From the Pulpit:

 
Pentecost was as big a deal for the Jews of Jesus’ day as Passover or Sukkot. It was a harvest feast day and also the day on which they celebrated God’s giving of the law to Moses. Some say it is the birthday of the Torah.

And for us it is as big a deal as Christmas or Easter, but thankfully the marketplace has failed to co-opt it, and while preaching for Christmas and Easter is pretty straightforward -- either Incarnation or Resurrection -- Pentecost is harder to get our minds around. It’s the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. Well, it’s easier to talk about the first two members of the Holy Trinity. There’s lots to say about God the Father, the Creator, and about Jesus, who actually walked on earth and left behind a bunch of stories. But the Holy Spirit? Frankly, we don’t even know what pronoun to use? He? She? It? No, it isn’t the right word at all, but English lacks a gender neutral personal pronoun, so we’re left up in the air.

And, anyhow, what is a spirit? What does it look like? Well, isn’t that the point? You can’t see a spirit. It is the ultimate mystery, and yet, as this story proves by virtue of the fact that it has been told and lived for two thousand years, it is the most real thing there is.

How many of you all saw the you tube video this week of four year old Jessica chanting her affirmation, dressed in jammies and with bouncing blond curls as she jumps up on the vanity in the bathroom so she can admire her wondrous self in the mirror and launches into her cheer: “My whole house is great. I can do anything good.  I like my school. I like anything.  I like my dad. I like my cousins.
I like my aunts.  I like my Allisons. I like my moms. I like my sisters. …  I like my hair. I like my haircuts.  I like my pajamas. I like my stuff.  I like my room. I like my whole house.  My whole house is great. I can do anything good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do anything good, better than anyone!”

Apparently the video was made years ago and has been online for almost a year, but this week it went viral. I’ll bet fifteen different people sent it to me. It’s adorable, and if we could bottle what that little girl feels, well, we sure wouldn’t be cutting any budgets around here.

Pentecost is one of the five days designated for baptism by the Book of Common Prayer. The others are Easter, All Saints’, the Baptism of our Lord, and the day the Bishop visits.

Today is the day we welcome Evan Annette Nelson into the family of Christ. She is the great-niece of Martha Smith and she lives in Cypress, Texas, but Martha’s family worships with us often, and so I can pretty much guarantee you that we’ll get to see little Evan Annette grow up among us. Martha told me yesterday that her son Evan was baptized on the Feast of Pentecost, and we very much feel the precious presence of Evan among us today, even though it has been over two years since this church was packed to the rafters at his funeral by people who loved him. It is very special that little Evan Annette, who is eight months old, is blessed with his name. Evan’s spirit is still very present. His sweetness lives on.

Pentecost is all about being taken over by the Spirit. For fifty days, we are told,  the disciples had been hiding out because of fear. Fear that the same people who had arrested Jesus and rigged his trial and had had him executed would be coming after them. For seven weeks they had mostly huddled behind closed doors, had been invisible and inaudible to the world. Jesus had been resurrected and then vanished, had told them he would not leave them orphaned, but they felt very much orphaned, powerless, voiceless.

But that morning, with what felt like a sudden wind and what looked like tongues of fire dancing over their heads these frightened men were impelled out of that room and out into the streets, to proclaim the good news of Christ crucified and resurrected in languages they didn’t even know how to speak.

This was not speaking in tongues. That is an entirely different phenomenon, and what people do when they speak in tongues is not 
a reenacting of the day of Pentecost. No, on this day the disciples simply were given the power to communicate the good news in words that could be understood  by pilgrims from all over the Jewish Diaspora. And three thousand people chose to be baptized 
that day.

What a sight that must have been. And we thought it was chaos when we baptized six people a few weeks ago. Every one of those three thousand had become a witness to the good news of Christ. Every one had become a witness to the inbreaking of the spirit. Every one of them a witness to the promise of the kingdom. And that is exactly what we are welcoming little Evan Annette into. She is a little baby, but we are ordaining her as an apostle. We are embracing her and promising to help her family raise her in Christ’s love, and as she grows up in this Christian family, we are empowering her to shine the light of Christ to the world.

Some people say that Pentecost is the birthday of the church, but if that makes us think in terms of airy fluffy cakes with roses on top, pin the tail on the donkey, or a trip to Chuck E Cheese, well, that’s way too benign. I think it is more the Big Bang of the church. On the first day of creation, God breathed the unfathomable breath of ruach over the waters of chaos. On the sixth day of creation,  God breathed his own sweet breath  into the nostrils of his first little earth creature, and on the day of Pentecost, God breathed such a powerful breath down to earth that it swept up more than three thousand people  and empowered them to preach and to witness so powerfully that that breath breathes in us today.

Pentecost is a beautiful day for baptism, and it is a joy to celebrate Evan Annette’s life in Christ, but the best part is that in it we are all woven together in the power of God’s creating breath. We can’t see the spirit that empowered little Jessica to dance and cavort 
in her joy of her very existence, but, watching her, we can feel her elation, her – well, I don’t know what to call it but spirit – and we can relate to it because we have it as well, only more deeply and more certainly because this love is not love of self but the love of God’s breath breathing within us for the sake of the world.

The Spirit is invisible if we are looking for something with shape and color and substance, but, as one preacher has said, “The Spirit is at work wherever there is community. The Spirit is at work wherever there is gratitude. The Spirit is at work wherever there are "sighs too deep for words." The Spirit is at work wherever there is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control," for these are the fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit is at work as the "whole creation groans in labor pains" birthing new life. The Spirit is at work wherever "young people prophesy" against injustice and "see visions" of hope and wherever elders still "dream dreams" of a better world.” (1)

Amen.

(1) "How is the Holy Spirit at work in the world today?" by Carl Gregg
from the website Patheos 
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/How-the-Holy-Spirit-Moves-Today.html