The spirit that transforms

Pentecost Sunday
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
19 May 2024

In place of notes for a sermon this week, I am offering some reflections on the dynamics of the Spirit in our lives as people of faith.

These reflections are grouped under a series of headings: watery chaos, dry bones and freedom.

Watery chaos

One of the primal images for the Spirit of God in the Bible comes from the opening paragraph of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 KJV)

I have chosen to cite the words from the King James Bible as they have shaped our spiritual imagination in the English-speaking world for more than 400 years.

Most modern translations render the Hebrew ruach elohim as “wind from God” or even “a mighty wind.”

In biblical terms the imagery is much the same: a wind, a breath, a spirit or even a powerful storm is forming over the watery chaos. Something new is about to happen. Creation is about to begin.

Until then there is no form to the world, just a dark primeval ocean.

But once the spirit or wind or breath of God hovers over that nothingness, new possibilities emerge.

That is not just a meme from the ancient Hebrew creation myth. It is a truth of our own lived experience as people of faith.

The chaos and the darkness of our own lives can be transformed by the spirit of God.

That is one way to talk about salvation.

Dry bones

The prophet, Ezekiel, lived in Jerusalem around 600 BCE and was taken into exile after the city was captured by the Babylonians. 

He lived at a time when it seemed both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah had been destroyed. There was no hope for recovery.

God gives Ezekiel a vision of vast valley filled with the desiccated bones of dead soldiers.

It is a confronting vision, but God used it to assure Ezekiel—and the people with whom he worked—that there was still a future for them. 

God would pour out his Spirit on the exiled remnant of the Jewish people and bring them back to Jerusalem once more.

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD. (Ezekiel 37:14 NRSV)

From a hopeless situation where it seemed there was no prospect of recovery, God’s Spirit renews and restores.

Again, this is not simply a message for the Jewish people more than 2,500 years ago.

It is a central element of our faith as well.

There is no situation we can ever find ourselves in where the Spirit of God cannot turn things around and replace despair with hope.

Freedom

For the third reflection I want to draw on a theme found in Paul. 

To do that, I will cite two brief lines from different letters where we catch a glimpse of how Paul understood the Spirit of Jesus in his own experience and in the life of the early Christian faith communities.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes Jesus this way:

Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. … The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49 NRSV)

The other piece from Paul which I want to place alongside those rather unusual words are from his second letter to the Corinthians:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17 NRSV)

Jesus has become “a life-giving spirit” and as the spirit of God in our midst, Jesus sets us free: the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

“Freedom” in this context is not about politics or social situation, but about our own existential reality. Elsewhere in Paul (Romans 8) we read about the amazing freedom we have as the children of God. 

That whole chapter 8 of Romans is well worth a read this week.

Chaos … despair … anxiety —all are transformed by the gentle power of the Spirit of Jesus.

That is not only the message of Pentecost, but also the deep meaning of Easter.