The Dynamic Dimension
Acts 2:1-21
(Pentecost Sunday)
by Jim Westmoreland
Rev. Dan Rondeau in his book, "Come, Holy Spirit," tells the story of
Ira Yates, a West Texas rancher during the Depression. Mr. Ira Yates was like many other
ranchers and farmers. He had a lot of land, and a lot of debt. Mr. Yates wasn't able to
make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage,
so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family
(like many others) had to live on a government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he
was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew
from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They
asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at
80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30
years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the
potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.
And Mr. Yates owned it all! The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and
mineral rights. Yet, he'd been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The
problem? He didn't know the oil was there, even though he owned it!
It is fair to say that you and I are a lot like Mr. Yates at times. We are heirs of a vast
treasure and yet we live in spiritual poverty. We are entitled to the gifts of the Holy
Spirit and his energizing power, and yet we live unaware of our birthright. We gather
today to remember how rich we are. We have been called, empowered and gifted to live our
lives, not in defeat, despair or weakness, but to live our lives in the Dynamic Dimension!
A sense of need is a gift! The recognition of spiritual emptiness is a blessing. The Lord
is never nearer than when he excavates a sense of emptiness in us, when we feel the
conviction that we have sinned and fallen short of God's purpose for us. The Holy Spirit
can fill only empty hearts!
As the Apostles waited in the Upper Room during the ten days after Jesus Ascension up
until the Day of Pentecost, they knew what it meant to feel empty. They felt it intensely.
They had lived a life of high adventure with Jesus. The power of God had been felt in his
message, his healing and his love.
Jesus had commissioned them to go out and do greater things than he had done as they were
to preach the gospel and make disciples. But now, as they waited for the fulfillment of
his promise of power, their words of hope and faith seemed to mock their impotence and
inadequacy. And we should ask ourselves, Do our words of faith ever seem to mock our lack
of power and inadequacy? Of course they do, and that is why we need to discover The
Dynamic Dimension and the power of Pentecost. It's a terrible thing to have a passion with
no power to live it!
Four words express the emptiness prior to Pentecost. And, these same four words
characterize the life of any Christian or church that is trying to do the mission that
Christ gave us without the power of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles were discouraged,
dejected, disabled, and filled with depression.
Was it all true? Had it been a dream? Ten days is a long time to wait when the frail
thread of hope is about to break. Dejection was natural. They needed more than a memory.
They needed to experience the continuing presence of Christ. They needed the power that
only he could give.
We feel so powerless and disabled when we need to love and we have little capacity for it,
when we need to forgive others when we can't even forgive ourselves, when we long for
wisdom about the future when we can't figure out what to do with today, when we see the
needs of our neighbors, our children and grandchildren, and the needs of people all around
us and we have neither faith nor hope to believe that healing can take place.
No wonder depression captured the emotions of Jesus' followers. It grew out of the
desperate feeling that they could not be what they had been called to be. What is it for
you? What makes you depressed? What makes you feel the futility of life? Is it when you do
your best and it's not good enough, when you try to make a difference around you and there
is little discernible difference, or when you love and little love is returned? Depression
is anger turned in on ourselves as a result of the disturbing realization that we can't
change things in ourselves, in people, or in situations.
The mood in the Upper Room is shared by millions of Christians today. And, I say, praise
God! What? Yes, praise God, because he has allowed us to come to this place so that we
would be ready for Pentecost. Our efforts to live the Christian life on our own strength
have only made us tired, legalistic or rebellious, and guilty.
There are two stages in becoming a vital Christian. One is our response to Christ by the
gift of faith. We commit our lives to him and begin to live for him. We try to love,
forgive and serve. Then, as a result of the demanding challenge, we are forced to admit
that we can't do it; we don't have what it takes. That prepares us for the second step,
which must constantly be repeated. Out of power and conscious of our failure, we are
broken. We are empty! That's the only way we can hear Christ's words, "Apart from me
you can do nothing." Only then can we accept the fact that being a Christian is not
just following Jesus, not just seeking to live up to a standard of perfection by trying to
be faithful and obedient, but, being a Christian is allowing Christ to live his life in us
and through us. That's what Pentecost is all about!
That's what happened on the Day of Pentecost, in the Upper Room, then in the courtyard,
and finally in the temple courts was an encounter with, and an infilling by, the Living
God himself. They never forgot it. The experience was so dramatic that it changed their
lives and gave the Dynamic Dimension of the Christian life. Those who had followed Jesus
in the flesh were filled with Jesus in the Holy Spirit.
