Acts 2:1-21
Breath is the most natural thing in the world, until it’s not. It’s almost entirely automatic, and that’s a good thing. If we had to think about it our lives would be in peril every time we dropped off to sleep, or our minds wandered even a little bit. We take breathing for granted most of the time, but then there are moments when we realize how amazing it is.
When a newborn child takes his first breath, there is a cheer of relief and delight in the room. In the same way, those who sit watch at a deathbed let out a sigh of prayer when the dying person has breathed her last. Breath separates life from death.
So many more of us became acutely aware of this during these past couple of years of COVID-19. Many more people experienced what it is like to not be able to draw breath. Many more people fought hard for breath, many more breathed their last during our season of pandemic.
It is a terrifying thing to struggle for breath. An asthma attack, a panic attack, will make you focus on one thing alone – drawing air into your lungs. Breathing. When I was a child I sometimes had moments of anxiety and I would rush to my mother and say, “Mama, I can’t breathe!” She would get down at my level, hold my eye and say, “Yes you can. Breathe in…now breathe out.” And she would get me to match my breathing with hers until I calmed down. I just needed someone to remind me: I am alive, I can breathe. I am here in the now.
We don’t really control our breath in the big picture – whether we mean to or not, we breathe. But in some small, yet significant, ways we can. Sometimes when I am tense, I take very shallow breaths, but if I can remember to breathe deeply, the tension will dissipate. In exhaling fully, you let go, in more ways than one.
As an adult I have learned to use breath prayers to bring a sense of calm. It is the simplest kind of prayer. A short phrase on the inhale and another short phrase on the exhale. A breath prayer helps to ground us right where we are, when our body and mind want to fly off somewhere else. I often say, right here in the present moment is the best place to be because it is where Jesus is.
Jesus is here…with us…right now…always. It is what he promised us so long ago.
His first disciples heard this promise, but of course it was too hard for them to really understand it. He was gone, and they were left on their own. What were they to do now?
They remembered his words about sending an advocate for them, a counselor, two different ways of translating the word paraclete. What could this paraclete be?
Soon they would begin to discover. On that day of Pentecost, which is one of the Jewish festivals, also called the Feast of Weeks. It is a harvest festival. And it was a time for the Jews to make pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem.
The day of Pentecost was a little more than a week after the day they had seen Jesus ascend, when they had gone with him out to the Mount of Olivet. On that day, he seemed to disappear before their eyes rising up into the air. They stood there, dumbly, not a clue what to do, until two angels appeared and said, “So, why are you just standing here?” They went back into Jerusalem then, back to the room where they had been staying for some time. Over the next ten days, they devoted themselves to prayer. And they selected someone to take the place of Judas as the 12th disciple, or as they are now called, apostle.
That was pretty much it. For ten days. Pray, fill an open seat on the leadership committee. And maybe, just maybe, they were reminding one another to breathe deeply.
And that is when the Spirit of God rushed in.
It sounded like a violent wind, they said. It seemed to be coming directly from heaven, they thought. The sound of wind, the appearance of flame, the effect of breath and speech.
Everything changed in that moment when God poured out God’s Spirit.
The Spirit gave them words to say and the courage to say them. The Spirit gave them ears to hear and hearts to receive these words. The Spirit gave them dreams to dream and a willingness to change. When they had reached their human limits, the Spirit was there.
When we have reached our human limits, the Spirit of God will step in and the power of God will take us where we need to go.
In the book of Acts, we see how this played out after that first Pentecost. The apostles spoke, they sang, they dreamed the dreams God gave them and then they followed those dreams where God led them. The apostles of Jesus went where they were sent and turned away from places that were shut off to them. They were obedient to the Spirit and the church flourished.
Our identity as the church is dependent on the pouring out of God’s Spirit. And God is generous in doing so.
Each time we gather around Christ’s table and receive bread and cup, the Spirit refills us, renews us, preparing us for whatever new thing God will send us into. The Spirit will open doors and unite people who might have previously thought themselves too different from one another. This is what the Spirit does best.
On Pentecost we see very clearly the way God blows past barriers and brings people together in surprising ways. By the power of the Spirit, Peter was understood by the crowds of people who came from everywhere in the Diaspora. By the power of the Spirit, everyone was able to understand his words, no matter what language they knew.
How do we see God opening up new paths for us today? God is bringing people from all walks of life into our domain. Through the ministry of HOPE downstairs, we meet different kinds of people. Through the ministry of Rebirth in the Langeler Building, we meet different kinds of people. We meet people who speak languages different from our own languages, people who have walked paths quite different from our own paths, people whose abilities and expectations might be quite different from our own abilities and expectations. People whose lives put them at a very different starting point than our own starting point.
God is doing some very interesting things here in this place. The Spirit of God is ready and able to guide us, empower us to work together. And so we have a choice: we can be like the ones on that day of Pentecost who sneered. “Nothing good is going on here. They’re drunk.” Or we can join those who ask for God to show us, “What does this mean?”
What does it mean? Do we yet know? When in doubt, breathe in the Spirit of God:
Spirit of God –
We breathe in and receive your love;
We breathe out and share it with the world.
When we don’t know what to do, I trust that God will show us. When we have reached the limits of our imagination, I know that God’s Spirit will pour out upon us. When we are open to receiving it, I rejoice that God will guide us into the lovely work God has prepared for us to do.
All thanks and glory to God.
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Photo by Paul Bulai on Unsplash
