Sermons

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In Case of Earthquake...
May 15, 2005
Pentecost Sunday
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
Acts 2:36-41

Last week I told you an untruth! I told you we had been in the gospel of Luke for 40 weeks. I mis-spoke. It has only been 30…but we’ll easily get to 40 before we are done.

You can see that we’re taking a break from Luke this morning. But only sort of, because the gospel writer Luke is also the author of the book of Acts. Luke and Acts form a two volume set.

The gospel is the story of Jesus. The book of Acts is the story of the church. Lynne read earlier from the beginning of Acts 2, with the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, the wind, the tongues like fire.

You’ll remember back to Wednesday, February 28, 2001. It was the last time the earth moved in a really significant way in Seattle…the earthquake. Unseen forces caused cement to buckle, buildings to sway, bricks to fall down. The invisible clearly changed the visible. It scared us.

After that day, a church on the east side of the lake wanted to make sure that it was clear what people should do to be safe if the earth happened to shake on a Sunday morning, so they put right in their worship bulletin these words:

“In case of an earthquake during worship, please remain in the sanctuary until the movement stops.”

I wrote that down when Francis Peppard told me about it months ago, because it seemed important: “In case of an earthquake during worship, please remain in the sanctuary until the movement stops.”

It’s fitting this morning that we talk about the movement of the Holy Spirit, the enduring presence of God in the lives of believing Christians. Many times it is an invisible presence, but it causes changes both visible and invisible to happen to our lives. Something like an earthquake, I guess.

Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. Jesus was gone for good. He had been crucified the day before the Jewish Passover, died and then miraculously raised from the dead. The resurrected Christ had stayed with his followers for 40 days before finally being taken up to heaven.

His last words of instruction to his followers were that they should wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would remain with them. They were to wait. They had 10 more days to wait, roughly.

Pentecost was a Jewish harvest festival, and it occurred 50 days after the Jewish Passover, when Jesus was killed. Pentecost literally means 50.

So after 40 days the bodily resurrected Jesus goes to heaven. Jesus’ followers wait, for the Spirit. Baptism. Power. the Holy Spirit. And 10 days later, on Pentecost…the earth moves. Everything changes.

“In case of an earthquake, please remain in the sanctuary until the movement stops.”

The day of Pentecost was a new beginning, in some ways the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ.

It wasn’t the first time that God’s Spirit was involved in a new beginning. Way back in Genesis 1 at the creation of the world, God’s Spirit, God’s Wind, God’s Breath (same word) hovered, and the created world with all of its wonder came into being.

God’s Spirit, his breath breathed life into the human being. Holy Spirit. A new beginning, from nothing to life. Things shook, moved, were never the same again.

Time passed. The Spirit of God was seen now and again but sort of hit and miss. A lot of bad stuff happened. Sin, enemies, pollution, hatred came into the world making it significantly different than what God had breathed into being.

But then in the birth of Christ, “the Holy Spirit (Breath of God) will come upon you” Mary is told.

And when Jesus is baptized to begin his public ministry, God says “this is my Son, the Beloved,” and the Spirit again hovered, and descended like a dove.

Another new beginning, in Jesus. Things shook, moved, were never the same again.

And time passes. Jesus ministers. He is arrested, tried, killed, raised. And finally leaves.

But again, the Spirit comes to bring another new beginning. Jesus’ followers gather together, and from heaven (where Jesus has just gone) comes the sound like a rushing Wind…Breath, Spirit of God. It is strong, it shakes the house and fills it. Tongues of fire land on the people, they begin to speak in other languages. Things shook, moved, were never the same again.

“In case of an earthquake, please remain until the movement stops.”

I was with a friend having coffee this week, and he said “Somebody asked me about your church, and they said “Bethany Presbyterian, is that the sort of charismatic Presbyterian Church?” And my friend said “I didn’t know what to tell them. What does that mean?”

I said, I bet they’re wondering if it’s a church where some of the gifts of the Spirit are sometimes given in worship, like a word from God, or someone speaks in tongues or interprets.

