John 15:26-27; John 16:4-15 The Message (MSG)
26-27 “When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me. You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.” “I’ve told you these things to prepare you for rough times ahead.
4-7 “I didn’t tell you this earlier because I was with you every day. But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. It’s better for you that I leave. If I don’t leave, the Friend won’t come. But if I go, I’ll send him to you.
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.’
I love when the timing of things comes together – like I always think it’s lovely that we remember Pentecost this time of year that is traditionally a time when changes are happening. Graduation, confirmation, people moving back from being away for the winter and some moving away for summer jobs, flowers and trees blossoming with life again, some of our normal routines ending and making way for different routines – it’s a season of change and motion. Like Pentecost – the rush of the Holy Spirit coming in, like fire, like a strong wind – moving and refining us, changing us.
Changing us. What do you think of when you think of change? I’ve always said I love change, seeing different places, doing different things. There’s something inside me that needs it, craves it. Lately I have been going through my closets and books, getting rid of a ton of stuff. When Chad’s parents died and my parents died, we ended up with a lot of their stuff – and they had ended up with a lot of their parents stuff – and over time, when added to our own stuff, it just got to be a lot of stuff. Some of that I needed to hold on to for a while after they died. I couldn’t quite bear to get rid of my grandmother’s waffle maker even though it weighed about thirty pounds and the handle had broken off the lid so it was pretty much guaranteed you were going to end up with some kind of burn on your hand every time you tried to make a waffle. But it had been on that old waffle maker mom would make waffles for me and we’d sit and talk forever over breakfast. And I couldn’t quite get rid of many of my dad’s books even though they were so old and musty. I didn’t need them, I had plenty of my own books…but those were the books that filled the shelves in my dad’s room and brought him comfort through years of sickness and being homebound.
But lately I’ve started to feel like I can let go of some of those things, release them. It’s been a surprisingly spiritual process, to let go, to make room, to create space. To remember that a waffle iron collecting dust in my garage doesn’t bring me closer to my mother whom I always carry in my heart. Some books I never open have nothing to do with what my dad meant to me.
And it seems like the process of getting rid of a few things is catchy because then I started to look at everything with a discerning eye and asking myself questions about it. Do I own that painting because I like it or because a parishioner gave it to me 18 years ago and I felt like I should put it up? Do I own two crock pots because I need two crock pots or because I might need a spare just in case?
Anyway, the change of letting go of these things has been really life-giving lately. But I was ready for that change. I gave myself time, I didn’t have to rush into it.
Some changes are nice, right? Like graduation or confirmation, weddings, promotions, etc. – you’ve been preparing for it, there’s lots of good stuff about it, it’s exciting and you get cards and cake. Change is good! Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Right on!
But sometimes, oftentimes, changes come that we didn’t prepare for. Changes come that we didn’t want or feel like we needed in the least. The disciples must have felt this when they ate that final meal with Jesus and he started talking about how he wasn’t going to be with them much longer but the Spirit of Truth would be. “What? He’s leaving us? Why is he yammering on about this Spirit – we need Jesus with us, our Teacher. Where is he going? Why does everything have to change?”
It was confusing for them then and confusing when a short time later there was the sound of the rush of a violent wind and tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and rested on each of them and all were filled with the Holy Spirit. And that Spirit allowed them to understand each other speaking in their own native language.
And it can be confusing for us now as we think about the Holy Spirit and what it means for us in our daily lives.
There’s this great Rabbinic story about three disciples who used to study with their master teacher on Sabbath evening. And one night the three disciples were walking home and one says to the other two, “I’m so sorry the Rabbi spoke with me the whole night.” Then the second one said, “What are you talking about, it was clear that the Rabbi spoke with just me.” Then the third said, “You both are crazy, it was obvious the Rabbi was talking only to me! And it is me who should be apologizing to you two.”
Just then, all three of them fell silent because they realized what had happened. The ancient commentary says, “So it is with Spirit, that each person swears the divine was speaking to just them.”
You know that feeling, don’t you? When a something someone wrote or sang or spoke seems like it was written entirely for you and for what you are going through in that moment. That’s the motion of the Holy Spirit right there.
The Holy Spirit may seem difficult to describe, and yet we know it. We feel it. It’s what gives us a glimpse of encouragement when despair is setting in too close. It’s that intangible thing that unites a group of people, bringing a sense of kinship and light and peace. It’s when a deep truth settles in your heart, and you know something matters.
It’s like love – you can’t reason it out or ever describe it fully, and yet you know it. When it touches your life, you are never the same.
The Holy Spirit, also referred to as Comforter, Encourager, and friend, is always with us. It’s here right now as we worship and will go with you as we leave and go our different ways later. It’s with our friends who aren’t here this morning – wherever they may be – sharing cups of coffee over breakfast, on a trip out of town, sleeping in. It’s with you graduates as you take your next steps now and each day become more of who God made you to be.
Sometimes it is what comforts us through times of difficult change, and sometimes the Holy Spirit is the very thing encouraging us to make the big change. It’s a mystery and as close as your own heartbeat.
Maybe that’s why it seems like we talk more about God and Jesus than we do about the Holy Spirit. The other two parts of the Trinity seem more well-defined – God created all the things and Jesus the Savior of the world – meanwhile the Holy Spirit is this misty, filmy, ambiguity.
But it isn’t really. In some ways, we know it best – but the Holy Spirit is just easier to feel than to explain – because it can’t be explained. The Spirit is poetry and music, not a speech. The Spirit is a whisper and a nudge, the holiness of holding a newborn and smelling their head, it’s the sound of the wind in the leaves, the way your name sounds when it’s spoken by someone who loves you most, it’s the taste of good food shared with friends, that sudden great idea that came to you when you were daydreaming during the sermon, it’s the sunrise, the sunset, a walk in the woods, your favorite song, the scent of fresh-cut grass – or anything that makes you feel truly alive.
The Holy Spirit is what brings the things of God right into our day to day – right into us, our very breath. Remember that the Hebrew word for Spirit, Ruach, it is the very same word for Spirit as for wind and breath. That’s right, breath. You breathing in and out right now, that’s holy. The Spirit of God alive in you and through you.
You see, the high holy day of Pentecost is the day of the church year when we seem to try to put to words what can really only be felt. It’s true. So, I’m going to stop talking – and let’s pray…