“Come Spirit”
June 8, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
So we ended last week praying for Jesus to “come again soon”—Maranatha! Do you notice how that translates into asking for the Holy Spirit to “come.” Think of our Holy Spirit hymns: “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me…;” “Breathe on me breath of God;” “Spirit, Spirit of gentleness, blow through the wilderness calling and free.” I wonder if the early disciples ever thought about what it would be like to have the Holy Spirit fall on them, breathe on them, blow on them?
There they were gathered together 10 days after Jesus had ascended, 10 days when they had felt his absence so acutely again, 10 days of wondering, and waiting. He said he was going to send the Spirit. But what was the Spirit? Was he talking about the Spirit of Genesis, the Spirit that was wild and restless, hovering over the waters of chaos in the beginning? Was the Spirit going to scatter them like the peoples of Babel? (Jesus had talked about sending them to Jerusalem, and all Judea, and then to the ends of the earth.) Was the Spirit going to whisk them up into the clouds like the chariots and horses swept up Elijah? Was the Spirit going to feel like Jesus, just not in the flesh? I can imagine it was a time of anxiety, a time of unknowing.
And suddenly there was a noise…I’ve tried to imagine what this suddenly was like. Was it like a storm come out of nowhere? A tornado that you didn’t see coming? Or could it have started like the soft buzzing of insects that got louder and louder and suddenly was so loud that it deafened you? And then there was fire—maybe at first feeling like the nice warm waves of heat, turning their fright at the noise into a soothing bath. But then it got hotter and hotter and hotter—was it going to burn them alive (like some who had been vaporized if they dared be in the presence of the Living God)?
And before their eyes the fire split into individual flames and came to rest on top of each one of them. You couldn’t see the flame above your own head, but you could see the flame above everyone else’s—eyes opened wide. The flames looked like tongues, licking, lapping, spitting, ejecting sparks. What was going to happen next? WORDS—Words that they didn’t know, that they wouldn’t have known how to speak. Words that came out of their mouths and they didn’t know what they were saying. Was this the work of the Spirit of God or were they possessed?
No wonder those who were witnessing this scene were shocked and amazed. Had they seen the flames or heard the wind? I don’t know, but everyone could hear that these back country people, these Galileans, were speaking in the languages of all the multitudinous peoples who gathered in Jerusalem at festival times. How could they know all those languages? And who was this Jesus God had raised from the dead they were speaking about? And as many as were interested, there were others who sneered—look at them, they’re drunk before nine in the morning!
This morning I’d like to focus on what happened at Pentecost—so we can think about the Holy Spirit in our own lives. The way I see it today, Spirit is a sensory surround experience: hearing, seeing, feeling, and letting go.
--hearing—First, God tries to get our attention. Is that because we don’t expect to be in God’s presence? Is it that we don’t know what to expect? Is it that a familiar way, how we try to garner attention from one another, “Hey, listen to me. Psst, over here. Are you hearing me?” In Scripture we hear God speak as a small, still voice, and, as a command “Let there be light”, and as this rush of loud wind. God wants us to know we are in the presence. God wants us to understand we are having an encounter. But that is only the beginning.
--seeing—once our ears have tuned into the noise, our eyes take over. Where is the noise coming from? What is it that I’m seeing? Is that a fire, a flame, a fiery body? Is that like the aura we saw around Jesus, the white brighter than snow at transfiguration? Is that the fires of utter destruction that Jesus said awaited those who did not take care of the least of these my siblings? Tongues, was the fire going to consume us, eat us alive? Well, at least we aren’t alone—everyone else is in the same boat!
--Feeling—sensations bombard us, noise, images, smell?, taste?, touch? It is as if we are being overshadowed like Mary, as if we are standing in the fires of the furnace (in the book of Daniel) and are not consumed, as if we are being refashioned, bone to bone, sinew to sinew, flesh upon flesh. Everything alive, everything responding to the touch of God, as if we were plugged into a God socket, being melted, molded, filled, and ready for use.
--And when we let go, when we let the energy of God course through us, when we stop trying to control everything in our path, every word that we say, every breath that we take, when we let go of the tight rein that we have on ourselves—God can use us. We can speak in languages that we do not know, but God created. We can dream dreams that we never could have imagined, but God only smiles and nods. We can be bold where we thought we feared to tread, and God laughs and applauds.
I know for us Presbyterians, the “frozen chosen,” those who so desperately want everything to be done decently and in order, this scenario sounds like disaster! We want to orchestrate it, control it, manage it. But the day of Pentecost is maybe the one day when we have to face the fact that the Holy Spirit, that God, that the Spirit that we keep praying will come, keep asking to come, keep thinking we can handle, isn’t doing our bidding. It is the force pulling us into closer relationship with the Living God, the eternal Christ, and the love that envelopes us all.
I know some of you may say, “That sounds really scary, I don’t want to be anywhere near anything like that!” And others might say, “Where does this happen? I don’t remember having that experience.” And some of you may understand what I’m talking about. Let me give you an example. Many of us here were taught to sing a certain melody—or maybe a certain harmony. Set down on a page. Regular. Expected. And that can create beautiful, uplifting music. But there is another type of music, which we sometimes touch with our praise song—where you are invited to make up your own harmony, maybe your own melody, to blend your voice in new ways, to experiment and see what it sounds like, to let go of expectations, of even knowing what you should and shouldn’t do, and just letting the music wrap you in the sound, in the feeling of producing pitch and timber in your throat, your chest, your head. That might be something akin to letting go so Spirit can use you.
Or maybe you have been in prayer and have been quiet, been listening and an image pops into your head, someone that you hadn’t thought of for a while, or someone who you know needs your prayers. Maybe you get this urge to do a particular thing today while you are in the shower. Maybe you see something, hear something, feel something that propels you to an action, to a response, that you didn’t know you were capable of. I imagine that we are close to the Spirit much more than we know. But maybe we aren’t ready to hear, maybe we have averted our eyes, maybe we have hardened our hearts, because letting go, putting our lives in God’s hands is so unknown. I mean, what might God ask of us?
For the first disciples, it meant being willing to look ridiculous in front of all of Jerusalem, even as they spoke of God’s power in all the languages of the world. For the first disciples, it meant being willing to disobey the powers that be and continue to preach and teach and heal and gather and share what they had with whoever wanted to come and join them.
For the first disciples, it meant being willing to step into a new world, with new responsibilities, and new experiences, and new challenges. For the first disciples, it meant stepping into danger as well as stepping into a God-filled life.
And so, every year, on Pentecost, we remember what happened to the first disciples. And, every year, we have the prodding of the Spirit—what about you? What about you, UPC? What about us? What are we hearing? What are we seeing? What are we feeling? What are we willing to let go? Where might the Spirit be leading us, in this time and place? They say, be careful what you pray for. I think we vaguely understand that putting ourselves into the current of God could have its surprises.
But here is one thing I hold onto from that first Pentecost. When God swept down, when the fire divided into flames, it rested over everyone—women and men, children and elders. Everyone was included. The Spirit came to everyone. It may have given us different gifts, different ways of serving, different abilities, but we each have been visited. We each have been touched. Whether we know it or not. Whether we heard it or not. Whether we can see it or not. Whether we can feel it or not. God has already come into our lives.
So, when we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” we are not really praying for God to come as if God were not already here, we are praying for us to be able to respond. For us to unstop our ears, open our eyes, be willing to share our heart, and stop holding the brake pedal to the floor. Pentecost says, “Yes, it’s an exhilarating ride—let the engine rev, let up on the brake, stomp on the gas and see where we go!” Together maybe we can dare to answer that call.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.