The Wind is blowing!

Wind! It’s amazing! It’s hard to believe it’s actually there. You can’t see it coming or going. You don’t know where it has been or where it is going. You can’t even see it while it’s here. But you can see the effects of it.

I used to live in California many years ago, and as we would travel about in California, especially in Southern California, we would see acres and acres of wind turbines harnessing the energy of the wind. Wind has tremendous energy. Even a little bit of wind can do all kinds of things. A little wind can dry clothes on the clothes line. (You don’t really want a big wind for this or you’ll be chasing your clothes across the neighbor’s yard!) A gentle breeze can lift a kite and at the same time lift the spirits of the smallest child as they delight in seeing the wind at work. Some winds are strong and “violent” as the Acts 2 passage.

Now picture yourself in a crowded upper room with many people going about the daily activities of eating, praying, and talking together, wondering what will be the sign of which Jesus had spoken just before he ascended into heaven. He had not said what it would be like. He had only said that they would receive power when the Holy Ghost had come upon them. He had not said it would be loud, he had only said that it would be in a few days, but he had not said how many. How long would they need to wait? How would they know when it had occurred, this infusion of power? So many questions. Yet, prayer was the only connector between them and God since Jesus was no longer physically with them.

Then it happened! The writer of Acts doesn’t say that they felt a breeze. The writer of Acts, who undoubtedly had heard the apostles describe the event over and over, says that it was the “sound like the rush of a violent wind” (NRSV) -- New King James translators call it the “sound from heaven of a rushing mighty wind.” So they hear the sound, but the wind is not a normal wind. It is the sound of a violent wind. Not the sound of the gentle rustling grass in the middle of a summer afternoon. This sound was the sound of a tornado shaking the windows and rattling the dishes, a violent, noisy, loud wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Imagine for a moment, the sound of the loudest tornado you’ve ever been in – like the rattling of the train down here as the railroad thunders down the tracks. That’s the sound they heard that day – the loud thunder of a violent wind. Notice that the sound first fills the house, then it fills the people. And each person began doing something that had never been done by unlearned Galilean men before – they started sounding like the United Nations – translating into other languages what the Holy Spirit was saying through them so that people from all over came and could understand in their native tongue.

We can learn the following points about the Holy Spirit from lectionary readings for today:

• Each person is given a gift or gifts by the Holy Spirit to be used for the common good – for the building up of the saints and for the good of all the people.
• Not all people are given the same gifts or even gifts for the same purpose, but all are for the common good – to build the kingdom of God.
• The Holy Spirit gives to each person personally what that person needs to become God’s witness, but the effects are for the community of faith.
• The Gifts of the Spirit are not to be confused with the Fruit of the Spirit, those qualities
  that the Holy Spirit gives to us and builds in us for the purpose of enabling us to live the Christian life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, gentleness and faithfulness.
• The Gifts of the Spirit are not given for building up an individual, but a body of believers.
• The Gifts of the Spirit are always given as aids in ministry to the congregation to enable them to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the larger community and to the world.
• Among some other gifts mentioned elsewhere in the Bible are the gift of helping others, the gift of supporting ministry financially or giving, the gift of preaching, the gift of teaching, the gift of administration, the gift of nurturing, the gift of hospitality, and many, many others.
• The Holy Spirit always gives you the tools and enables you to do ALL that God has called you to do. Spiritual gifts are the tools for doing God’s work to build God’s kingdom.
• The Holy Spirit ALWAYS gives glory to God.
  

This happened almost 2000 years ago. So what does all of this mean to us today?

• God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God never changes.
• The Holy Spirit is still active and present in the lives of every single believer today.
• In John Wesley’s sermon on the Witness of the Spirit, Discourse I, written in 1746, he wrote, “The testimony of the Spirit is an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God directly ‘witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God’; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me; that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God” (Sermons, 149).

Have you had that experience of the Spirit?

When we are truly born again, when our spirits are awakened to God’s presence in our lives and we surrender to that holy presence in our live, God gives us the Holy Spirit to live in us and to guide us. This Spirit that whispers to our souls and minds is the same Spirit that thundered through the air in that upper room.

Have you experienced the Holy Spirit’s presence and action in your own life?

You might say, “yes, but I haven’t had the thunderous experience I read about in Acts.” Sometimes the Spirit comes in thunderous powerful experiences, and sometimes in a quiet gentle way of speaking so that the impression is made ever so gently on one’s soul. As John Wesley said once in a letter to a lady who asked him the same question: Let the Spirit decide how He will work in your life. It is His work to be done in His way.

Do you know God’s Spirit’s work in your life? Can you see the waves crashing as a result of his spirit or do you see the gentle ripple of the stream? Let Him work in your life the way He wishes. It is your job to make yourself available to His work in your life.

• Remember that the Holy Spirit witnesses to each person individually and intimately – each person’s experience of the Holy Spirit is unique.
• Also, remember that the Holy Spirit enables you with gifts or tools to do all that God has called you or is calling you to do.
• And never forget that the Holy Spirit ALWAYS gives the glory to God, for it is God’s work in your life, not your own.

Come, Holy Spirit.