Sermon

MAY 27, 2007

“Take A Deep Breath!”

Acts 2:1-21

May 27, 2007

Often, when we are anxious about an upcoming exam or performance, someone who cares about us will tell us to take a deep breath.  When we have an upcoming interview for an important job, or when we are going to have to come face-to-face with an adversary, someone who cares about us will tell us to take a deep breath.  When our children are inconsolable or so upset they cannot stop crying, we who care about them sometimes say to them, “Take a deep breath!”   

Let’s practice that right now.  When I say, “Take a deep breath,” take a deep breath.  Then we will all let it out slowly.  Take a deep breath!  Hold it!  Now let it out!  Now, when I say, “Take a deep breath,” lift your hands above your head as you take that deep breath.  Lift your hands above your heads.  Take a deep breath!  Hold it!  Let it out.  

Did you feel that?  You have just been filled with the same spirit.  That’s what happens among us when we come together to worship God.  The Holy Spirit swoops in and out among us and knits us together as we sing songs together, pray prayers together – take a breath together!!  (1)The Gospel of the Holy Spirit  by Barbara Brown Taylor    

How many of you know who Amadeo Avogadro was?  How many of you know what Avogadro’s Number is?  Avogadro was a lawyer turned chemist who lived near Turin, Italy, around 1800.  It was Avogadro who first theorized that the number of atoms in a fixed volume of air was constant.  Avogadro’s number or Avogadro’s Constant is 6.2 times 10 to the 23^rd – the number of atoms in a cubic liter of air.  Just yesterday here at a wedding I learned from the bride’s son Michael something that will give you an idea of how big a number we are talking about.  Michael said that we can define such a number in terms of “add-a” beads.  If you put together 6.2 x 10 to the 23^rd add-a-beads, the beads would cover the continental United States at a depth of 1500 miles!! 

Since the volume of the earth’s atmosphere is a constant, if we know about how long someone lives, Avagodro’s number tells us how many atoms are in the air and how many of those atoms that person breathed.  Jesus lived about 33 years.  He breathed in and breathed out about 15 times a minute or about 21,600 liters of air a day for 33 years.  So do you.  If you do the math, every time you breathe in, you breathe in atoms from the very air that Jesus breathed! 

No planet-cleaning company comes along every hundred years or so to suck out all the old air and pump in some new.  The same ancient air just keeps recirculating, which means we breathe brontosaurus breath and pterodactyl breath.  (2)Ibid.  We breathe the same air as those whose names were called and remembered earlier during our prayers, the same air as the heroes Emily sang about in her song, the same air breathed by the soldiers whose lives we commemorate this Memorial Day.  Our seniors breathe the same air as those who graduated in the very first graduating class of every school represented by graduating seniors in this church!

Jesus had been preparing his disciples for the day when the Holy Spirit would come.  They, on the other hand, were constantly asking him to show them God.  (Read John 14:8-10; 25-27.)  With the events of Pentecost, with

the coming of the Holy Spirit, surprising things began to happen!

There those first disciples were in today’s scripture, about 120 of them, all moping around wondering what they were going to do without Jesus, when they heard a sound like the blowing of a violent wind from heaven, filling the whole house where they were sitting.  They felt God’s presence and heard God’s message, each in their own language.  They breathed in God’s Spirit.  Before the day of Pentecost was over, the disciples had grown from 120 to 3,000.  The church was born! 

This can happen today where two or three are gathered in His name, or where thousands are gathered, or where 355 are gathered. The Spirit of Pentecost can console the weeping at the gravesite, it can comfort the worried in a hospital room, it can calm us in its grace…..it can scare us in its awe.  It can take our breath away.  We choose how we respond or even if we respond. 

Many people think it strange that week after week, so many of us come together inside a physical structure, a building, affirming together, praying together, singing together about a God we cannot see.  And yet we come, counting on being filled with the breath of the Holy Spirit as we worship together.  Many of us have experienced it.  Many of us hope to experience it – that assuring presence of God that fills us, that speaks to our hearts in a voice only our hearts understand.  We come together, proclaiming the good news – even when the news is bad; we come together, believing that peace is ultimately possible - even in the midst of war; we come together, trusting that God is with us – touched by the spirit, even when the God we love is still beyond our sight.

When Jesus promised the disciples that they would do greater things than He had ever done, the disciples could hardly believe it.  Which of them would have believed that the eleven who consented to become the church would accomplish what they did?  Today is the birthday of the church, and we are reminded that those disciples finally quit looking up at Jesus to see where he no longer was.  Ultimately, they began to look at one another.  The followers became leaders, the listeners became preachers, the converts became missionaries, the healed became healers.  Those who were touched by the Holy Spirit that day became witness of the risen Lord, and nothing was ever the same again.  They became wise and capable and brave. 

Does it still happen today?  Do we still believe in a God whose Spirit rushes over us like a tongue of flame, like the blowing of a violent wind from heaven and fills the whole house where we are gathered in His name?  In the first Disciple class I taught, there was a young man who was a great student and was so excited to be studying the overview of the Bible.  In May, as we drew near to the day of Pentecost, we were also wrapping up Disciple Bible Study and talking about the beginning of the church that started with the violent breath of wind and flames of fire.  Michael said, “I just want to go into service Sunday morning and look up and see flames of fire dancing over your head!” 

I think that the Holy Spirit is the hardest person of the Trinity to define or understand.  We understand God the creator; we understand Christ, the redeemer.  But the Holy Spirit?  How do we witness the Holy Spirit – in ourselves or in our church?  How do we see the presence of God?  Look around you.  I believe we witness it more than we can say. 

You will see it when you read Jack’s thank-you letter to you in this month’s newsletter – a thank-you that his dream of being able to serve is coming true; I saw it in Rebecca’s smile as she told me about coming out of the conference office, and realizing that the call and vision that had once been so far away had now been answered and accomplished; many of us have seen the presence of God in the dreams and vision of those who continue to work on the media center, the care and vision of those who can see the possibilities that new stoves bring for both our kitchens; the vision and dreams that those who have spent years of their lives have as they entrust their dreams to new people and begin to respond to new visions; the hope and vision of those who have – before our very eyes – walked away from the darkness and into the light; the nurturing of those who care for our youth and teach them in loving and gentle ways; the visions of those who are filled with the Spirit and looking for a way to respond, to step up to the plate; the vision and willingness of those who rise to the occasion when called upon to bring visual reminders before, around, and over you – reminders that you have the Spirit within you - those are some of the folk who have been transformed by the power of the Spirit, some of them without even recognizing that it is the Spirit. 

How is it that each of us can sense the presence of the Spirit in our own heart?  “The young will see visions; the old will dream dreams, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 

Today we hear Jesus say, “I will not leave you as orphans.  I will come to you.”  You are not alone.  Do not be in doubt.  Do not be afraid.  Take a deep breath.  Amen.