INTRODUCTION:

[CLIP] SCRIPTURE/LUMICLIP: "The Burning Question" voiced version

"Have you ever been a little confused? Ever wondered what was going on around you?

I will never forget January 24th of 1967, I was a sophomore in High School. Mom and Dad had gone to the Grocery store. I was left home to take of my two younger brothers. It was about 6:00 pm or so and it looked like it could rain. We'd been watching TV when all of a sudden the lights went out. I turned on my old transistor radio (remember when they were called that?).

They interrupted the broadcast to announce a major tornado warning and to take cover. So, I moved my brothers into our basement, into the corner we were told to get into, where it was the a safest. We were there about 10 minutes when Mom and Dad came home with a car load of groceries. Dad honked, but we didn't hear him. So, when he came in the house he was mad.

He started barking orders and hollering about us not being there to help. He asked where we were but then was hollering so much that we never got a chance to tell him.

Every time one of us said: "But Dad," he told us to shut up and quit interrupting. We carried in the groceries just before it started to rain. Then it dropped a few bits of hail and then quit. It got real still. All this time we were helping to put groceries away. Mom decided since the electricity was off that she would use the gas stove and fix soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper.

We kept trying to tell them about the tornado warning but no one was listening. Finally, right about 7:00 pm, Mom had the tomato soup and sandwiches ready and we sat down to eat. That was when my Dad, through the dining room picture window, noticed the tall evergreen bushes bending nearly double. I remember him saying: "Shirley, would you look at that. The wind has really picked up." And then he went back to eating.

Finally, I was able to say, "Dad, there's a tornado warning. That's why those trees are bending like that. That's why we were in the basement."

He hollered, "Well, why didn't you say something."

I remember standing there in front of the window, watching the wind in the trees with my Dad, thinking, we ought to be in the basement. I don't remember what we did but we didn't go to the basement. And Mom and Dad didn't turn on the radio. I think the phone was even out.

Later, we were told to go to bed. The next morning, the power was still off. Mom got us up and got us ready for school. We waited at the bus stop but no bus. Mom got ready for work and decided she better take us to school. As we drove down our street and turned on the road to the school, it became more and more apparent that we had missed something. There were houses with no roofs, lots where there used to be houses and the closer we got to my High School the more damage there was.

When we pulled up to the stop light across from the school and saw an empty parking lot, I think that's when it really dawned on my Mom that something was wrong.

It turns out that at 6;55 pm, 6.5 miles from our house, a tornado struck. And not just any tornado, it was a major tornado. Three were killed, 216 injured. 168 homes were destroyed, 258 had major damage, and 1485 had minor damage. At least 600 businesses were destroyed or damaged. The damage total was listed at $15 million.

This tornado was given a F4 rating on the Fujita Tornado Rating Scale which means winds measured between 207-260 mph. It left a path of destruction 21 miles long.

I'll never forget how confused my Mom looked and felt that day. Dad was home when we got back and he was the same way. A house at the end of our street, one of our friends, had had all the carpet sucked out from under the front door. There was an elderly women who must have been even more confused than my parents. She slept through it all. When she woke up and stepped out of her bedroom, that's all that was left of her home. Her bedroom was completely intact but everything else was destroyed. Talk about confused.

I'll bet you've been in confusing situations like that too.

When the first Christians received the Holy Spirit through a rush of a mighty wind and tongues of flame, their confusion was understandable. Nothing like that had ever occurred before. They asked "What does this mean?"

And here we are, thousands of years later, still asking the same burning question, "What does this mean?" Watch this clip.

Show Clip - Chocolat on DVD

The movie Chocolat opens with these words by the narrator: "Once upon a time there was a quiet little village in the French countryside, whose people believed in tranquility. If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you. You knew your place in the scheme of things. And if you happened to forget, someone would help remind you. In this village, if you saw something you weren't supposed to, you learned to look the other way. If by chance your hopes had been disappointed, you learned never to ask for more. So through good times and bad, famine and heat, the villagers held fast to their traditions, until one winter day a sly wind blew in from the North."