And my friend said “Does it?!?!”

And I said “It’s not unusual, thank God.”

And my friend said just one word: “Wow.”

Usually when we talk about the coming of the Holy Spirit to the church on Pentecost, we immediately talk about the charismatic gifts evidenced in the New Testament, the more spectacular things like prophecy or speaking in tongues or interpretations or healing.

Sometimes the movement of God’s Spirit is spectacular. Sometimes it is visible. Sometimes not so much. But always, it strikes me, it is transformational. It transforms us and our world, it changes us.

A few years ago, I told you a story about a professor of mine at Princeton named James Loder. Dr. Loder died a couple of years ago. The story I told you was of an experience that he had which he wrote about in a book called The Transforming Moment. I want to talk a bit more about that this morning.

Dr. Loder was a wonderful person, and one of the smartest people I have ever been around. I went to visit him in his office on campus once. It was a small office, with books stacked everywhere and a blackboard that ran around the entire office.

On one board he had a bunch of scriptures listed out, and on the board next to it he had part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, with arrows and notes running every which direction.

Occasionally his lectures would remind me of the person who once said that their brilliant professor came into class and said “ “Good morning,” and “those were the last two words I understood!”

But on the first day of class, Dr. Loder looked at us and said,

“Actually, I will not be your primary instructor for this class…God’s Spirit will be.”

In 1970, Dr. Loder was driving with his wife and young daughters in a camper in upstate New York. He pulled over to help a woman with a flat tire at the side of the road.

Just as he was placing the jack under the woman’s car, another car whose driver had fallen asleep slammed into the one he was working on, driving the weight of the car onto his chest and then ramming it into their camper.

He had, he found out later, five broken ribs, a bleeding lung and other internal injuries, gouged skin on his entire body, and his thumb torn off halfway up. He was trapped under the car. There was no one to help.

Loder’s wife Arlene, a small woman barely five feet tall, put her hands under the bumper of the car and prayed “In the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ…” and lifted as best she could.

She passed out from the effort, and awoke a few moments later…to find that she had actually moved the car off her husband, saving his life. She had broken a vertebra to boot.

During the extensive medical care he received that day and many days to follow, he found for the first time and much to his surprise that he “felt a warm, peaceful sense that life was pouring into me from a gracious source beyond the power of that accident to damage or destroy me.”

“In case of an earthquake, please remain… until the movement stops.”

Prior to this experience, Dr. Loder described himself as a Christian, but despite teaching in a seminary, he was reasonably detached from both the church and his own faith.

It took him almost two years to process what God’s Spirit had done.

• First he stood up to speak in a worship service at a church who had fervently prayed for him…and found himself unable to speak, overcome by the nearness of God’s presence.
• Then he was moved to become involved in the community of faith
• Then to totally rethink the basis and purpose of his career as a professor.

God’s Spirit had transformed him.

When Dr. Loder told his story in our class some 25 years after it happened…he absolutely wept. It was powerfully still in the classroom.

He waved his half-thumb in the air as he talked. He finally gave up and said “Let us pray,” and prayed a remarkably powerful prayer to God.

The Holy Spirit is the enduring presence of Christ with us.

Sometimes there is a powerful outward manifestation, speaking in tongues, healing, lifting an impossible weight. That visible sign points at an invisible inner transformation the Spirit desires and works within us.

If you need another example of the transformation through the Spirit then think for a second about Peter. We read only the end of Peter’s Day of Pentecost sermon.

But clearly when the power of God’s Spirit landed upon him, something happened. Peter the rough fisherman, Peter the coward who betrayed Jesus whom he loved…

• Suddenly stands up and eloquently preaches a sermon;
• Quotes three long passages of scripture,
• Interprets the Old Testament in the light of Jesus,
• Presents clearly the ministry, crucifixion, resurrection and meaning of Christ,
• Explains the Holy Spirit
• And hits his listeners between the eyes by telling them that they crucified the Christ.

