Wind & FIre, 05/31/09

Grandma story; "Hawaiian good luck sign"[source unavailable, content not posted]

Acts 2:1-4 When the day of Pentecost had come,
• they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

• This is the Biblical reference to “Pentacost”, and today in traditional churches is THAT DAY.

• For some, it is a day that should be equal in celebration to Christmas and Easter.
http://www.godweb.org/pentacostdate.htm (website of Charles P. Henderson, Presbyterian Minister, & Ex. Dir of Cross Currents) states
Pentecost, the season of the Holy Spirit, is otherwise known as the "birthday of the church." In theory, Pentecost should be recognized, along with Christmas and Easter, as one of the three most important holidays of the Christian Church.

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
• Without a doubt, something happened. What – we do not know.
• We know that people were deeply moved.
• We know that there had been anticipation of power “from on high.”
Luke 24: 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you
• It may appear that this is the 1st occasion of the appearance of the Holy Spirit. But not so.
Isa 63:11-12 Where is he who put in the midst of them his holy Spirit who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them
Reference in Matt 1:18 to the conception of Jesus, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.
• Now if Pentacost is the birth of the church, then it is something to celebrate.
• If this is the quickening that happened to the disciples of Jesus, it is perhaps a greater event.
o That would make it the fire in their hearts that sent them forth to teach these principles
o It would be the wind of inspiration and the breath that gave them words to speak
The church in the traditional sense is an institution. The message that Jesus taught is alive and as vibrant for us today as it was 2000 years ago. A church can be an alive, vibrant community through which God can be known.
Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, said of the gospels,
“When these are studies with unbiased mind, it is perceived that Jesus delegated no ecclesiastical power to anybody . . . Jesus appointed one teacher: ‘the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit’ (Gaither, 192).
In the Revealing Word, Fillmore defined Holy Spirit as
The activity of God in a universal sense. The moving force in the universe taken as a whole. The Spirit is the infinite "breath" of God, the life essence of Being. . . . Holy Spirit is the love of Jehovah taking care of the human family. The Holy Spirit is in the world today with great power and wisdom, ready to be poured upon all who look to it for guidance. Its mission is to bring all men into communion with God; to guide men in order that they will not mistake the way into the light (RW, 98)
• The visual presented in Acts 2 is dramatic. Do you think it is possible to be that excited about these teachings today? Do you? So what will it take? Do I need a sound and light show up here to get attention and draw people in? Do I need to be a master entertainer to generate passion for the connection with God?
• That is what this is all about – the connection with God. That was the spiritual experience of those in the account in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit is God in action!
o Fillmore said, “The Holy Spirit is sympathetic, comforting, loving, forgiving, and instantly healing. (G, 204)
o Further, Fillmore said, “The majority of people think that great spiritual faith is necessary to get marvelous results. But Jesus taught differently . . . the mustard is among the smallest of seeds, and the comparison would indicate what a tiny bit of real faith is necessary to cause motion in material things (G,248).
o When Paul and Silas were in a Roman jail, they prayed and sang until their bonds fell off, and the cell doors flew open (Acts 16:25, 26).
o Fillmore contends that on the day of Pentacost the followers of Jesus prayed and sang until the ethers were so accelerated that tongues of fire flashed from the bodies of the worshipers, and they were miraculously quickened in mental ability (G, 248).
There are untold millions of stories about prayer, and how it has changed lives. One I found particularly inspiring is told by a grandmother, Mary Frank.
http://www.guideposts.com/story/angel-heals-boys-burns; [view on website]
"Just 23 days after the accident, he is back in school full time, catching up on his missed days," Mary says. "No more flashbacks or nightmares of the fire. He had very little pain. His eyes are fine. His nose, lips and ears are fine....it looks now just like a bad sunburn. The doctors say there will be minimal to no scarring! And he is laughing again and being the character Isaac has always been.
• Prayer liberates the pent up energies of mind and body.
• When we sing spiritual songs, we pray to music. The energy is increased as we immerse ourselves in the sound and the spirit of the words and music.
So how did we go from a mighty wind and tongues of fire to the establishment of the church?
• In the following verses of the 2nd chapter of Acts the disciples, and especially Peter, preached to the crowds, there were conversion experiences, and the chapter closes with the words, “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”
• Taken literally, this sounds like the beginning of a church. And there is always more than one perspective. Like the grandmother at the beginning who saw all those rude behaviors as expressions of love.
• Perhaps, however, there is another way to look at it. John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal Bishop now retired, and a respected scholar of Jewish traditions along with the Bible,
• Spong talks about the Jewish tradition of midrash.
o Method of interpreting sacred scripture
o Method for the continued expansion of the sacred scriptures.
o It can be the interpretation of a story by relating it to another story or event in sacred history.
o The Jewish way of saying that everything to be venerated (held up as holy) in the present must somehow be connected with a sacred moment in the past. (Spong,8)
o “Our great failing was that we did not know anything about midrash, so we literalized narratives that were not intended to be literalized” (282).
While some scholars contend that to understand midrash we must study it, the point remains that it is not a literal reading. When we literalize the scriptures, at times we pull the life right out of them. As we seek the spirit of the Bible, the literal details seem to fade in importance. We could easily read this account as if it were a story from today and gather inspiration.
It was an amazing day when we had all come together. We were singing and praying, and the heavens opened and a powerful wind came up and blew through the place. People were so inspired they fairly shone with the light of God. They began talking to each other and to people they didn’t even know.
Then, there’s the metaphysical interpretation, but that’s for another lesson! In your bulletin you have an insert. Let’s pray these thoughts together. [Prayer is from Emmet Fox, copyright information unknown.]

Sources:
Gaither, James, The Essential Charles Fillmore. Unity Village, Unity Books, 1999.

Spong, John Shelby, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? San Francisco, Harper Collins. 1995.