"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth."
--Genesis 11: 1-9
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."
"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."
--John 14: 15-17, 25-27
'When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
`In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."'"
--Acts 2: 1-21
She’s here. At long last. The very Spirit of God that moved over the waters of creation, spoke through the prophets, and partnered with Mother Mary to conceive the Lord Jesus, has finally shown up. Not that she wasn’t in the world already, but now her presence cannot be denied. Landing as a tongue of fire above the heads of the apostles, much like how she landed as a dove above Jesus’ own head, Holy Spirit is here, y’all, and nothing will ever be the same again.
Yeah, that’s right, I said Holy Spirit, no ‘the.’ Because Holy Spirit, or Paraclete to use Jesus’ word from the Gospel of John, isn’t a what but a who. Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity, the giver of life, the very part of God that births…well…everything. And yes, I call Holy Spirit ‘she’ because in Hebrew – the language Jesus’ read – and Aramaic – the language that he spoke – the words for spirit – ruach and ruah, respectively – are feminine. The Eastern world has always understood the Spirit to be God’s lifegiving, and therefore feminine, quality. The sticky wicket comes when we consider the Greek word – pneuma – which has no gender, and the Latin word spiritus, which is masculine; and thus, any Bible translating off of Latin ends up using the masculine pronoun. Be that as it may, Jesus would’ve most likely used ‘she’ for Holy Spirit (if he used a pronoun at all!), and if it’s good enough for the Lord, it’s good enough for him!
Holy Spirit makes her presence felt with the rush of a violent wind, just like in the story of Creation, and a stirring in the hearts, minds, and spirits of a small group of poor, wayfaring strangers, huddled together, perhaps in a fashion like we are today, in an apartment in Jerusalem, terrified to step outside their doors. The more things change, the more they stay the same, am I right? People are still terrified to go outside the doors in Jeruslam. The world out there wants to silence them at best, and kill them at worst. To most they are equivalent to the town drunks – the Otis Campbells of Galilee, for you Andy Griffith fans out there. The last 10 days have been hard, waiting for something, anything to happen. He did say something would happen, didn’t he?
An image of Otis Campbell from The Andy Griffith Show for no reason whatsoever.
Something happens, alright. Maybe there wasn’t cake, but there sure was a party. Bursting out with a kind of courage that they had never felt before, they leave the safety of their apartment and go into the streets, meeting other strangers who were in town for the Festival of Weeks, the Jewish high holy day that takes place eight weeks after Passover. And the party that ensues is nothing less than a family reunion.
You see, the Book of Genesis, in an attempt to explain why different people spoke different languages, told the tale of a great city called Babel, which humanity had built with its ingenuity in the days of King Nimrod, roughly 2,200 years before the time of Jesus. In order to “make a name for ourselves” the people built this city – not on rock and roll – but on a tower formation, spiraling higher and higher, until it got to very doorstep of God, who wasn’t too pleased that humanity had forgotten their place and had got a little too big for their briches. So God destroyed the tower, confounded the people with different tongues that they couldn’t understand, and scattered the human family.
The Tower City of Babel
But things wouldn’t stay that way. Nope. Holy Spirit had other plans, so when those wayfaring strangers spoke to those pilgrims coming to town from all over for the Festival of Weeks, a miracle occurred. Every person heard the people speaking, not in foreign tongues, but in their own language. The confusion that Babel had caused ceased to be. The family reunion was on!
Y’all know how family reunions work, right? There’s usually one member, a dutiful aunt, who organizes the whole thing, advocates for folks to come together, and usually even prepares the meal. Holy Spirit is that dutiful aunt. That word Paraclete, which Jesus used to describe her, is translated often into Comforter, Helper, and, you guessed it, the Advocate, the same name as the parish where I currently serve. She is the one who makes us one through our confusion, our fears. She is the one that stirs in us to be brave, like that aunt who keeps encouraging us and tells us again and again that we are far more beloved than we could ever imagine. But also like that aunt, she can be pushy – every one of y’all have that family member, and you know who I’m talking about! She might wake you up in the middle of the night, or call you to do a task that you either don’t wanna do or don’t think you’re qualified for. She goes to bat for you, even when you can’t do it yourself. She advocates, she comforts, she helps, and she pushes; and through her, through this Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, all are one.
In our Tuesday Bible study last week someone mentioned how Holy Spirit can sometimes feel amorphous. It’s easier to think of God the Father or Jesus the Son, but Holy Spirit the Advocate is sometimes just tougher to imagine being out in the world. C.S. Lewis noted this and said he thought there was a reason for it. You are not usually looking at Holy Spirit, Lewis said, because she is acting through you. If you think of God the Father as something “out there” in front of you, and Jesus the Son as the person standing by your side, helping you and asking you to help him, then you have to think of Holy Spirit as the very spirit that is inside you.
Perhaps that is the great miracle of Pentecost, what makes this family reunion possible; it’s that a small group of frightened, ordinary people, woke up to the Spirit that was inside them the entire time. It began with them, huddled together, praying and breaking bread, just as Jesus told them to do, and when they were ready, the Spirit of truth, of love, of hope, of mercy, of grace, of life itself, burst inside them like a fire erupting. And let me tell you something, brothers and sisters – and that is what you are! – when Holy Spirit ignites inside you, when you find her deep down in there, and you let her out, there is no limit to what is possible. And if everyone did that, well, I guess that would make us all Pentecostals, wouldn’t it? Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing; after all, as The Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, told a bunch of us preachers at the Festival of Homiletics back in 2019, we need another Pentecost. We need folks to be emboldened by Holy Spirit, to let her loose on the world. We need folks to be empowered to speak in tongues, the tongues of heaven, the tongues of justice, of mercy, of love. We need to be rattled by Holy Spirit and driven from the safeties of our upper rooms out into the streets, with the courage of Marsha P. Johnson and the saints of Stonewall! We need a new Pentecost to set this world ablaze with love of Jesus once more.
The Rev. Dr. William Barber (red stole and all).
The Greek scholar Preston Epps wrote that, “God and humanity extend to each other in the cooperative enterprise of humanity becoming as like as possible to the God portrayed in the Gospels.” Holy Spirit makes this enterprise possible. She is the agent who truly makes us one, not through sameness, but through the unstoppable, unshakable, and unending love of God.
So send her on down, Lord! Send Holy Spirit on down into our hearts today and everyday, that we may know her and make her known! Let her wind be the momentum and her fire the inspiration that lead us into a new Pentecostal movement, a movement born of Spirit, empowered by Jesus, to repair the breaches, to reunite the human family, to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.