John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost is best known among Christians as the birthday of the church. But it was originally known as the Festival of First Fruits — a religious holiday in which the Jewish people gave thanks to God for the earliest produce of their fields, celebrating the bounty of the harvest that was to come.

In later years, Pentecost also became a celebration of God giving the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. The connection between those two aspects of the Festival was that both were celebrating the gifts of God before it became clear exactly what those gifts were.

In the same way, the Christian Pentecost celebrates God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to those first disciples and the first fruits of that gift, which was a sermon by Peter that resulted in the addition of 3,000 new Christians in a single day. All of that was because the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to connect with the crowds in Jerusalem in ways they weren’t capable of doing on their own.

Of course, we recognize the Holy Spirit as a member of the Trinity — a part of God that is somehow both distinct from and identical to God the Father and God the Son. I believe I can safely say that the Holy Spirit is the least known of the three parts of the Trinity among Presbyterians and perhaps among most Christians.

After all, everyone has had experience with a parent and with a child, so we readily grasp the general idea of those metaphors. But a spirit is far less easy to get hold of, even if the truth is that the Holy Spirit is far closer to us in our everyday lives than God the Father or God the Son.

And since our knowledge of the Holy Spirit is so nebulous, I thought I would borrow an idea from a sermon I read many years ago and write my own “autobiography” of the Holy Spirit in order to make the reality of the Spirit more understandable if not tangible. So listen now for the story of the Holy Spirit in its own words:

I AM Wind, I AM Breath, I AM the Dove of Innocence. I AM the Holy Spirit, the One whose existence is so far outside your experience that you have to turn to metaphor to simply describe the outer edges of my life.

Before the beginning — before there was form or shape or matter — I AM. With my inspiration, the author of Genesis saw that eternal moment outside of time as being a dark and swirling chaos, like a raging tsunami fed by a gentle breeze. Nothing that you’ve seen or heard or tasted existed. It was nothing but the deep. And me.

My Spirit blew like a wind across the face of the waters and the sheer fact of my presence caused ripples of anticipation to shiver across the void. All was silence and darkness and expectation.

I AM Imagination. I AM Creativity. I dreamed the cosmos into being and, at my word, the explosion of Creation began. Light suddenly appeared and raced outward in every direction as if to announce the end of chaos and the imposition of order.

Planets were spun into their orbits, stars were lit and scattered across the expanse of heaven, warming the blackness with the heat of a million suns. I formed the building blocks of life and infused my nature into them so that they might have being in wild and reckless diversity. I laughed in joy at the incredible number of forms life may be expressed in — from the armadillo to the aye-aye to the hagfish to the star-nosed mole to the platypus.

In an instant, I calculated the delicate equilibrium of the Earth’s ecology and set it all in balance. Then I stepped back and saw that it was all very good. But I had one more gift to bestow: the creation of a life form that could choose to love and create, or it could choose to go its own way. After all, love that isn’t free, isn’t really love at all.

So I fashioned that first human in my own image — not to look like me, but to have the opportunity to be like me, giving him — and all humans — the chance to choose to love, to choose to create, to choose to replenish and restore, to be my helper in the ongoing process of Creation.

But even as I fashioned the Adam out of the dust of the earth, I knew the heavy price I would have to pay for human free will. As I formed his body, I foresaw the manger in Bethlehem and the refugee flight to Egypt. As I shaped his heart, I felt the hardness of so many hearts that would turn away from me. As I crafted his hands, I foresaw the nail holes in my own, and the agonizing death free will would exact.

And I yet I willingly agreed to pay that price for I AM Love and I eagerly desire the company of those who will love me back. That hope for all — that certainty for some — is well worth whatever sacrifice I must make.

And so I breathed myself — I breathed Love — into the human, giving it life and the spark of the eternal. In so doing, I left heaven vulnerable to the wounds of sin. And those wounds were not long in being inflicted. So my work of Creation continued — that is, wooing people back to holiness and restoring them to what had been lost through sin.

It’s a task that will never end as long as there are human beings exercising their free will in a broken and distorted world. But it’s a task that fills me with joy as I take a soul that has been stained by sin and recreate it through the power of grace. And it’s a joy when that recreated soul chooses to join me in the work of forgiving sins. That is the very task Jesus imposed on his first disciples — and on you — when he breathed me onto them after the resurrection.

Forgiveness may seem to be an impossible task at times, but I AM always with you, as near as your next heartbeat, as close as your next breath. Not that many of you remember that. That’s why, when Moses asked my name at the burning bush, I told him that I AM Yahweh, which means “I AM” and “I WAS” and “I WILL BE,” depending on the context. For me, it means all of them at once.

But more than that, the name is a reminder to those who speak Hebrew that every breath they take is a gift from me, for the proper pronunciation of my name sounds like breathing in and breathing out: Yah-weh.

And because I AM always with you, you can draw on my recreating power at any time. You can grasp hold of the forgiveness I have showered upon you and give it to another. It is an infinitely renewable resource designed to constantly split and multiply like magnificently ambitious amoeba.

So many people in this world are struggling under the burden of sin, unaware of the distortions sin has caused in their lives and in their perception of the world around them. I can restore their lives and straighten those distortions, but because I honor their free will, I will only do so if I AM invited into their lives.

In the meantime, I will offer them the still, small voice of conscience — the Spirit of Truth — to remind them of their sin, not to cause guilt for its own sake, but to build within them a hunger for repentance and a thirst for renewed righteousness.

It is only through my grace that they can find their way back from the maze of fun house mirrors they have erected around themselves. It is only my grace that can enlarge the future, instead of constricting it around multiplicities of disconnected and competing selfish desires.

Like a raging fire, I will destroy the old ways in order to make room for something new. I will blaze through the walls of suspicion and fear that divide you one from another. But because the change comes from my Creative Spirit, I will not leave you mourning in the ashes of your former lives. I will always give you back something unimaginably better than what existed before.

I may roar through one person’s heart like a gale-force wind or I may land in their life with the gentleness and innocence of a dove. But in any case, no one can remain unchanged at my approach. For those who turn to me, I will compel them to move beyond themselves — to leave behind their self-created comfort zones — and join in the work of creating my kingdom on earth.

But do not fear, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. When I call you to join me in my work, I will inspire and empower you for everything that I ask you to do.

In your baptism, each of you was sealed with my power, the divine breath that gave life to Adam and Eve, the same breath that gives you new life and empowers you to live up to your role as those who are created in my image.

I will use my power to draw you together with other Christians around the globe into one united body of Christ, to dream dreams and see visions and then lay hold of my power within you — the power that flung the planets and scattered the stars like a farmer sewing seeds — to transform those dreams and visions into reality.

My Spirit is within you to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

As I inspired my servant Jack Sharp to write: “You know the picture…which has me standing at the door and knocking? And you think that the task is to open the door to me, to let me in? I am already in there. I want YOU to COME OUT into the world, to become a part of bringing Light to the world, to walk with me as together we create new moments of grace in places where it has yet to be seen and lived.

“I am the one who moves mountains and gently caresses the flowers with dew. I am the one still standing after a nuclear blast and present at the first halting breath of a new-born child. I am the one who flies with the eagles and carries the rain to the thirsting earth.

“But I am also the one who makes all things new. I take what is and make it into what might be. I am the truth, becoming knowable, useable and inspiring.

“I am the Spirit. I will not be domesticated or contained at your whim, but I will always be here drawing you out and onward into a future which will always be filled to overflowing with grace [and truth] and hope.” Amen.

(Comments to Jim at jmccrea@galenalink.com.)