Abstract
I will sing to the L
I accepted the invitation to preach today, [the Day of Pentecost], just three days before Hamas launched its appalling terrorist raid on Israel. 1 However, events moved fast: the attack of unprecedented terror was launched on Saturday, 7th October 2023, with such ferocity and brutality that some commentators have likened it to ‘Israel’s 9/11’. The effects of the devastation caused by the attack have been well documented by television journalists and the news media; as indeed, has been the retaliative response of the Israeli Defence Force. The news reels, however, cannot adequately describe the depths of the suffering endured by the civilian population(s).
It is understood that some Israeli families had special ‘safe rooms’ built into their properties to provide protection from the type of attack by the Hamas terrorists witnessed by the journalists. It would therefore be logical to assume that residents of the Gaza Strip also had similar facilities built in to their homes, to provide protection from any possible Israeli attack. However, this is unlikely due to the relative poverty of the local population. Such are the dynamics of living in a known conflict zone! However, it has not been surprising to learn that some of the ‘safe rooms’ protected by steel doors, have been anything but safe.
The idea of people sheltering in ‘anything but “safe rooms” at a time of war’, poses the image of terrified families huddling together, frightened by the uncertainties of their immediate future. Two thousand years apart, a group of people grieving for the loss of their loved and respected leader, had to formulate a plan to face an otherwise alien world, where they lived under the jackboot of the Roman power. Today, wherever we are worshipping, we must recognise that not much in the human psyche has changed over time. We can be aggressive and violent to each other, yet at the same time be capable of extraordinary acts of kindness toward each other.
Thus, it is feasible to make a tenuous, and possibly totally inappropriate connection, or comparison. That is the distress of the disciples cooped-up in a room in Jerusalem, uncertain of their future, with the absolute terror of their modern counterparts, regardless of any political divide. St Luke’s vision hints at their sense of loss and despondency, and demonstrates how their situation is transformed into one of hope, by the presence of the Spirit of God, which we would call the Holy Spirit. We trust and pray that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, brings hope and comfort to all the people who have become unwitting victims of the horrors of war.
At Pentecost we celebrate God’s ‘gift’ of the Holy Spirit to the disciples, some of whom later became known as the ‘apostles’. The story is well known; many pilgrims from various communities throughout the empire had chosen to remain in Jerusalem after the events of the recent Passover; they were amazed that people from disparate groups could communicate with each other, and some of the more voluble perceived that they were drunk. This led Peter to proclaim that rather being drunk, they were fulfilling the prophecies of Jo′el. St. Luke suggests that the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples as tongues of fire: this was probably more of an expansive turn of phrase rather than an actuality, in that religious art throughout the centuries has normally depicted the Holy Spirit as a dove, rather than a tongue of fire.
But what is the Holy Spirit, and how does it affect our lives? I put this question to friends and relatives during casual conversations over luncheon as they were attempting to fork spaghetti into their mouths! The reactions ranged from benign smiles which suggested that the author was ‘at it again, and should shut-up’ to complete indifference or ignorance. The friends, fortunately, are long suffering individuals who have put up with my quirks from antiquity! The response from some of the younger people was along the line of: Ugh! What do you mean?
However, there is a common misconception that the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of God—first came to the attention of modern man at Pentecost! Not so: the writers of Genesis tell of the Spirit of God being present at the point of creation: ‘. . .and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters’ (Gen 1:2). Indeed, there are many references throughout the Old Testament to the ‘Spirit of the Lord’ or to the ‘Spirit of God’, where the Hebrew word ‘Ruach’ is used to describe the breath or wind of God, so that the hymnist can produce:
Breathe on me, Breath of God; So shall I never die
But live with thee the perfect life Of Thine eternity.
People throughout the ages have variously described the Holy Spirit as a Comforter, especially at a time of bereavement; a Creator or Inspirer when seeking new ideas, and so today we can also think of God quietly working within in our communities, bringing people together in fellowship. Thus, we read of St. Paul writing of, and describing, the fruits of the Spirit as: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control urging us to live and walk by the Spirit’ (Gal 5:22–25). Whatever our thoughts, we must remember that the angel told Mary: ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you . . . and the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God’ (Lk 1:35) and that when Jesus was baptised by his cousin, John, ‘. . .the Holy Spirit descended upon him. . .as a dove. . .and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son;”. . .’ (Lk 3:22).
We should also remember that we refer to the Holy Spirit more frequently than we can often recall. Often the preacher begins the sermon by using an age-old formula: ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’, and I often wonder whether, by so doing, they are attempting to absolve themselves from any inaccuracies in their text! That form of words was used by Jesus when He commissioned His disciples: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt 28:19).
In the Anglican communion, as in the Roman Catholic Church, there has developed the practice of concluding the reading of the Psalms, the Magnificat and other great hymns with the Gloria Patri:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
This is a clear statement that the Holy Spirit has been around since the beginning of time: it also refers to the Spirit of God as the Holy Ghost, which would introduce us a theological debate emanating from the foundations of non-conformity, which is best left to another time.
And now for the commercial: this is The Day of Pentecost. Next Sunday is called Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the use of the Trinitarian formula which we have just been talking about; that is, thinking of God’s intervention in His world through three ‘persons’—and I mustn’t steal the preacher’s thunder!
Footnotes
1
With difficulties of time lapse, colleagues are invited to engage with the issues at their own discretion.