In the days since the emergence of modern Pentecostalism in the early 1900's there's been
a lot of talk about whether we receive the Holy Spirit at conversion or as a second
blessing later on. The question is distracting and confusing because it's based on a false
division of the unity of God. All aspects of our conversion, rebirth, infilling, and
growth are the works of the Holy Spirit. His gift of love frees us to admit our need. His
gift of faith enables our initial response to the gospel. He persistent presence liberates
us from the idea that we could ever live the Christian life on our own steam. Each time we
acknowledge our inadequacy he fills the fresh experience of emptiness with particular
gifts that we need to carry out our mission and ministry of Christ.
When the needs of people and the world break our hearts and the triumphant adequacy of the
gospel grasps our minds, that is a particular time when we are baptized by or filled with
the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not for a chosen few, but for all
Christian believers. The rarity of the power of Pentecost in so many believers' lives
tells us about them, not God. The Holy Spirit is completely available because God is
available! But, if we are filled up with our own pride, plans, determination and
self-effort, there is no room left. And, if we are attempting only those things we could
do on our own strength, who needs the Holy Spirit and his gifts. When we get fed up with
being filled by the things which do not satisfy or empower, we are ready to be filled with
the Holy Spirit.
The fire of Pentecost describes what happens when the living Christ, the Holy Spirit,
takes up residence in us. Powerful words must be used to describe our lives, words like
conviction, passion, enthusiasm, perseverance, compassion and love. All of these are part
of the fire of the Spirit in us. Problems become new opportunities to discover the
unlimited potential of our Lord. The fire of love leaps out of us to set a fire burning in
others. This is Pentecost--letting our lack of power and our emptiness to be filled with
the very presence and power of God in us.
The poet, William Blake, wrote about Pentecost, saying,
"Unless the eye catch fire, God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire, God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire, God will not be named.
Unless the Heart catch fire, God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire, God will not be known."
The dynamic dimension of the immediacy and intimacy of the Holy
Spirit is to galvanize us, to fuse us, to bond us into oneness in the Body of Christ, the
Church. Then, we are to realize that the Church was born to be a blessing.
The wind of the Holy Spirit is to pick us up and carry us to people in need. The fire of
the Holy Spirit is to kindle warmth and affection for others.
Fred Craddock tells a wonderful story which illustrates how we sometimes react when God
works with power. His story is about a young minister, newly graduated from seminary,
serving his very first church. He gets a call telling him that a church member, elderly
woman who has given her life in service to the church, is in the hospital. She's so weak
she can't even get up out of bed, and the doctors don't hold much hope for her recovery.
Would he go up and visit? Well, of course he will and he does.
All the way to the hospital he's thinking about what he will say to this Christian lady,
what words of comfort he can give her to prepare her for her eminent death. He arrives at
the hospital, goes up to her room for the visit. He sits and talks with her a few minutes,
just small talk really, nothing earth shattering. When he makes ready to leave, he asks if
she would like him to have prayer with her. She answers, "Yes, of course. That's why
I wanted you to come."
He then asks politely, "And what exactly would you like me to pray for?"
"Why, I want you to pray that God will heal me," she answers in a surprised tone
of voice.
Haltingly, fumbling over the words, he prays just as she wanted, that God will heal her,
even though he's not really sure that can happen. When he says the "Amen" at the
end of the prayer, the woman says, "You know, I think it worked! I think I'm
healed!" And she gets out of the bed and begins to run up and down the hallway of the
hospital, shouting, "Praise God! I'm healed! Praise God! I'm healed!"
Meanwhile, the young minister, in a stupor, stumbles to the stairwell, walks down five
flights of stairs, makes his way to the parking lot and somehow manages to find his car.
As he fumbles to get his keys out of his pocket, he looks heavenward and says, "Don't
you ever do that to me again!"
The power of Pentecost came, and he was afraid of it. He cowered and ran away from it!
Now, contrast that with Peter and the other disciples. When God's power came they didn't
cower, or make excuses or run away. They stepped forward and shared God's Good News about
Jesus Christ.
Let us pray. Oh Father, hear our confession that we are not adequate to do all that you
have called us to do and fill us with your Holy Spirit and live through us with your power
and your love and your vision. Lord, you called the Church into existence as the Body of
Christ. Help us to be his hands and feet, and his heart full of love and forgiveness to a
proud and callous world. Let us move from living by our strength and power to yours. Help
us not to run from your power, but to embrace it and affirm it. We ask these things in
your name. Amen.