Thomas J Parlette
“Winds of the Spirit”
Acts 2: 1-21
5/31/20, Pentecost
“I know it when I see it.”
That’s what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said back in 1964. He was trying to get a handle on one of the trickiest issues faced by the court in decades – the definition of obscenity. About the best he could do, in an attempt to nail down a very slippery concept, was to say, “I know it when I see it.”(1)
We can certainly sympathize with Justice Stewart. There are so many powerful forces in our lives, both positive and negative, that are difficult to measure. Think about trying to measure quality, or goodness, or kindness. Then think about how to measure Envy or lust. Not easy, but we know it when we see it. Think about how to measure the beauty of a sunrise, the gracefulness of a robin, or even, the strength of the wind.
The question of wind comes up today because it’s Pentecost, and we re-visit the story of how the Holy Spirit came upon the first disciples. Wind is an invisible but powerful force. We know it when we feel it, but how can we describe it, or measure it?
“The wind blows where it chooses,” said Jesus, “and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” He goes on to say, “So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
For thousands of years, no one thought that the wind could be measured. But then, in the late 1700’s, cabin boy in the British Navy began to keep a meteorological journal so he could stay on top of the weather conditions. His name was Francis Beaufort, and he went on to become a Rear Admiral, serving the Navy for 68 years. Over the course of his career, he developed a method for describing the wind that became known as “The Beaufort Scale.”
According to Beaufort, you’ve got your “calm.” You’ve got your “light breeze.” And then a “moderate breeze”, then a “strong breeze.” As the wind gets stronger, he refers to a “gale”, then a “storm,” and finally a “hurricane.” As we know, the scale was expanded to include, I think, five categories of hurricanes, defined by wind speed.
Beaufort didn’t have wind speeds at the time, so he wrote rather poetic descriptions of the categories, based on what the wind did to the sea.
Calm winds resulted in “sea like a mirror.”
When a light breeze is blowing, you see small wavelets on the water, and the crests don’t break. It looks like ripples.
A “moderate breeze” creates small waves, while a “strong generates large waves, with white foam crests and probably spray.
When a “gale” is beginning to blow, you see moderately high waves and crests that begin to break into sea spray.
A “storm” is defined by very high waves with long, overhanging crests. The surface of the sea takes a white appearance, and the tumbling of the sea becomes heavy.
And at the top of the scale is a “hurricane” – a wind condition you don’t want to see firsthand, if you can help it. ‘The air is filled with foam and spray,” says Beaufort, and the sea is “completely white with driving spray.”
With his descriptions of every condition from calm to hurricane, Francis Beaufort created a way to describe wind – a scale that is still in use today.(2)
Well, it was a windy day in Jerusalem, or at least it sounded windy, when the disciples gathered to celebrate the harvest festival known as Pentecost. Acts tells us that there came a sound like the rushing of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where the apostles were sitting. Firelike tongues rested on each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit – they began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Suddenly, the international crowd that had gathered in Jerusalem could hear the apostles speaking about God’s deeds of power – they could understand what the apostles were saying, because they were speaking the native language of each and every person.
But the force of the wind did not end there. It inspired the apostle Peter, who had acted like such a coward just a few months earlier, denying that he even knew Jesus, to stand in front of a mob of mockers and shout, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem…listen to what I say.” Peter proclaimed that the coming of the Holy Spirit matched the words of the prophet Joel – words that told of how God would pour out his Spirit upon all people. Your “sons and daughters shall prophesy,” said Peter to the crowd, and “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
What a mighty wind it was, whipping through Jerusalem and blowing away the everyday expectations of everyone who was gathered there. People were impacted, lives were changed, and it was, for the apostles and members of the crowd alike, the storm of the century.
But how can we measure the force of this holy wind?
If we were to apply the Beaufort scale to the winds of the Spirit, what would that look like? How do we experience the Holy Spirit in our lives today?
