The Spirit didn't come and fill the disciples because they were waiting and doing nothing, vaguely hoping God might do something - the Spirit came because they were eagerly praying and desiring God to give them the resources they needed for the mission Jesus had passed on to them.
The day of Pentecost - the birthday of the church - the coming of the Spirit is described in terms of wind and flame. As you've probably heard many times in both Greek and Hebrew the word for 'spirit' is the same as they word for 'wind' - in Greek 'Pneuma', in Hebrew 'Ruach' - and the same word also means 'breath'. Thus you could translate that they filled with the Holy wind - which would sound odd - or the Holy Breath. I feel sure, as I think I've said here before, that if they had known about them the disciples would have used the metaphor of balloons for what happened to them. A balloon is limp and lifeless until it is filled with your breath - in Greek or Hebrew - until it is filled with your spirit. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is the difference between this (filled balloon) and this (flat balloon).
The other image is flame - tongues of fire settling on the disciples. I think most cultures would know what you meant if you said somebody was 'on fire'! I have the image of a footballer charging down the wing dodging tackles to the excitement of the crowd, and the commentator shouting, "He's on fire!"
Wind and flame, as metaphors at least, we can sort of understand being connected with God's power, and with ourselves when we're really switched on. But what about the strange thing that happened next? "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit/Wind/Breath and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." This is often connected with the gift of tongues - an ecstatic speech used in prayer and worship - that Paul refers to a couple of times, but there are clearly big differences. Paul cautions the Corinthians about using tongues in their worship because, he says, no one will understand - at least not unless someone has the gift of interpreting tongues. Paul says even the speaker himself doesn't understand what he is saying when speaking in tongues - he is simply pouring out his heart to God. But on the day of Pentecost quite the reverse is true, they speak and everyone understands them. What is going on?
If we were as familiar with our Bibles as every Jew in Jesus day was we would have thought straight away of an odd little story at the beginning of Genesis. In Genesis chapter 9, after Noah's flood, Noah and his family are commanded to "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." The old creation has been washed away and they are to be part of spreading the new creation across the face of the earth. But it doesn't take long to go wrong. In Genesis 11 the people stop spreading over the earth - they settle and build a city and say to themselves "Let us build a tower with its top in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." They build their own power base to glorify themselves - they seek to be secure and comfortable and deliberately stall what God has commanded. So God comes down to see what's going on. It's a sort of comic irony that they think their tower has its top in the heavens, but God has to 'come down' to even see it. But when God comes down he confuses their language and they cannot understand one another, and he scatters them abroad over the face of the earth.
When we try to make a name for ourselves, we fail to understand one another and are scattered. You can see that happening in the history of Christianity. When churches seek their own security and comfort, they settle and defend what they see as 'their' traditions they fall out and fragment into different denominations. But when they seek instead to spread the gospel over the face of the earth they are united - though different they understand one another because of their common purpose.
On the first day of Pentecost what you see is a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. God comes down and those who previously couldn't understand one another suddenly found they could - and the message began to spread over the face of the earth.
How often do we, as a church, feel like we are speaking a language no one else understands? I know I feel that. What God's Spirit does is translates the good news of Jesus so that people of all different languages and cultures can understand it. How we need that today!
That's a few thoughts about some of the oddities of the coming of the Holy Spirit and what it might mean, but actually, to understand what's going on at Pentecost we need to look at the bigger picture - less of the detail - more of the landscape. Pentecost is the end of a process for the disciples. First Jesus' death had shattered all their expectations about who he was. The Resurrection put them back together again in a different order and helped them understand who Jesus really was. Then at the Ascension Jesus passed on the baton of his mission and left them - he opened up a space that required them to act. Imagine a parent teaching their child to ride a bike, running along and holding them - I think the Ascension is a bit like the moment when the parent lets go - now it's up to the child to keep pedalling.
But then Pentecost messes up that metaphor because Jesus is not absent - it's almost as if the parent jumps into the child and gives them the energy to pedal - the ability to balance. At Ascension Jesus passed on his mission to the disciples - at Pentecost he gives them the ability to carry it out - his own Spirit at work in their hearts and in their communal life together.
Pentecost doesn't stand on its own it is a vital link in a chain, but not the only one, in the disciples' growth into being transformed. It stands alongside Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension. One ought to be suspicious of a church that speaks only of the power of the Spirit in our lives but bypasses Jesus suffering and death for example. We need them all - the Cross, the Empty Tomb, the Ascended Lord and the Holy Spirit.
But so what? How can we - ordinary old us - be filled, like a balloon, with the Holy Spirit. Some of you may have had the experience, as I have, of being put off this idea by some sorts of Pentecostalism, where the Holy Spirit is too often identified with some sort of whipped up emotional frenzy. But where the Pentecostals do have it right is in taking Pentecost seriously. If Jesus' disciples needed his Holy Spirit, so do we. But how can we be filled with the Spirit - I don't just mean be vaguely aware of the Spirit at work in us (though that's not to be sneezed at), but how can we be changed from this (floppy balloon) to this (blown up)? How can we be on fire for Jesus?
I think there's no short circuit round what the disciples had to do - wait expectantly on God, devoting ourselves to prayer - in short we have to really want God's Holy Spirit. Do we? If we're honest? Or would we rather, like the people of Babel, settle, make the church comfortable for ourselves and settle there - give up any idea of spreading the gospel over the face of the earth, to others who are not like us? Then we find ourselves confused and squabbling - not understanding one another.
If we don't want to be part of Jesus mission to preach the Good News to all nations - all peoples around us - why would we need the Holy Spirit? We need to become aware and accept, as the disciples did, that this mission is our task now. Only then will we be so keenly aware of our lack and our need for God's Spirit to breathe in and through us, that we will really want it.
One final thought. What is it like to be filled with the Spirit? How will we know we have been? I used to think this would be some sort of ecstatic emotional experience, but now I think that, if that happens, that is secondary. What was it like for Jesus when the Spirit came upon him? At his baptism Jesus experienced the coming of the Holy Spirit as God saying to him, "You are my Son, whom I love." I think that's the heart of what the Holy Spirit is all about. It is the assurance that we are loved by God our heavenly Father. What else could drive out the disciples' fear and motivate them to share the love of God, other than the knowledge of that love for themselves?
May we be so filled with the knowledge that we - and indeed everyone - is loved by God - that we long for the ability to spread that Good News to everyone we know. Only then will we want the Holy Spirit - only then will we receive it.
