Sermon: “Filled with the Holy Spirit”

Text: Acts 2:1-21

Day of Pentecost (A)

May 11, 2008

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading this morning is from the second chapter of the book of Acts—the main text for the Christian celebration of Pentecost, often called the birthday of the Church, the day when the disciples of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, left their upper room and took the gospel of Jesus Christ into the world.  Of course, in its origins, Pentecost was a Jewish festival.  It was one of the three harvest festivals for which attendance at the Jerusalem Temple was mandatory for those Jewish men who could make the trip.[1] 

There were three harvests in the agricultural season of Palestine.  The first, which marked the beginning of the grain harvest, was in the spring, as the early-ripening barley was cut.  This was the festival of Passover, which commemorated God’s amazing liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and their departure from that land. 

The next harvest festival occurred seven weeks after Passover, as the wheat, the last grain to ripen, was harvested.  Thus, this festival was called the Feast of Weeks.  It also went by the Greek name “Pentecost” which was derived from the Greek word for “fifty”—as the seven weeks from Passover were sometimes counted as fifty days.  By the time of Jesus, at least some Jews had begun to associate Pentecost with the next great event after Passover in the history of the ancient Israelites: that was God’s giving the law to Moses on Mount Sinai.[2]  According to the book of Exodus this happened approximately fifty days from Passover.[3]  Thus, Pentecost was a time not only to celebrate God’s bountiful harvest, but also to remember and renew the covenant between God and the nation. 

After the grain harvest was completed with Pentecost, the third and final harvest was from the fruit trees.  This was called the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, and like Pentecost it was a time for giving thanks to God for the harvest, much like our own Thanksgiving holiday.

On each of these holidays Jerusalem would have been filled with persons attending the festivals.  Jesus was crucified near the time of the Passover festival, so the next time all the Jews would have gathered in Jerusalem for a festival was on Pentecost.  As I read from the book of Acts, let’s hear what happened.

Sermon.  I wonder if any of you saw the news item this week about the lost Stradivarius violin?[4]  It seems that on April 20^th this year the celebrated concert violinist, Philippe Quint,[5] was returning home to New York from a concert engagement in Dallas, Texas.  As he stepped out of the taxicab that brought him from the Newark Airport to his street in Manhattan, he did the unthinkable.  He left his violin on the backseat of the cab.  This was no ordinary violin.  It was manufactured in about 1700 by the Italian craftsman, Antonio Stradivari, whose violins have never been matched.  Today this violin is worth about $4 million.  To make matters worse, Mr. Quint did not even own the violin, which had been lent by two of his benefactors.  When he got up to his apartment and realized the loss, Mr. Quint must have had a “real bad day”!

The cabdriver who drove Mr. Quint to Manhattan was Mohammed Khalil, who had been driving New York taxis for more than twenty years.  Having found the violin, he reported it to the authorities.  After some anxious time on the telephone, Mr. Quint learned from the Newark Police Department that the violin had been found and could be retrieved from Mr. Khalil.  Mr. Quint hurried to pick it up and was so obviously shaken when he arrived that Mr. Khalil insisted on driving him back to Manhattan.  This time,  Mr. Quint gave Mr. Khalil a $100 dollar tip.  As it turns out, Mr. Khalil had been planning for years to retire on that night.  When he took the violinist back to his apartment for the second time, it was the last fare of his career.

The story, if it ended here, would be a good story.  However, Mr. Quint had a thankful heart and a good imagination.  To express his gratitude, he invited Mr. Khalil to one of his concerts at Carnegie Hall.  And in a more unusual gesture, Mr. Quint gave a free concert for the cab drivers.  He took the concert where it would be easy for them to receive it—to the part of Newark Airport where the cabbies wait for their next fare.  Someone set up a tent and a sound system, and Mr. Quint played a full concert.  He played some of the classical stuff—a Paganini Variation and a selection from a Massenet opera.  And he added some more popular pieces—the theme from the movie, “The Red Violin,” jazz numbers from Gershwin, and one of his own compositions.  The cabbies danced and moon-walked and gyrated—clearly enjoying themselves in a multi-cultural, hand waiving, extravaganza that reminds me of the Pentecost outpouring we just read about.  Of course Mr. Khalil was there; he came back to his old haunt for this event; and he was the honoree.  In a sense, all the cabbies were the honorees; and they knew it.  One told the reporter that Mr. Khalil did what they all would have done.  “Everything we find, we always return it,” he said.

