Shared Feelings
If you have ever been to a youth sporting event or concert or dance performance or graduation ceremony, I imagine you have observed (if not experienced firsthand) the special connection between a child and their parents and grandparents. When a child has just completed a special achievement, whether that’s a touchdown or a solo or high school education, and they are beaming like the sun, you can often tell who their parents and grandparents are. They are the ones cheering the loudest. They are the ones whistling with pride or shouting their child’s name.
Likewise, if a serious mishap occurs, they are the first responders. I remember a soccer game when I was thirteen or so, when a teammate went down under a rough challenge, and it immediately became clear he was in great pain. Something was wrong. His parents were among the first people to run across the field, maybe even before the ref blew his whistle. It was as though his pain was their pain. His cry was matched by their breathless, worried dash across the pitch. My teammate had broken his collarbone. But in that moment, it seemed like his parents were broken too. His agony was theirs.
Pentecost and Divine
Intimacy
Today is Pentecost, the day that commemorates the Holy Spirit filling the first followers of Christ. Jesus had promised his followers that when he departed, they would not be left alone. He would send the Spirit of God to them, a spirit that he named the paraclete, which can be translated as “helper” or “advocate” (John 15:26; 16:7). The most celebrated story of Pentecost is found in Acts 2, in which “suddenly from heaven there [comes] a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it fill[s] the entire house” where the followers of Christ are gathered, and “divided tongues, as of fire, appear among them, and a tongue rest[s] on each of them,” and “all of them [are] filled with the Holy Spirit and [begin] to speak in other languages…about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:2-4, 11). Peter, a leader among these first Christ-followers, stands up and explains that this colorful, multilingual display of enthusiasm for God is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that God’s spirit would one day be poured out on all flesh (Acts 2:17). It is, in other words, an opening of the floodgates, a universalization of God’s Spirit. The final words to the prophecy that Peter shares are among the most uplifting in all scripture: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
Lest the miraculous events of this scene make it seem overly distant, lest our never having seen tongues of fire upon each other’s heads leave us feeling left out, I think it is worth asking what is the meaning of this event. What is the significance of this sign? What’s really going on? A good place to start is with Jesus, who promised the Holy Spirit in the first place. Jesus himself had such an experience, you know? For him, it was not with tongues of fire or a violent wind, but with a dove and a voice from heaven, proclaiming, “You are my beloved son; with you, I am well pleased” (cf. Mark 1:11). For Jesus, to experience the Spirit of God is to know our intimate connection with God, to know that we are in fact God’s beloved child, with whom God is well pleased. This is the good news that Jesus went about proclaiming, when he ate with tax collectors and sinners, when he healed the marginalized and oppressed, when he lifted up children and the lowly, when he touched lepers and talked with Samaritans and gave dignity to women who had been shamed and shunned. His good news begins with a simple but revolutionary message, “You are God’s beloved child, with whom God is well pleased.” So he calls the woman who has been bleeding for twelve years, whom countless doctors have failed, who has become an outcast in society, “Daughter” (Luke 8:48). So he addresses the paralyzed man whose friends bring him to Jesus, “Son.” So he calls Zacchaeus, an outcast by way of his occupation, “a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).
In many of these stories in the gospels, the good news of sonship and daughtership is accompanied with a miraculous sign. Paralysis disappears. Bleeding stops. A life of greed and fraud turns into a life of gratitude and generosity. The point, I think, is not just the miracle, but the wonderful news that the miracle reflects. We are beloved children of God, with whom God is well pleased. That is what changes a life. That is what makes a world of difference. That is the seed of a new creation. The change that matters most of all is not a material or physical one, but a spiritual one. It is a change in the story we believe and live by. A change in our orientation toward the world.
