The thing about Pentecost, it has always seemed to me, is
that you can’t get a grip on it anywhere... and that is pretty well the point. For the umpteenth time I consulted the gospel
readings about Pentecost, and what leapt out at me after some 5 decades of
trying to explain it (to myself initially) was one sentence in John 16. Jesus is quoted saying to his disciples: I tell
you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away,
the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
It is about Jesus going away. Moreover, it is emphatic – “going away” is
said three times in that sentence. He is
not going to be here. What will be here
is what John’s Gospel calls the Paraclete.[1] And if we refer back in John’s Gospel to
chapter 3… Jesus is talking here with Nicodemus who is described as a leader of
the Jews and a pharisee. So Nicodemus is
expert in the Torah, the Law, the way of living and believing. Jesus introduces this man now to something else,
called born of the Spirit – and he goes right on to talk about the wind. Wind and Spirit are the same word in Greek.[2]
And wind is the analogy Jesus chooses to teach this scholar of law, morality
and order what it means to be as Jesus puts it, born anew, born of the Spirit. The wind blows where it chooses, and you
hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it
goes. So it is with everyone who is born
of the Spirit.
So… Jesus leaves – this departure is emphasised on the
Sunday prior to Pentecost, Ascension Sunday... whatever we may make of that. Then the Paraclete comes, like the wind. Luke actually says, a rushing mighty wind.[3] The disciples start to discover a different
reality blowing through their lives and their company. It is not now a matter of conforming to
patterns or precedents, of seeking safety and security – it is now a matter of
getting out in the wind... informed and inspired by Jesus, enlightened by him,
we now find that his resurrection life in us is real but also elusive as the
wind. He comes, this way, unexpectedly,
often strangely. Our own poet James K
Baxter memorably reminded Kiwis that this wind blows both inside and outside
the fences we have constructed in our attempts to keep order and control. One of the important teachings in John’s
Gospel is that the Spirit is, as we used to express it in theological college,
unoriginal. In John’s words: When
the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will
not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears… He will glorify me
because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.[4] The Spirit’s role is to be the teacher within,
to bring Jesus to the heart, to inspire us in living what Jesus said and
showed.
So it is, we employ silence and stillness to sit, as it
were, in the wind.
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