Acts 2:1-21

John 3:5-9

When did you last feel the activity of the Holy Spirit? 

The simple question makes a lot people feel awkward, especially us Congregationalists. Talk of the “Holy” Spirit makes us think that the Spirit is something apart from our everyday lives. We begin to sense our own remoteness from God. 

The theologian Jürgen Moltman suggests that it is a different matter to ask: “When were you last conscious of the ‘spirit of life?’”¹ We can answer that question out of our own everyday experiences. We will talk of times of being consoled in grief, occasions when we have been encouraged as we went through difficult circumstances, moments when we have felt a deep and abiding joy.  

Speaking of the Spirit of Life, we recall the love of life which delights us. And the power of the spirit is the living power which this love of life awakens in us. 

The Spirit of God is called the Holy Spirit because it makes us alive, not because it is separated from life. The Spirit sets this life of ours in the presence of the living God and in the great river of eternal love. There is a connection between our experience of God and our experience of life.  

We see this more clearly when we speak of the Spirit of Life—the Spirit poured out at Pentecost, the Spirit we know still today. 

The Spirit of Life is a power that moves us. 

Years in the wilderness shaped the life of the Hebrew people. They thought of God using the

analogy of the fierce desert wind. In the desert the wind would arise suddenly, prove incapable of being bound, possess enormous power, and then disappear. 

This wind was called the ruach, the word we translate both as “spirit” and as “breath.” The Hebrew people understood the ruach as nothing less than the breath of God. The divine is the living compared with the dead, and what is moving compared with the things that are petrified and rigid: dry bones, hardened hearts. 

When Jesus spoke of the Spirit of God, he spoke out of his Jewish understand: “The spirit—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.” We sense the Spirit of God, but we can neither control it nor predict its movements. 

When the early Christians—raised and nurtured as Jewish people—told of their experience during the Jewish feast of Pentecost, they turned to those wilderness images, those desert memories: “Suddenly there came from the sky what sounded like a strong, driving wind, a noise which filled the whole house where they were sitting . . . They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” 

Can you sense the feeling of being seized and possessed by something overwhelmingly powerful? This is a movement that sweeps people off their feet. Dry bones come to life, hardened hearts are softened. 

This power is behind the quality of surprise in the Christian life. Again and again we find ourselves doing things that astonish us. The Spirit leads us in directions we wouldn't dare take on our own.  

A strange thing about the Spirit of God whom we encounter in the scripture lessons we heard today. When there is confusion and bewilderment, the Spirit is present. Or maybe we could say when the Spirit is present there is confusion and bewilderment. 

Nicodemus, coming to Jesus in the night and hearing his cryptic words about the wind and the Spirit asks: “How can these things be?” 

In Jerusalem, on Pentecost, the crowd hears the followers of Jesus speaking in many different languages by the power of the Holy Spirit. They were “amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’” 

John Calvin said that faith is the principle work of the Spirit. On these occasions the Spirit seems to bring confusion, doubt, and uncertainty.  

Faith is not certainty. It even has been said that the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. So it is that the late Krister Stendahl suggested that we should invoke the Spirit when we are uncertain, when we do not know, when we are facing new situations.² 

The presence of the Spirit is perplexing as much as it is comforting. The Spirit comes—as Jesus promised—when we don’t know what to say, when we are at a loss for the right words. When the forces around us are silencing and accusing us, the Spirit comes to give voice and to advocate for God’s new creation. 

In a time like our own, when new situations seem to present themselves every day, when old answers have stopped making sense, it is important to recover an awareness of the work of God's Spirit in and among us. 

The Spirit brings not certainty but vision.  

Peter stands up and tells the crowd: “These people aren't drunk. What's happening here is the fulfillment of God's promise: ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young shall see visions, and your old shall dream dreams.’” 

Dreams and visions are not always certain, but they are filled with power. When a vision is given expression, when it is shared with others wonderful things can happen.

For eight months now we have talked and prayed and worshipped together. As I talk with people, we keep coming back to certainty and uncertainty. 

We are certain of our continuing commitment to this place, this corner. We know that the problems are many—an aging building that often hides the good things happening inside with no parking in surrounded by a university in a town facing its own challenges. We are certain of our commitment to minister to this campus and the city. 

And we are uncertain as well—uncertain as to what should we be doing. 

It’s OK to be at the point where we say: “I don’t know,” because, as I said, the Spirit is at work when we are uncertain, when we are perplexed, when the new is coming into being. 

We are, however, starting to get a better picture—a vision—of what we might do and be. 

The Mission Board has been at the vanguard of some of this work because it has fallen to them to be the stewards of the $100,000 gift to be used for outreach in our community. Some of what the Mission Board has had to do is look at who we are and imagine what we can be as a congregation. 

One phrase that came up early in their conversations was: “Nurturing Body, Mind, and Spirit.” This congregation cares about all three: physical well-being, the education of children, youth, and adults, and the care of our souls. The task ahead is a joyful one—finding ways to use money we already have to do something we want to do with folks who are waiting for it to happen. 

We don’t know, but the Spirit is at work—breathing life, lighting fires. 

A month ago I had a wonderful time meeting with the Christian Century Group on a Sunday evening as we talked about “The Church in the City.” Our conversation started with an article of that title about churches in Chicago—much larger churches in a much larger city. The discussion soon turned to this church in this city. We recognized the things we do well: music, faithful questioning, the dialogue of science and faith. Some wondered aloud if we really know this city.  

Certainty.  

Uncertainty. 

The Spirit of Life among us. 

God's Spirit blows in what might be called an “Easterly” direction, away from death and decay, away from the confines of regrets over the past, missed opportunities in the present. The Spirit of God moves toward resurrection.  

The Spirit of God comes as a soft spring breeze, as a sacred flame—but we must never try to tame the Spirit with our imagery; for when we speak of a breeze or even a strong wind we must also remember the tornado; when we speak of flame or even a refining fire, we must also remember the conflagration. The Spirit of Life blows where it will and is always out of our control. 

The Spirit of Life comes upon us in our chaos as the Spirit hovered over the waters of chaos at creation. 

The Spirit comes to us in our uncertainty as the Spirit came to those asking “What is this?” and “How can this be?” 

We can’t control God’s Spirit, but occasionally, as with the wind, we can feel the presence of the Spirit in our lives, in this congregation. And if we are open to that presence, we will find faith—not certainty, but faith—as we face the new situations that life brings to us. 

The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Life.