Sermon for Sunday, June 8, 2025 || Pentecost C || Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, 25-27

Today, on this Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the gathering of Jesus’ first followers. And we celebrate the Spirit’s continued movement in our lives. The Spirit moves in so many ways that we might easily miss how the Spirit is present with us. So I’d like to take this sermon to talk through in brief nine ways we encounter the Holy Spirit. You have a handy bookmark in your program to help you remember the nine ways. Also, as a reminder of the Spirit’s presence among this gathering, we are going to map these nine ways of encountering the Holy Spirit upon the beautiful piece of stained glass art by our own Alison Ives that will hang above the altar for the next six months.

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If you have a piece of the sculpture, please bring it up when I start talking about your part, and together we will build our artist’s vision of the Holy Spirit’s visible presence on the fateful day of Pentecost. Our nine pieces of the Holy Spirit begins with “Wind.”

Wind

In the ancient languages, Spirit is the same word as wind. Jesus tells Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” In the Acts reading today, the Spirit descends with the sound of a fierce, howling wind. The Holy Spirit blows through our lives, diverting our paths away from lifeless things that we have been choosing and towards lifegiving things that we could be choosing. When we trim our sails to catch this wind, we allow the Spirit to carry us towards renewal and new life.

Breath

In the ancient languages, Spirit is also the same word as breath. In the book of Genesis, God forms a human out of the clay and breathes life into the human’s nostrils. On the night of the resurrection, the Risen Christ breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples and disentombs them from their grief-stricken vigil. Our breathing happens whether we focus on it or not, but when we do focus on it, we can breathe deeply, hold our breath, let it out slowly. Likewise, the Spirit moves whether we focus on it or not, but when we do, we will notice that we breathe in the enlivening nature of the Spirit even as air fills our lungs.

Peace

Along with his breath, Jesus grants the disciples and us his peace. Just before they receive the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is also the soil in which new wholeness grows out of old fragmentation. The Holy Spirit nurtures this growth in us, always pushing us away from brokenness and towards wholeness, towards peace. Whenever you feel a sense of peace wash over you – especially in the midst of turmoil or hardship – then you’ve felt the Holy Spirit move in your life.

Fire

The Spirit descends on the disciples, and Acts tells us, “They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them.” Each of them was and each of us is a candle burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit. We are the wax of the candle and God’s presence is the wick running all the way through us. The Spirit ignites in us the passion for God’s mission of healing and reconciliation. But unlike normal candles, we never gutter, never go out, because the Spirit renews our fuel again and again.

Spark

The fire of the Holy Spirit throws off sparks of creativity. Being made in the image of God means that God gave us the gift of imagining. The Creator made us to be creative. And just as the Holy Spirit was with God, brooding over the depths at the moment when God spoke creation into being, the Holy Spirit is also with us when we access our own creativity. God has never stopped creating; therefore, one of the ways the Spirit keeps us in relationship with God is by keeping us creating too.

Truth

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus calls the one whom he will send the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit helps us discern the truth by being alive within us. The truth just feels different inside. You can taste truth like honey on your tongue, hear it like the sound of a clear bell, feel it resonating with the beating of your heart. I’ve had times in my life when I’ve been lying to myself about important things, and I’ve not wanted to look too closely in case I might have to confront the lie. But the Holy Spirit pushes us into such confrontations with ourselves, because the Spirit is the source of the Truth that we hold deep within.

Companion

Jesus also calls the Holy Spirit “another Companion, who will be with us forever.” I love this word, companion, because of its etymology. A “companion” is literally “one with whom you share bread.” When the Risen Christ breaks bread with the two disciples after their trip along the road to Emmaus, they finally recognize him, and they say to each other, “Weren’t our hearts on fire when he spoke to us along the road.” The fire they felt was the stirring of the Holy Spirit as Jesus became their companion along the way. And the Spirit remains our companion when we share the bread and wine of Holy Communion because we ask God to send the Holy Spirit to dwell in the bread so it can be for us the Body of Christ.

Advocate

Other translations render “companion” as “advocate”: God will give “another Advocate, to be with you forever.” You can think of this Advocate like a defense attorney speaking on your behalf, advocating for you. Jesus promises that when we are called on to give an account of our faith the “Holy Spirit will tell you at that very moment what you must say.” St. Paul says that when our yearnings are beyond our grasp, the Holy Spirit will intercede for us with sighs that are too deep for words. The Spirit, then, is our voice when we feel voiceless, our strength when we feel weak.

Connector

Finally, the Holy Spirit connects us to each other. The Spirit descends upon the disciples when they are “all together in one place.” They do not see the tongues of fire on their own heads, but bear witness to the flames burning on each other’s heads. The Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, which is the foundational relational truth of our existence. We believe that the First Person of the Trinity (the Parent) perfectly loves the Second Person (the Child) and the Second perfectly loves the first. And we can imagine that the Holy Spirit is the perfect flow of love between them. So, when we enter into lifegiving relationships with each other, we are practicing the flow of love that defines the Holy Spirit.

That’s nine pieces of our experience of the Holy Spirit, nine ways the Spirit encounters us in our lives. As you look up at this beautiful sculpture over the next six months, I pray that you may remember these nine pieces of the Spirit – wind, breath, peace, fire, spark, truth, companion, and advocate, connector. I pray that you remember these nine ways, and by practicing them, deepen your relationship with the Spirit of God.