What If Everyone Came . . .

“And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” Acts 2:2

The uninhibited expression of faith; I have heard it before and I long to hear it again!

Two weeks ago we baptized Anna, the baby sister of William. William is a mighty five year-old, full of the vim and vigor of the Holy Spirit. He is graced with a candidness of expression that defies the decorum on inhibition, boldly saying what needs to be said in the time most needed.

With his family, we gathered at the baptismal font, there to pour down the grace of God in Jesus Christ upon the head and being of William’s little sister. The congregation spoke their prayerful support. The sponsors echoed theirs. The parents committed themselves to the faithful living of a life out ahead. Anna was prepared, not by her own doing, but by the doing of her people, generations both present in the room and in rooms reserved in God’s heavenly house. Surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses, we held her over the water and spoke the words of inheritance, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” and in the confirmation of what had happened, in the uninhibited expression of five year-old faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit, William shouted out,

“AMEN!”

Smiles erupted in the room. No, it is true. I heard the smiles of the gathered throng, set free by the uninhibited expression of the mighty child; his timing, his power, his desire to proclaim breaking through in his shout.

“Amen,” William shouted. ‘This is most certainly true. We are the children of God. We are the Holy Spirit blowing. We are the inheritors of a grace so great in Jesus Christ. I am, my sister is, my Mom and Dad too, all you dear people, you have this faith, freely given, boldly infused into you. Do not let it be squelched by the decorum of order, but be set free by the radical Spirit of God.’

“Amen,” William shouted.

There are times when I look at children, as if I have something to give to them, but in my faithful moments I realize the truth that they are giving to me beyond measure. They reveal to me what I may have lost; the childlike wonder and awe, the uninhibited expression of faith, the Spirit of God that lives way beyond the boundaries of order and dwells in the surprising newness of what we cannot know.

Walter Brueggeman, theologian and author writes in a poem entitled, To Make Things New That Never Were:
“So blow this day, wind, Blow here and there, power,
Blow even us, force, Rush us beyond ourselves,
Rush us beyond our hopes,
Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world.
Come, come spirit. Amen.”

The following Sunday, after the baptism of Anna, I was out in the Fireside Room. Through the cacophony of voices, from thirty feet away, I heard the sound of it again. This time, the mighty voice cried out, “PASTOR PAUL!” My name from the lips of William, the affection so loud it skipped my ears and went straight to my heart. I turned around to see him, and through the forest of bodies and legs our eyes met. I winked my response from a face of pure expression. ‘This is Pentecost,’ I thought, the pure, uninhibited expression of the Spirit of God given. It filled the room where the people had gathered.

And William, he knew it. From a face stretched across with grin, he tipped his head a bit, in order to wink his return. We both knew it, beyond ourselves, beyond our hopes, beyond our fears, the Spirit has come, and all things are made new!

The uninhibited expression of faith in our mighty God through Jesus Christ, and all the room shouted, AMEN!