It wasn’t so much a rush of a violent wind as it was a slight catch as her breath was drawn during an uncomfortable silence. They weren’t divided tongues as of fire so much as two thin silvery tracks her tears made rolling down her cheeks. Yet, the spirit in that room sucked the life right out of me. I know, more of a reverse Pentecost, actually. Instead of life-giving it was life denying, instead of bridge building it was division creating, instead of understanding it was confusion and hurt and anger and thoughts and responses that startle you that you even think them let alone claim them. But real, no matter how unpleasant, real and deep and hurtful. Because I was the cause of her pain. I wanted to gather her up and run away, far away. Away from those who take out their frustrations on children, away from those who would rather use innuendo and judgmentalism, who would rather hurl stones from the sidelines than try to find a solution. I wanted to take her away from all of that, to just leave it all behind and ... run away.
Yeah, Ok, I caught that. So did she. Even through her tears she said, “Dad, how is that going to help anything?” Well, I thought, sometimes it isn’t about helping, sometimes it is about safety. About taking care of yourself and those you love. Sometimes it is about what you want, sometimes it is about getting your feelings hurt and making them pay for such a thing, shaking the dust off your sandals. Yeah, that sounds biblical, doesn’t it? Just move on, because it is too hard to communicate with folks who are just so unreasonable, so stubborn, so ... so ... human.
I thought all of that, but didn’t say it. Instead I looked into those determined, shiny brown eyes and began to long for hope. The lyrics to Jason Mraz’s song Frank D. Fixer came sliding shyly through my mind. Frank D. Fixer was a handyman / He could handle anything; he was my granddad / He grew his own food and could fixed his own car / I watched it all happen in our backyard / He'd reinvent the part to fix the broken home / He restored the heart
Well, I wish I was a fixer / I would fix you up inside / I would build you a town if the world fell down / I wish I was that guy.
Acts 2:1-13 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 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. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
I’m sure they wanted to run. It wasn’t really safe to stay where they were. Right in the heart of the lair of the opposition. Right where the people were who didn’t like the one they had followed for these past few years. Right where they had won, and he had lost so painfully. Sure they had those encounters, they saw him or something that seemed to be him, coming through the locked and bolted doors in that room that had become their world in those days. Sure there were his somewhat cryptic words telling them to wait. So, they waited, but I’ll bet they wanted to run. Run for the hills, run for their lives. You can only face such anger for so long.
So maybe it was their weariness as much as their obedience that kept them corralled in that room. Maybe it was their fear as much as their hope. Who knows. All we are told is that they were all together in one place. And maybe because of that, God showed up. Maybe because despite their desire to run away, to greener pastures, to safer terrain, to more familiar faces, folks like them who wouldn’t challenge them so much, let them be in peace, maybe the fact that they stayed in that one place in spite of all of that, God blows down walls and sets doubts on fire.
The first undeniable truth from Acts chapter two is that God is the fixer. We can wish we were fixers all we want. But it is only when the Spirit arrives that we can ever hope to bridge the gaps, to leap across the differences and come to a common understanding. Otherwise we are too different, too set in our ways, too wounded by our encounters with one another to even come close to healing what is torn between us.
When the Spirit comes we can speak in languages that we didn’t even know we knew. Instead of languages of hurt and anger and revenge, we are fluent in forgiveness and reconciliation. Instead of limitation and doubt and anxiety, we speak hope and joy like natives. Instead of accusation and blame love rolls off our tongues as though we were born to it, with a perfect accent as though it were a part of us.
Amazing. Oh, sure, there are those who will wonder when we speak this language, What does it mean they will say, with suspicion perhaps, with hooded eyes afraid to risk responding. You must be drunk they will hiss, if you think this can be fixed, this can be forgiven. You are out of your mind! And maybe we are, we will have to admit. Out of the minds that kept us from speaking this language before. Out of the minds that only wanted revenge, that only wanted to lick wounds and pout in the darkness. We are out of our minds, because the Spirit drove us out. Drove us out into the wilderness of living in a world that sometimes hurts us, sometimes rejects us. But then gave us words to say, a language to live out, and so we do. In fits and starts, but we do.
God is the fixer, that’s truth one. But truth two is that the tools God chooses to use to fix what is broken are us. Or in us. Or from us. Something, it is hard to know exactly except that we are invested in this fixing thing, more than we want to be sometimes. We put ourselves out there, hair blown out of place by a wind that is sending us and sparks still flying off our ears by a flame that is empowering us, and get to work fixing. And part of what gets fixed is ourselves.
