Texts: Acts 2: 1-20; John 7: 35-37

In his biting and satirical novel Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis created a character who had the power to sway audiences and congregations through the power and persuasiveness of his oratory. He was thought to be full of the Holy Spirit, but in the end, he was only full of himself. His appeal, as is the appeal of most of the magic men known as “televangelists,” comes from the fact that they speak to a yearning for a past that never existed, much like the kind of oratory we hear from some politicians in America today. It is worth considering what we mean by the term Holy Spirit and what we expect from our own attempts to recapture an illusory past.

Let's begin with Hebrew Scripture, what we Christians usually call the Old Testament. The word used for what comes to be later described as the Spirit of God is ruach, usually translated from the Hebrew as breath or wind. This is the word used in Genesis 1.2, where we are told that the Spirit or breath or wind of God blew across the face of the waters and began to create from the void. The idea of the Spirit in the Old Testament is not a static idea but rather a dynamic one. It was seen as the assistance of God, the presence and power of God, and then later as something distinct and emanating from God for as every Jew knows, the Lord our God is One.

Imagery is as important in Scripture as it is in poetry. When we hear language such as the Spirit being poured out, we think of water; when we hear of God's Spirit blowing, we think of wind, either a gentle breeze or a powerful storm. In the later books, such Proverbs, Sirach, and Wisdom, God's Spirit is described as wisdom herself. Scripture here is not using the term wisdom in the conventional human sense but in a divine and holy sense, as an attribute of God. In some of the passages, Wisdom actually takes on a separate and distinct identity. If we look at texts such as Wisdom 15.11, Proverbs 8, Sirach 24, Psalm 51, the Spirit of God is called Wisdom.

Scripture uses a host of images and metaphors for the Spirit of God, such as water, fire, even clouds. Listen to the language from the prophet Joel, used in our reading from Acts this morning: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy...” In Exodus, God speaks to Moses through fire, and the people of Israel are led by a cloud and fire. The prophets used similar imagery when talking about the Spirit of God. In the book of Ezekiel, for instance, we see the Spirit of God as being one of fire, emanating from where Ezekiel encounters the Lord. The Gospel writers used the image of the Spirit of God, “descending like a dove,” at the baptism of Jesus; at this point in the narratives, Jesus becomes filled with the Spirit of God and begins his public ministry.

Artists have depicted the Spirit of God in many ways. Traditional Christian iconography has the Spirit as a dove, beginning in the middle ages. Although the text from Acts says nothing about a dove descending from heaven, most images of the Holy Spirit of God tied to the Feast of Pentecost include a dove. In fact, the text speaks of two of the older image of God's Spirit, the rush of wind and tongues of fire, which is the origin of some Pentecostal church practices of Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, though it should be noted that in the text, the speaking in tongues was intelligible to people assembled from different lands for the Jewish feast rather than the gibberish usually associated with the practice today.

So what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? How does that affect our lives; how does it affect our worship? Jesus, filled with the Spirit, went into the desert to wrestle with the call he felt from God. Each of us has to wrestle with that call as well. The baptism we celebrated today is a symbol of that call, the call to us as a community to raise children with the essential values of our faith, and to show them how to live faithfully. To be filled with the Holy Spirit, with the Spirit of God in whatever form she speaks to us is to live faithfully.

Some of you may have caught the gender reference I used in referring to the Holy Spirit. Wisdom and the Spirit of God are spoken of in the feminine form. The Greek word for wisdom, the word used in the text is sophia, and that Greek word is in the feminine gender. One of the greatest pieces of church architecture in the world is known as the Hagia Sophia, or Holy Wisdom, in Istanbul. Originally constructed by Constantine in the fourth century, it was reconstructed by Justinian in the sixth century and served as the seat of the Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy for over 900 years. The Hebrew word for wisdom, hokmah, is also a feminine word. English doesn't have gender words the same way that many other languages do so we tend to think of the word “wisdom” as a neutral word, that is, a word without gender. But that's not the way the ancients looked at words and images.

So if we get back to the question of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we need to think about how God speaks to us, what God requires of us, and what our response to God's call should be. I would argue, that God speaks to us in many ways, usually not through wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a still, small voice, as Elijah heard it. God speaks to us through the little things we encounter in life, sometimes through the cry of a baby, as the one we baptized this morning, sometimes, just through a gentle breeze. We certainly encounter the magnificence of God's creation through the phenomena around us, but the voice of God's spirit is often different. We encounter that Spirit in so many ways, often too numerous to mention. What is important is our response to the Spirit. So, let us go forth this Pentecost day, experiencing God's Spirit in all that we see and in all that we do.

Let us pray: Eternal God, who fills the world with your holiness, your holy spirit, bring us into a deeper understanding of what you require of us as we seek to do your will. Amen.