before Creation hovering over the waters. We see this same Spirit anoint Mary and take on the flesh of Jesus. We see this same Spirit then land upon Jesus and prepare him for his ministry. This holy breath is the same breath that Jesus exhaled onto his disciples in the Upper Room, and it is the same wind that blew into the room that Pentecost day.

While we presently celebrate Pentecost as the birth of the Church through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, those gathered together that day were simply gathering as they always had for a Jewish festival celebrating when the law was given at Sinai. It was special of course, but nothing out-of-the-ordinary. They were still processing the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, still trying to figure it all out…and then the breath of God shows up!

Barbara Brown Taylor says, “There they were, about a hundred and twenty of them, Luke says, all moping around wondering what they were going to do without Jesus, when they heard a holy hurricane headed their way. Before any of them could defend themselves, that mighty wind had blown through the entire house, striking sparks that burst into flames above their heads, and they were filled up with it – every one of them was filled to the gills with God’s own breath. Then something clamped down on them and the air came out of them in languages they did not even know they knew.”

Taylor Mertin was sharing how a friend of his was preparing for Pentecost this year and they were going to blast confetti canons in the church that Sunday. When asking why, his friend said “Because we want people to see that the Spirit is full of surprises.”

Now of course we try to understand Pentecost, to analyze it and explain it, but before we go down that road we might take notice that even those closest to Jesus were bewildered, amazed, astonished, perplexed, surprised, and asking one another” what does this mean?”

Did you notice all the languages? I count 15 areas represented alone. Everyone began to speak in other languages, but what’s even more fascinating is that they understood each other.

When we don’t know the language, we feel like things can get lost in translation and we need an interpreter. They now have earbuds that you can wear that work in real-time to translate the foreign language into your language. As Americans, we sometimes think we are the exception and can get frustrated when others don’t automatically speak English, even when we are visiting another country and haven’t bothered in the least to learn their native tongue.

When we don’t speak one another’s language, things get confusing pretty quickly. For a long time, Pentecost has been thought to be the reverse of Babel. Perhaps some of you remember that story in the Old Testament where they try to build a tower reaching to the heavens and God confuses their languages so that they can no longer communicate. So is Pentecost just undoing Babel by restoring order where there was once confusion?

What is the Spirit up to? Who is Pentecost really for? Amy Oden says “This gift of the Holy Spirit that marks the birth of the church is a gift expressly for those outside the Jesus movement, those who had lived displaced in a language-world not their own.” The Holy Spirit breaks the language barrier. The Holy Spirit becomes the common thread. The Holy Spirit becomes the translator of the people of God.

The Spirit of God is available to all people in their own language. Margaret Aymer says “the reversal of Babel would have been the creation of one unifying language. Rather than requiring all of the people to speak one language, Pentecost gives power to the band of Jesus followers to speak the languages of the world, to tell the gospel in every language. The early church was to bear witness to the ends of the earth in the languages of the people of the world; on the day of Pentecost, Christianity became a religion with a divine sanction to multilingualism and to translation.”

On the General Conference live stream you could see people from all over the world in worship together, speaking and praising God in their own language and cultural attire. Luke says “when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” Pentecost creates unity of Spirit, not uniformity.

Diana Butler Bass describes it this way: “At Pentecost, the wind drives fire on the crowd, across the world, and through the cosmos. God’s breath remakes the universe, restores the oneness of all creation, and births a new humanity. All ground is scorched with holiness, all bodies soaked with the Spirit. All. All. All.”

Everyone was so amazed that they were accused of being drunk, but Peter says no man this is a different kind of Spirit. It’s just as Joel prophesied “in the last days, 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.” This Spirit is pouring out the dream of God upon all of God’s people. Danielle Shroyer says “Without Pentecost, we’d just be people who tell Jesus’ story. With Pentecost, we are people who live into Jesus’ story.”

It is as the fourth verse of Frederick Faber’s hymn There is a Wideness in God’s Mercy says, “For the love of God is broader than the measures of the mind, and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.”

The Spirit is full of surprises, if only we remember to breathe.

What would happen if we all just remembered to breathe and receive the Holy Spirit? Not to hold our breath but to let it out.

What would happen?

What dreams do you hold close to your chest in the realm of impossibility that breath of God could release?

Would we begin to care more about being connected than being correct?

Would we love each other as God loves?

Would we allow the Spirit to lead us even when we aren’t sure of or in charge of the destination?

Would we be filled with passion for God in worship and home and work and play?

What would happen when we remember to breathe?

Remember to breathe, not just today but every day. Let us take a deep breath in. We aren’t meant to hold it. We are meant to have the holy exhale. Pentecost is “the very gift of life from God, for the people of God. Its’ the one thing that keeps our hearts truly and fully alive.”

Remember to breathe. Make a wish. For the Holy Spirit is full of surprises.