“Dad, how is that going to help anything?” That being running away. That being giving up. Her words haunt me almost as much as her hurt. I’m so proud of her, even as I fear for her. She also asked me, “Do you think we can fix this?” I had to admit that I didn’t know.
Well, I wish I was a fixer / I would fix you up inside / I would build you a town if the world fell down / I wish I was that guy.
But I knew who could.
Shalom,
Derek
Yeah, Ok, I caught that. So did she. Even through her tears she said, “Dad, how is that going to help anything?” Well, I thought, sometimes it isn’t about helping, sometimes it is about safety. About taking care of yourself and those you love. Sometimes it is about what you want, sometimes it is about getting your feelings hurt and making them pay for such a thing, shaking the dust off your sandals. Yeah, that sounds biblical, doesn’t it? Just move on, because it is too hard to communicate with folks who are just so unreasonable, so stubborn, so ... so ... human.
I thought all of that, but didn’t say it. Instead I looked into those determined, shiny brown eyes and began to long for hope. The lyrics to Jason Mraz’s song Frank D. Fixer came sliding shyly through my mind. Frank D. Fixer was a handyman / He could handle anything; he was my granddad / He grew his own food and could fixed his own car / I watched it all happen in our backyard / He'd reinvent the part to fix the broken home / He restored the heart
Well, I wish I was a fixer / I would fix you up inside / I would build you a town if the world fell down / I wish I was that guy.
Acts 2:1-13 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 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. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."
I’m sure they wanted to run. It wasn’t really safe to stay where they were. Right in the heart of the lair of the opposition. Right where the people were who didn’t like the one they had followed for these past few years. Right where they had won, and he had lost so painfully. Sure they had those encounters, they saw him or something that seemed to be him, coming through the locked and bolted doors in that room that had become their world in those days. Sure there were his somewhat cryptic words telling them to wait. So, they waited, but I’ll bet they wanted to run. Run for the hills, run for their lives. You can only face such anger for so long.
So maybe it was their weariness as much as their obedience that kept them corralled in that room. Maybe it was their fear as much as their hope. Who knows. All we are told is that they were all together in one place. And maybe because of that, God showed up. Maybe because despite their desire to run away, to greener pastures, to safer terrain, to more familiar faces, folks like them who wouldn’t challenge them so much, let them be in peace, maybe the fact that they stayed in that one place in spite of all of that, God blows down walls and sets doubts on fire.
The first undeniable truth from Acts chapter two is that God is the fixer. We can wish we were fixers all we want. But it is only when the Spirit arrives that we can ever hope to bridge the gaps, to leap across the differences and come to a common understanding. Otherwise we are too different, too set in our ways, too wounded by our encounters with one another to even come close to healing what is torn between us.
When the Spirit comes we can speak in languages that we didn’t even know we knew. Instead of languages of hurt and anger and revenge, we are fluent in forgiveness and reconciliation. Instead of limitation and doubt and anxiety, we speak hope and joy like natives. Instead of accusation and blame love rolls off our tongues as though we were born to it, with a perfect accent as though it were a part of us.
Amazing. Oh, sure, there are those who will wonder when we speak this language, What does it mean they will say, with suspicion perhaps, with hooded eyes afraid to risk responding. You must be drunk they will hiss, if you think this can be fixed, this can be forgiven. You are out of your mind! And maybe we are, we will have to admit. Out of the minds that kept us from speaking this language before. Out of the minds that only wanted revenge, that only wanted to lick wounds and pout in the darkness. We are out of our minds, because the Spirit drove us out. Drove us out into the wilderness of living in a world that sometimes hurts us, sometimes rejects us. But then gave us words to say, a language to live out, and so we do. In fits and starts, but we do.
God is the fixer, that’s truth one. But truth two is that the tools God chooses to use to fix what is broken are us. Or in us. Or from us. Something, it is hard to know exactly except that we are invested in this fixing thing, more than we want to be sometimes. We put ourselves out there, hair blown out of place by a wind that is sending us and sparks still flying off our ears by a flame that is empowering us, and get to work fixing. And part of what gets fixed is ourselves.
“Dad, how is that going to help anything?” That being running away. That being giving up. Her words haunt me almost as much as her hurt. I’m so proud of her, even as I fear for her. She also asked me, “Do you think we can fix this?” I had to admit that I didn’t know.
Well, I wish I was a fixer / I would fix you up inside / I would build you a town if the world fell down / I wish I was that guy.
But I knew who could.
Shalom,
Derek
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