It is no
accident that the wind of the Spirit shows up in both the first chapter of
Genesis (1:1-4) and the second chapter of Acts (2:1-4). Both of them, after
all, are creation stories! When we ask, “Where did the cosmos come from?” scripture
replies, “Why, it happened through the Spirit of God!” And when we ask, “Where
did the Church come from?” scripture has the same answer: “It happened through
the Spirit of God, too!” A powerful wind, one hovering over the primeval abyss,
and another filling the room where Jesus’ disciples had gathered: that’s the
Spirit at work! But the wind of the Spirit isn’t destructive like the tornados
that tore through west-central Ohio on Memorial Day. The wind of the Spirit is creative,
bringing about new things that only existed in the mind of God before the
Spirit blew them into existence!
We never know
where that Spirit will show up next. And when the wind of the Spirit blows, we
never know exactly what will appear because of it! Long ago, Isaiah reminded us
that God says: “Look, I’m doing something new!
It’s springing up right now; don’t you see it? I am making a way in the
desert and streams in the wasteland!” The Spirit makes new things happen that
we believe to be impossible! That wind was the same one that blew on the Red
Sea while the Israelites huddled on the shore waiting for Pharaoh’s army to
massacre them, splitting the sea apart and allowing the Israelites to escape
through the very heart of its waters. Impossible? Not for the wind of the
Spirit!
That wind has
been blowing ever since creation. We may not be able to see it, but we can
surely see what it does! The wind of the Spirit blew through our country, and
African-Americans were freed from the evils of segregation and granted civil
rights. The wind of the Spirit blew in Germany, and the Berlin wall came tumbling
down like the walls of Jericho. The wind of the Spirit blew in South Africa,
and the apartheid there that had divided black and white for so long was
discarded like so much trash. Oh, that wind is powerful, indeed, and does
things that we cannot even imagine!
We need that
wind of the Spirit to blow through our lives again today with its renewing
power! Many of you remember the 1960’s with its protests and its sit-ins and
its flower children. I remember it very well, because I grew up in those
turbulent days. One of the most popular songs of that era was the song “Blowing
in the Wind,” written by Bob Dylan and recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. The
lyrics are a series of questions that were on our minds back in those days. How
many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned? How many
deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died? How many times
can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?
They’re
questions that we still ask ourselves today when we see horrifying images of
famine and suffering and war on the evening news. “When will it all end?” we wonder. When will
we take steps to stop the shooters who massacre our children as they sit in
their schoolrooms? When will we stop poisoning the earth with pesticides and
killing its creatures for our amusement? When will people stop grabbing for
power and start working together for the good of everyone? We don’t have
the answers; and it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll have them any time soon.
But the refrain
of this song offers something that we Christians can hang on to as we celebrate
Pentecost: “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.” All the answers
that we crave are blowing in the wind of the Spirit of God! That Spirit blows
when we are helpless, hopeless, and don’t know what to do next; and that
certainly seems to be our situation today. But when the wind of the Spirit
blows, impossible things can happen! “How many years can a mountain exist
before it is washed to the sea?” One day, the mountain of racism, sexism, and
injustice will be washed away by the living water of God’s justice. “How many
years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?” One day, the
people who are oppressed by unjust political and economic systems will be freed
by the wind of God’s Spirit. “How many ears must one man have before he can
hear people cry?” One day, all of us will have our ears opened to the cries of
our fellow human beings and the creation around us, and we will rise up and
demand that the world be set right!
When will that
be? “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.” When our powerful, creative
God blows the wind of the Spirit through us once again, it will blow down the barriers
of hatred that divide us, blow away the dusty cobwebs of indifference to the
suffering of others, and blow through our refusal to consider new answers to
old questions. And then, my friends, we will know the answers that are now only
blowing in the wind.
