Bron of the Spirit
Born of the Spirit by Rev. L. John Gable
June 5, 2022
One doesn’t have to be around us Presbyterians very long to discover that we like to be in control. We like to be in control of our lives and our environments and our emotions. We like to plan our work and work our plan. We tend to be a little buttoned down and like to have all of our “I’s dotted and T’s crossed”. As our Book of Church government (which is appropriately called the Book of ORDER), so clearly states, we, Presbyterians, like to do things, “decently and in order” which is reflected in nearly everything we do, particularly in the way we do worship. Unlike some traditions, we have a set order of worship that is printed for us each week, instructing us as to what to say and do and when to say and do it, with only the occasional divergence of a crying baby, a bird in the sanctuary, a cypher in the organ, or a pastor who inadvertently loses their place in the service. And while those kinds of unplanned surprises at times fluster us, those are actually good things to have happen to us Presbyterians. They remind us that, despite our best efforts, we are not in control, nor do we need to be, particularly when it comes to our relationship with God and what God is doing in the world.
The disciples, in the opening chapter of the book of Acts, acted a lot like us Presbyterians. Out of obedience to Jesus’ instruction for them not to leave the city of Jerusalem until the promise of the Father had been fulfilled and the gift of the Holy Spirit had been given, an instruction we talked about last week, this frightened, leaderless, band of believers bided their time and waited for something to happen (which is never an easy task for those of us who like to be in control of our circumstances, much less our destinies.) Yet, remembering and obeying Jesus’ parting words, “John baptized you with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now”, they waited and watched and prayed, faithfully and obediently, trusting God to fulfill His promise, in His time, not their own. And that too sounds like a pretty Presbyterian thing to do. When in doubt, we trust God to be faithful to His promises.
Ten days later, still in Jerusalem, the Day of Pentecost was upon them. In the Jewish tradition Pentecost was an annual festival which celebrated the ingathering of the first wheat harvest and also commemorated God’s giving of the Law to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai. So, though it was still early in the morning, the streets of the city were brimming with visitors from every nation on earth, but the disciples, along with the others who had professed faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah at that time, perhaps 120 in all, were secluded together, doors locked and windows bolted shut, as much out of fear as obedience, just as they had done each day since Jesus’ ascension in to heaven. They gathered together to wait and watch and pray.
And then it happened! Something totally beyond their control. The room in which they were sitting was suddenly filled with a sound like the rush of a violent wind blowing from heaven, which filled the entire house. Could it be the same wind that blew across the face of the waters on that first morning of mornings at the dawn of creation? The same wind that breathed life in to every living creature? This was the wind of God once again bringing something new to life.
Hearing and feeling that mighty sound, the disciples looked at one another in amazement and saw what appeared to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them; yet like the burning bush in the desert of Sinai when God spoke to Moses, not one of them was scorched. God was doing a new and miraculous thing in their midst…something completely out of their control! And then the promise of the Risen Christ was fulfilled as the power of the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them and each of them began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
The Day of Pentecost had come, but not in the way that anyone had expected. The promise of God was being fulfilled, but not in the way that even those who were waiting, watching and praying could ever have planned or scripted. Everyone was out of control…except God…and that was a very good thing!
You know, being out of control every so often isn’t such a bad idea, even for us Presbyterians. It was exactly because the disciples suddenly found themselves “out of control” that they went out on to the streets of Jerusalem and began proclaiming the Good News of the risen Christ to an assembly of festival goers and each of those foreign visitors heard the message in their own language. It was exactly because the disciples were “out of control” that they got up and went out of their comfort zone of fear and hiding and started telling people about how Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and now risen One, was the Promised Messiah. It was exactly because the disciples were “out of control” that they had the audacity to believe Jesus when He said, “Go and be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” with the life-giving, life-changing, life-transforming message of salvation in My name.” And thank God those disciples were “out of control” because that empowering of the Holy Spirit exploded them out of the safety and comfort and security of that cloistered room in Jerusalem, compelling them to share the Gospel in every known part of the world, until the echo of that message has reached our ears today.