And (I suspect much to Peter’s surprise) the people respond. Repent of their sins, are baptized, three thousand of them!...and they begin their lives as followers of Jesus.

“In case of an earthquake, please remain…until the movement stops.”

When God’s Holy Spirit comes on us, sometimes spectacular things happen. Praise God!

But the Spirit is also at work doing all sorts of things less visible. Here’s four:

a) Shaking us up.

Virtually without exception, the presence of God’s Spirit in our lives is not a spirit of routine, of the maintenance of life as it has always been. The Spirit is about the work of transformation: changing, healing, calling us closer to Christ.

That is the primary role of the Spirit, to point us to Christ. When we invite the God of the universe into our life…it is His intention to come in with no limitations. The roar of the wind, the tongues of fire, and life is never the same again.

b) Convicting us of sin.

Just as Peter’s listeners here in the book of Acts responded to the presence of the Spirit by repenting…the Spirit convicts us of our sin.

I’m amazed by how many times in scripture the Spirit’s presence means…someone is convicted of their sin. So many times, in fact, that I am convinced that the truest mark of the Spirit’s presence in a church is not the presence of the charismatic gifts…but the presence of people who regularly confess their sin.

c) God’s Spirit opens the scriptures to us.

In II Timothy 3:16 it says “All scripture is God-breathed…and useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness.”

God-breathed! There’s that “Breath of God” word again for the Holy Spirit.

I read one person’s opinion this week that even in a boring sermon, if there were 2 or 3 scriptures quoted, life somehow broke through. I wasn’t so sure of that…so I tried it out.

Last week I was at a meeting of a couple dozen Presbyterian pastors and elders and it was, frankly, sort of a boring meeting.

At the last minute it was discovered that no one had brought anything for devotions, and they asked if I would do something. So not totally knowing where it was going, when it was time I stood up and read a text from the gospel of Mark, the very familiar story where Peter walks on the water towards Jesus.

And honestly, friends…there was the loudest hush that came over the room…somehow everything had changed as the Spirit of God spoke through the scripture.

d) God’s Spirit tells us that we are not alone.

• Sometimes that is through a strong sense of God’s presence.
• Sometimes it is through another person.
• Sometimes it is through someone speaking in the Spirit here in worship.

Most worship times at Bethany we have a time of just listening to God, and inviting words, tongues, interpretations, scriptures, songs to be led by the Spirit. Often there’s something pretty amazing that happens.

Last month, a person who has never interpreted before suddenly opened her mouth and had an interpretation…and said to me afterwards,

“Well, that was something, wasn’t it?! That’s never happened to me before!”

Two weeks ago someone else had a word from God in English that was roughly this:

“Look at the cross and ask yourself if it is enough. Was it enough to cover your fear? Was it enough to cover your sins? I say to you…it was enough.”

Powerful, powerful word.

Always, when that happens I will hear later from one or two or five people, phone, in person, email…saying

“What was going on in worship Sunday? That word was just for me! I needed to know God was with me, and that word (or song, etc) assured me of it. When the Spirit moves, it is one way God has of saying “you are not alone.”

“In case of an earthquake, please remain… until the movement stops.”

We don’t always know what the presence of God’s Spirit will look or sound like. We don’t know if it will be quiet or spectacular, we don’t know lots of things. Only that when we are in the presence of God, our lives are transformed. We are changed people.

And in those moments when you sense that God is powerfully present, my encouragement is to welcome that Presence.

My same professor, Dr. Loder told the story of a student who had asked him to pray that he might receive the power of the Holy Spirit in his life. Dr. Loder said “I complied; laying my hands on his head, I began to pray.

Suddenly in the midst of the prayer he erupted, “Stop, I’m not ready for this yet!”

The ambivalence toward the Holy entering one’s life is too powerful to be taken lightly.”

In one way, who is ever ready for such a thing to happen? Perhaps “ready” is not the right word. Perhaps “willing” is. Are we willing?

If the Spirit is here…please remain…until the movement stops. Amen.

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