If you've seen the movie you know that this "sly wind from the North" would effect the whole community. And change their lives forever.

The members of the congregation in the movie Chocolat, didn't understand the significance of that "sly wind which blew in from the North" that day. Had no idea just how important that wind would be. They were probably asking themselves, "What was that all about?" Or "What does this mean?"

The same could be said of the wind and the flame described in Acts 2:1-21. It came as "a sound like the rush of a mighty wind." And then "divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue of flame rested on each of them."

And they began to speak in other languages so that those gathered from all across the known world could hear and understand the Good News of Jesus Christ. What an awesome, confusing, frightening sight that must have been. And as a result, they were all filled with the Burning Question:

"What does this mean?"

I. WIND: THE BREATH AND WIND OF GOD:

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE HOLY SPIRIT. I think maybe we need to cue up the Mission Impossible theme music here.

We've been trying to figure out and explain the work, the power, the presence, the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit for a couple of thousand years now. It's like trying to definitively describe God's Grace. It ain't gonna happen.

But there are some things we've come to know.

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE BREATH AND WIND OF GOD.

Scripture describes the Holy Spirit as Wind and Fire. Both here in Acts and in other places as well. From the very beginning, the Spirit of God has been described as a wind. In Genesis 1:1-2 (NRSV) we read: [1-2] "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters."

At creation, God breathed the breath of life into Adam and Eve and gave them life.

One of the things we know is that the Holy Spirit is the Breath and Wind of God. But again we ask: "What does this mean?"

The wind of God, the breath of God, gives us life. Just as God breathed life into Adam and Eve to give them life, so God breathed into the Disciples and gave them new life. The wind of God blew through their lives and blew away all the debris and garbage that may have been left. And it stirred up the embers that had been rekindled by Jesus. And when that wind blew across those embers. There was Fire

II. FIRE; HOLY SPIRIT:

SCRIPTURE DESCRIBES THE SPIRIT AS FIRE.

There are a number of other places in which Scripture describes God's Spirit as fire.

First there is the way God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, that wasn't consumed. And then the Bible describes God leading the Israelites through the wilderness as a "cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night."

Symbolically, the Holy Spirit set our hearts on fire. Not with heart burn. We get enough of that from eating the wrong things.

No, God sets our hearts on fire in a different way. Wesley described it as having his "heart strangely warmed."

Fifty days after the resurrection, 10 day after Jesus' ascension, still a little frightened and uncertain, even though their numbers had grown, the disciples and believers gathered. And then God did more than breath new life into them. God opened their hearts and poured out the Holy Spirit upon them and the Spirit rested on them like tongues of fire. And their hearts were "strangely warmed," As Wesley said. And that warmth, that fire, gave them the power they needed to carry out the mission of God.

They received new life and a new source of power, the Holy Spirit.

"What does this mean for us?" The same thing. We don't have to rely on our own skills and energies, we don't have to rely on just us. Now we can be filled with the presence of the Risen Christ every moment of every day.

"What does this mean?" It means, the Holy Spirit both Fills us and Fuels us with the ongoing presence of the Risen Christ.

CONCLUSION:

During the 1930s, 250 men were holding the ropes to a dirigible (an airship similar to a blimp) to keep it from floating away. Suddenly a gust of wind caught one end of the dirigible, lifting it high off the ground.

Some of the men immediately let go of their ropes and fell safely to the ground. Others panicked and hung on to the end of their ropes as the nose of the dirigible rose higher and higher. Several men who couldn't hold on any longer, fell and were seriously injured. One man, however, continued to dangle high in the air for about 45 minutes until he was rescued. Reporters later asked him how he was able to hold on to the rope for so long. "I didn't hold on to the rope," he replied. "I just tied it around my waist, and the rope held on to me." (1)

God wants to blow through our lives and set the embers of our hearts on fire. The Good News is we don't have to hang on. God promises to hold on to us.

If you're life is bucking like a tornado, if it's seems to be whirling out of control, let the wind of God stir your heart to fire. And let God hold on to you.

1. Kent Crockett, I Once Was Blind, But Now I Squint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2004, p. 138.

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