What happened to those first disciples that caused them to so lose control? The power of God’s Holy Spirit was poured out upon them. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead. On that day of Pentecost, God fulfilled His promise by releasing the power of the Holy Spirit upon to those frightened, leaderless believers and they were radically changed by it. They were overcome by a power greater than themselves, a power they had waited for, watched for, and prayed for. And friends, that same life-giving, life-changing, life-transforming power is available to you and me today, but God won’t come where He is not welcomed, so we too need to wait for it, watch for it, and pray for it, trusting God to act in His time and in His way and for His purpose.
This gifting of the Holy Spirit may not come to us in a way that we have come to expect; remember we are not the ones in control when it comes to our relationship with God or whatever it is that God chooses to do with us. It may not come to us with the sound of wind, or flames or the strange utterance of languages. It may not come to us the way it came to another body of believers in another time or place, or in the way it came to our neighbor or friend who tries to convince us that what happened to him or her is exactly what must happen to us. As Jesus tells us, we can’t control the movement of the Spirit any more than we can that of the wind; recall the word for “spirit” in both the Hebrew “ruah” and the Greek “pneuma” can also be translated “wind or breath”. But the Spirit will come to those who wait for it, watch for it, pray for it, to those who open their hearts to it, because it is the gift God desires to give to us, and, in truth, it has already been given to those who put their trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
In the opening verses of the Gospel of John we read, “To those who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of flesh and blood, but of the Spirit of God.” To be Christian means we have opened our hearts and our lives to the indwelling of the Spirit of God when we confess our faith and submit (another word for letting go of control over our own lives) to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We believe in the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so when we confess our faith in Jesus we don’t get one or two, but all three. As we confess our faith in Christ we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit as well, who then enters in to our hearts and begins doing God’s life-giving, life-changing, life-transforming work in us, from the inside out. This is what it means to be a Christian.
To be a Christian Church means that we are a community of believers gathered together and united by that same Spirit of Christ. We are a church, a part of the universal body of Christ, not because we are a group of like-minded people (on many issues we most certainly are not); not simply because we enjoy one another’s company (again, we mostly do but not always); not because we have a similar disposition toward life or have carved the name of our denomination above the door of our building. We are a church because the Spirit of God lives and dwells and works and acts within us and through us, and because we pray continually for that to happen. So, we are bound together, like it or not, by something, by some One, who is so much greater than we are. To say we are Christian, individually or collectively, is to say, “We are out of control”, simply because, by faith in Jesus Christ, we have surrendered our control to the Spirit of God. Thanks be to God!
The Christian Church was born on that first Pentecost day. There was a change that took place that day that has altered the lives of men and women, of families and nations, and has changed the course of human history. No longer were those first disciples an isolated little group of frightened individuals who dared to name the name of Jesus. After Pentecost they were bound together as a community of faith by the uniting power of the Spirit of God. That event, so long ago, was the origin of the Christian faith, not as an institution but as a movement driven by the Spirit of the risen Christ. As professor Hans Kung writes, “That event is more than a starting point or the first phase of its history. It is something which at any given time determines the whole history of the Church and defines its essential nature.” Put that another way, Pentecost did not just happen once, long ago and far away, to another group of people who have nothing to do with us. No, Pentecost is what happens again and again and again as hearts are opened to the indwelling of the Spirit of God, as individuals and churches pray for God to guide them, lead them, empower them, use them in the work of the Kingdom, trusting that He can and will.
If you were with us last week you may recall me saying that Pentecost defines the essential nature and purpose of the Church, our very reason for being. The Holy Spirit was given, then and now, so that we will be empowered to be a missionary society, sharing and bearing the Good News of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Like the disciples long ago, today we come together in worship, to watch and wait and pray. Like the disciples long ago, today we celebrate this sacred meal, the body and blood of Christ, together, and pray the Holy Spirit to be known to us and descend upon us. And like the disciples long ago, today, by the same Spirit of God which empowered them, we pray that we too might be sent out on to our streets, into our city, out in to the world bearing witness to the Good News of the Gospel. May it be our prayer that this might be our Pentecost day, not because it is so printed on the front page of our bulletins, but because this day we too might surrender ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the empowering of His Holy Spirit, and so “lose control”.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN