Text John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

Theme Forgiveness in the Wind

Subject The beginning of the Church with the coming of the Holy Spirit

Occasion Pentecost – 5/11/08 – Zion – Iowa City

Here in the northern hemisphere, December is a wonderful time for Christmas

Short days; long nights – darkness

Oh, celebrate God’s love in Jesus: light of the world

A cold and barren landscape

Be warmed by the love of God in Christ Jesus

Christians in the southern hemisphere make do with long days and short nights

As if the world and creator are in sync

Bright, warm and soothing - just like the love of God

Here in the northern hemisphere, early spring is a wonderful time for Easter

Longer days – dawn and dusk begin to linger

Oh, celebrate the resurrected life

Thawing ground and raining skies bring new life

Flora and fauna announce the creator’s majesty and power

Christians in the southern hemisphere make do with falling leaves and cooling temps

They face the paradox at Easter:

believing in new life in Christ while everything around them is dying

Here in the northern hemisphere, late spring is a wonderful time for Pentecost

Winds blow across fields like the breath of God moving over the waters

The creator’s voice seems to be in their howling: “Bring forth”

Christians in the southern hemisphere know instead that winter is in this wind

Bitter cold or rainy season

Life is challenged at their Pentecost

Dr. Luke wrote

When the day of Pentecost had come, … suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house (Acts 2:1-2)

The wind this year, in this season, has been vicious

63,500 people are dead or missing in a cyclone & tidal wave in Myanmar last week

7 died due to tornados in Arkansas

Yesterday 11 were killed by tornados in Oklahoma and Missouri

Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit must be more than wind

And it must be more than inspiring fire on the lips of believers

About a generation after Dr. Luke reported the coming of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem and with it the birthing of the Church, the body of Christ,

Beloved John reported what’s come to be called “Little Pentecost”

Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." … he breathed on them …, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." (John 20:21-23)

After the passing of some decades, it seems believers were inspired to synthesize down the meaning of the first Pentecost

As if to say, there is something more than the establishing of the Church

Instead of waiting in Jerusalem for 10 days after the Ascension

Making the count 50 days after the resurrection – thus Pentecost

The visit of freshly resurrected Jesus to the hiding disciples is when …

is when the holy, life-giving breath of Jesus

breathed on 10 of them the content of their mission

Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit (Hagios pneuma)

Gave them his breath: holy breath, holy wind, Holy Spirit

And it held what had he consistently breathed

Forgiveness

When he breathed healing on the broken, whether blind or lame,

He would breathe forgiveness

There is forgiveness in the wind

Long ago Wilhelm Loehe taught this means of pastoral care

Dietrich Bonheoffer did the same

When we pastors, practitioners of soul-care (seelsorge), visit in hospital,

We are always to be ready to hear confession and provide absolution

Healing the soul, that mind and body may be made whole

Forgiveness is central to the resurrection faith

St. Paul invited the Roman Christians and us to remember it that way

dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11b)

And how do we get that way

Surrendering our lives to the power of Christ’s death and resurrection

with his stripes we are healed (Is. 53:5)

We find refuge under the shelter of (God’s) wings. (Ps 61:4b)

Forgiveness is the message of the gospel

The good news of Jesus Christ: forgiveness in the wind

We live in age wherein forgiveness is besmirched

“it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission”

In these days obedience is diminished

Individual freedom (autonomy) is the treasure

Distorted into supposing no need for permission or obedience

Be free – dance to your own music and sing your own song

But as this autonomy goes, everyone would become

prima ballerinas with no company and no music

a cappella soloists with no choir or accompaniment

Forgiveness is central to relationships

Forgiveness has very little to do with imagined autonomous freedom

Forgiveness is about belonging and obedience

Herein freedom comes with the unloading of grudge and bitterness

Free from the heaviness of past wounds

On this Mother’s Day weekend good for us to think of relationships

This last week I conducted a small survey of mothers

“What were your thoughts when you first held your babies?”

Consistently women told me something like

“I never knew I could love someone so much”

In parent/child relationships forgiveness flows easily

Each trying to fulfill ever-changing roles

It is tricky business

Children learn that obedience is preferred but forgiveness is possible

Parents learn that responsibility is preferred but forgiveness is possible

Life gets easily distorted when autonomous freedom is the prize

Disobedience can become the path

Irresponsibility can too

The diminishing of forgiveness can make it nothing more than a band-aid

Good enough to cover until the next time

Herein freedom becomes a wound where

Disobedience reigns

Irresponsibility reigns

Families become damaged systems that spin like tops

rather than harbors for healing

and launching pads for dreams

But there is forgiveness in the wind at Pentecost!

This very same wind

breathed life into creation

breathed life in the dry bones in a valley

breathed life into the widows son and Martha’s brother

breathed life into Mary’s gardener

breathed life to establish the Church

Martin Luther taught us this about what happens in the Church:

Daily in the Christian Church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins – mine and those of all believers. On the last day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.

Forgiveness is not about

spilled milk, broken china, socks on the floor, dirty dishes or litter boxes

Forgiveness is about relationships

Forgiveness in the wind is now the air we breathe

Welcoming, restoring, renewing, life-giving breath

This is what God worked in Jesus

This is the news we have in our breath for the world

Today is our fresh start

We’ve named our sin and heard the absolution

Our souls are healed

In obedience we now have forgiveness on our breath

There is tenacity with forgiveness

It is the refusal to let the wrongs of the past shape the future

It is our only hope for eternity

That God has forgiveness in the wind

It is our only hope for tomorrow

That we have forgiveness on our breath

Oh dear Lord, three things we pray

That we might see thee more clearly

Love thee more dearly

Follow thee more nearly