Pentecost, then, is not just about the marvel of a bunch of people speaking different languages. It is about the marvel that we are sons and daughters of God. It is about the marvel that God is near to all of us, that God’s Spirit is not a privileged possession but belongs to all who would receive it, who would dare to believe the good news. As Peter proclaims, quoting from prophecy, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
The Spirit Amid Our
Suffering
In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes what it is like to have God’s Spirit dwell within you. His description proceeds in a rather surprising direction. He does not talk about pure, unfiltered joy. He does not talk about a blissful state of perpetual peace. He talks instead about…suffering.
Just before today’s passage begins, he sets the stage for his description: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). It is telling that Paul describes God’s Spirit, twice, as what raised Jesus “from the dead.” If Jesus’ example is anything to go by, the promise of the Spirit is not the promise that there will be no darkness or death, but rather that God will be with us in these moments. God will be with us amid disease, disgrace, devastating loss, even death—with the power to raise us to new life.
Paul develops this point with a rich and provocative image, which in summary is this: when we groan, we do not groan alone. God is groaning with us. Paul introduces this image in verses 15 and 16, where he says that when we cry out to God, “Abba! Father!” it is not just us crying out to God; it is the Spirit of God within us crying out too. It is as though we hear an echo of God’s cry in our own. He unfolds this idea further in today’s passage, where he says that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26).
Now, there’s one minor brush stroke in Paul’s portrait of the Holy Spirit that makes all the difference in the world, and Paul makes it at the beginning of today’s passage: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now” (Rom 8:22). This is crucial, because a groan can point in many different directions. A groan can be a sigh of despair. It can be the sound of death throes. But Paul portrays it in a very different way. As the sound of labor pains. This groan is not the sound of despair or death. It is the sound of pain, yes, but much more importantly, new life.
Death Throes or Birth
Pains
Why is this important? William James, sometimes known as the “Father of American psychology,” points out that faith deals with what is scientifically unverifiable. He acknowledged, for example, that the question, “Is this a moral universe” is scientifically meaningless and unanswerable because morals are immaterial. They cannot be identified and counted and measured in the same way that atoms and molecules can be. Yet he argued against the religious critics of his day, insisting that in fact this question makes a world of difference—to how a person lives. If they answer “No, the universe is not moral,” then they may well live without regard for themselves or others. But if they answer, “Yes, it is moral,” then they might live as though they and other people matter, as though a person’s conduct matters.
In a similar way, the question, “Is our groaning the sound of death throes or birth pains?” makes all the difference to the way we live. If death throes, then what’s the point? Throw in the towel. Abandon all hope. If birth pains, then live with longing, with hope, with fidelity to the kingdom of God. “Wait,” as Paul says, “with patience” (Rom 8:25).
I think back to our youth on the playing field or in the concert hall, whose parents beam when they beam, and groan when they groan. I think back to the parents who raced across the pitch to be with my teammate. I know that their groaning was filled with fear, but even more than that, with longing, with hope, with the will to do everything they possibly could to ensure the safety of their son.
How much more so our heavenly father and mother?
This Pentecost is a day of joy, and as we share in fellowship over lunch today, I hope we can feel God’s smile mirroring our smiles. I hope we can feel in our bones God’s insistence that we are God’s beloved children with whom God is well pleased. But as we leave one another and return to our world…we will likely find ourselves groaning. Diagnoses of disease. Natural disasters. Wars. Hateful words. What would it mean to hear our groans not as quiet, resigned, solitary sighs of despair, but as an echo of all of creation, as an echo of the Spirit of God? What would it mean to hear these groans not as death throes, but as birth pains?
My hunch is, it would make a world of difference. May it be so.
Prayer
Who looks upon us as a doting father,
As a nurturing mother,
Who calls us beloved children—
We celebrate your intimate presence with us,
Your Spirit within us,
A helper in all things
…
Bless us in our joy,
With gratitude for all your gifts.
Bless us in our groans,
With ears to hear in them
Your own groaning
And the sound of birth pains,
So that we long for
And live for
Your kingdom,
Which is at hand.
In Christ, our brother: Amen.
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