First of all, the scale starts with Calm. This is the condition we experience when the Spirit leads us, equips us, and gives us serenity and peace. When the scale read calm, we are given peace and a sense of purpose – we know that we belong to God, and that we now possess a sense of direction.
This Spirit-scale calm is something we feel even thought our lives may be buffeted by hurricane force winds. Whatever that nature of the external wind that is assailing us, the calm of the Spirit keeps us on mission, on point, and on message. We are unmoved. We are unfazed. We are experiencing the “calm” of the Holy Spirit.
At other time, the Holy Spirit comes as a “strong breeze,” a Spirit-wind that has a creative quality to it and leads to surprising improvements and new directions in our lives. In the Bible, this is seen in the “wind of God” that swept over the face of the waters” at the moment of creation. This is the Spirit-wind that came upon the anointed figures of the Old Testament when they were empowered for specific tasks and missions.
This is the Spirit that came upon the 70 elders in the Book of Numbers.
This is the Spirit that came upon Balaam when he uttered his oracle.
This is the Spirit that rested upon Gideon and Samson, that fell upon Saul and David.
When we head into a situation where new directions, fresh opportunities and unlimited possibilities face us, we look to the Holy Spirit for the “strong breeze” to empower us according to the will of God.
Higher up the scale is the Spirit as a “gale,” a force that breaks unhealthy patterns and shakes up the status quo. In a world that so often fights fire with fire and responds to violence with even more violence, we are given the power we need to go in a different direction. “Evil is not effectively resisted with hatred and with guns” observes Jeffrey Burton Russel in his book The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History. “The only response to evil that has ever worked is the response of Jesus… and that is to lead a life of love. That means what it has always meant: visting the sick, giving to the poor and helping those in need.”(3)
This is a powerful wind, one that can knock us off balance and push us out of our comfort zones. We need to ask ourselves: Are we willing to be blown in this direction?
Finally, at the top of the scale is the Spirit as a “hurricane.” This is what hit Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, turning the lives of the apostles completely upside down. They were reoriented from looking inward at themselves to looking outward toward a world in desperate need of the gospel. They were changed from fearful disciples into fearless evangelists, and they headed off into the mission field with a powerful sense of purpose.
We used to call this revival. When hurricane force Spirit-winds blow across the landscape of our souls and our common life together, nothing is ever the same.
When you look at the movement of the Spirit on Pentecost, you see the power of Almighty God at work. You see the breaking down of language and culture barriers… the empowering of frightened disciples… the courageous sharing of Jesus Christ with the world. After the winds of the spirit, the disciples learn how much more they are capable of.
Robert Brow has written a kind of parable for Pentecost. There was once a couple from a jungle in Africa who arrived in Kingston, Ontario to study, and were given a fully equipped home to live in. They were handed the keys, but no thought to explain about the electrical appliances, or how the house worked. During the month of July, they went to bed when it got dark and rose with the sun, just as they always had. They collected wood and were able to cook in the fireplace. They found water came from the taps, and they did their washing in the kitchen, and dried their clothes on the line.
But by November, they were cold, miserable and very frightened. Happily, some friends came to visit, found the house in darkness and they flicked on the lights. They showed the couple how they could set the thermostat to heat the house and how to use the electric stove for cooking.
The next week they learned about the washer and dryer, the vacuum cleaner, how to use the phone and get in touch with their friends. The television helped them learn more about Canada, and how people survived the Canadian winter.(4)
That story illustrates the huge change that took place on the Day of Pentecost. “Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a mighty wind and it filled the entire house.” The couple from Africa discovered that they were living in a house in which they were free to enjoy light, and heat, and the many appliances needed for the Canadian winter. But in the days before Jesus, the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day had never told the people all that God had for them. On the Day of Pentecost, the early Christians began to experience the light and power available to them through the winds of the Spirit.
May it be so for us. And may we know it when we see it.
May God be praised, Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved May 18th, 2020.
2. Ibid…
3. Ibid…
4. Ibid…