When I heard this story I had a good feeling.  I was proud of Mr. Khalil for returning the Stradivarius violin.  I was proud of the Newark Police Department for helping Mr. Quint find Mr. Khalil.  I was happy that the last fare of Mr. Khalil’s career could be taking Mr. Quint safely back to his apartment—this time with the violin.  The article did not report whether Mr. Mohammed Khalil was Muslim, but I think it’s pretty safe bet that he was.  I was touched by the symbolism of a Muslim living up to the best of his religious tradition in the very city where other, less Muslim Muslims had attacked the World Trade Towers.  I was proud of Mr. Quint, who did not stop thinking about this matter when he returned with the violin to his apartment and heaved a sigh of relief.  He created the opportunity for Mr. Khalil to be honored among his peers, and by doing so he also expressed his appreciation for the often disrespected cab drivers of New York, many of whom are immigrants working long hours to succeed in their new country.  Mr. Khalil’s honesty and righteousness transmitted grace to Mr. Quint, whose rightful gratitude magnified the grace and freely spread it among others, who felt themselves encouraged and lifted up.  Who knows where the ripples of grace ended—if they ever did?

Last Wednesday the session of Central Presbyterian Church met with this year’s class of confirmands to receive them into active membership of our church.  It was the joyful culmination of a year of training and exploration under the guidance of Cheryl Moles and of their “covenant partners,” continuing the nurture that the church has extended since these confirmands were small children.  Each of us—confirmands, session members, and covenant partners—shared individual statements of faith.  I was struck with the richness and variety of these expressions, each of which was splendid in its own way.  One of these has echoed in my memory as I prepared this sermon for Pentecost, the day on which the Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church.

One of our confirmands described the Holy Spirit as a “good feeling.”  What a world of meaning is packed into those words!  Because God is good and only wants good for us, because Jesus Christ came to be a living expression of God’s love for us and a testimony that nothing can come between us and God’s love, is it any wonder that we would experience the Holy Spirit as a “good feeling”?  Of course, the Holy Spirit addresses our mental faculties, opening to us the meaning of Scripture and inspiring us to new and helpful insights about the world around us.  But the Holy Spirit also speaks to us through our feelings, and we know the Holy Spirit is there when the feeling is completely good.  I’m convinced that the Holy Spirit was active in the entire story of Mr. Khalil and Mr. Quint.  All the hallmarks of grace are there, regardless of the religious tradition of either of them, or of the reporter, or of the newspaper editors, or of those millions who read the article.  When we hear a story like that, we are reminded that in the midst of a troubled world, goodness still is powerful and cannot be neutralized.  We are given courage ourselves to follow the guidance of the Spirit in our own lives.  If you feel an urge to do something good, embrace it, go with it, let it happen in your life!  Put aside every negative emotion that might hold you back—fear, embarrassment, resentment—and follow the feeling that is completely good.[6]  

How appropriate that the Christian church was born at Pentecost—that season in the life of ancient Israel when one good harvest was concluded and another was beginning[7]—a time of anticipation for what God would do next, a time when the people remembered and celebrated how their ancestors had received God’s law and had been called by God to be a covenant people.  Having experienced the law of sacrificial love embodied in Christ, now the disciples experienced a new gift—the Holy Spirit that would guide them from within, calling them to a new covenant, one that could include all the people of the world.  As the wind blew and the sound rose higher and the flame appeared, the disciples were overwhelmed by the “good feeling” of the Holy Spirit, which so filled them with grace that it moved them from their protected upper room and led them out into the world, attracting others to the message of life, love, and wholeness offered by God in Christ.  Now the final harvest would begin, the harvest of people, the great catch of humans that Jesus had promised to the fishermen of Galilee. 

There may be those in this congregation today who have almost lost hope that goodness can and will prevail.  You may despair of ever having that “good feeling” for yourself.  I urge you to focus on the last verse of our reading this morning: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  You can be saved from whatever it is that stands between you and true joy.  If you already know what I’m talking about, if you have experienced what it means to “feel good” in God, then follow that “good feeling” and spread it around.  Starting here, right here in Terre Haute, the ripples of joy can begin and never end.