Acts 2.14-21
The Vicar was saying goodbye to folks at the door after the service. A woman said, “Vicar, that was a marvellous sermon.” The Vicar said, “Oh, I have to give the credit to the Holy Spirit.” “It wasn’t THAT good!” she replied.
Today we are thinking about the Holy Spirit, and as we do, “Happy Birthday to us!” Pentecost is traditionally seen as the birthday of the Church.
If we conflate the stories in the Gospels and Acts we read how the disciples, who were the Church ‘in embryo’ had been traumatised by Jesus death, become ecstatic at Jesus resurrection, and were astounded by Jesus ascension. They have been on an emotional roller-coaster for months, and now they gather, and are literally aflame with inspiration and passion for the Gospel.
Something remarkable happened after Jesus death – the disciples moved from despair to hope, their faith in Jesus, once shattered, changed into a courage and a faith for which they were prepared to die. Jesus is transformed from a historical human being, to spiritual being, to God, Godself.
The early Church found it hard to put this experience of Jesus-after-the-crucifixion into words, so they started to put the experience into the language of resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost.
Death was not the end of Jesus: so they talked of Resurrection
But we still have to say goodbye to Jesus: so there was an Ascension
We are changed by the experience of Jesus – the Spirit of Jesus now lives in us: so the story of Pentecost.
Whatever we believe, it is certainly true that after the crucifixion of Christ the disciples had been cowering in secret, but now the doors are flung open and they enter the streets, they are so full of Joy and excitement, that bystanders accuse them of being drunk.
Though we can not know for sure, tradition has it that all of the disciples went forward from this day to face martyrdom. The flames of Pentecost were not quenched by death and persecution.
All this, the book of Acts tells us, because of the Holy Spirit.
The ‘Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church’ describes the ‘Holy Spirit’ as ‘…the Third Person of the Trinity, distinct from, but consubstantial, coequal and coeternal with the Father and the Son, and in the fullest sense God.’
This description of the Holy Spirit won the argument that had raged for the early centuries of the Christian Church. It was formally accepted in terms similar to these at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
The Bible does talk about the ‘Spirit of God,’ and the ‘Holy Spirit.’ And as Christians pondered the mystery of God as revealed in Christ, and in the workings of the Spirit, a theology developed that placed the Holy Spirit in the context of a Trinity.
That is the theme of next Sunday, Trinity Sunday. (When I will explain the Trinity and clear up any questions you may have about it!!)
Today, as we think about the Spirit I want us to consider that the Spirit of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, what we, in Christian New Testament terms describe as the Holy Spirit, is the Hebrew word ‘Ruach’, which is feminine in form. God is beyond human gender and beyond human language, but in the same way that “God our Father” is a male metaphor for God, so “Holy Spirit” is a female metaphor – the Spirit’s gender is literally lost in translation.
Spirit is not the only female image for God in the Bible. One of my favourites is Holy Wisdom: For example in Proverbs chapter 1, we read:
“Wisdom cries aloud in the street; in the markets she raises her voice… Give heed to my reproof; behold, I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you… Those who listen to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of evil.”
Wisdom is a feminine image of God, just as Logos, God’s Word, is an image for God in the Gospel of John (traditionally read at the end of Carol Services “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”).
Other female images for God in the Hebrew Scriptures include Mother (Hosea 11.3; Isaiah 66.13), and Mother Eagle (Deuteronomy 32.11-12; Psalm 57.1). God is like a woman in travail (Isaiah 42.14), God is frequently ascribed a womb (Job 38.30; Isaiah 46.4 and 49.15) and God gives birth to her people (Deuteronomy 32.18; Numbers 11.12). God is both the master and mistress of the house (Psalm 123.2). God is a midwife (Psalm 22.9-10).
In Genesis 1.27 God is described creating humankind with the words ‘in the image of God he created them, male and female, he created them.’ The image of God is as much in women as in men. Women and men reflect God’s image equally.
And it is tho idea of God-in-us that leads us back to the Spirit. The Spirit is the spark of the divine that lives in each one of us.
This is a magnificent Church. But of infinitely more value and worth, is the Church that St. Paul calls ‘the Temple of the Holy Spirit’, and that is you, and me.
God the infinite Creator of the universe, the Saviour who came down to earth as the most inspiring figure in human history, this is the God who has chosen to make her home in us.
How else could a small group of mostly uneducated, poor, ragged disciples of a Lord executed in the most horrific manner, turn the world upside down?
If you continue to read the book of Acts you will find them persecuted, on trial, in prison, flogged, stoned, despised by the authorities of the day, but always coming back for more. They were unstoppable. It is not long since Jesus was executed, their lives were still in danger, but they could not contain themselves. The Holy Spirit was amongst them – they ran out into the street deliriously telling the world the Good News.
They devoted their lives totally to God. They shared a common purse, giving to each according to their needs from a pooled fund. They were inspirational characters, apostles, saints and martyrs. We hold feasts in their honour, depict them in stained glass.
But I strongly believe that the Holy Spirit was not in them more than she is in us, nor was the Holy Spirit stronger in them than She is in us.
On the day of Pentecost they became aware of truth, that is just as true today as it was back then. The Holy Spirit is in you. God is to be found in the human heart and mind. We are temples of the Holy Spirit
Let us live like the people who know it.
tadonnelly 