The scriptures referred to are Acts 2:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13.
As they were driving home from church, a mother asked her son, “What did they teach you in Sunday school today?”
He thought for a moment and said, “I'll ask Dad and he will get you another quilt.”
“Really?” said the mother, none the wiser. “OK. But what Bible verse did you learn?”
“That's the verse,” insisted her son. “I'll ask Dad and he will get you another quilt.”
It was a little thing but it bothered the mother. She couldn't remember any verse like that in the Bible. So early that evening, she decided to call the Sunday school teacher and ask her what Bible verse said, “I'll ask Dad and he will get you another quilt.”
There was a puzzled silence on the other end of the call and then the teacher began to laugh. When she regained her composure the teacher said, “The verse is John 14:16: 'I will ask the Father and he will send you another Comforter.'”
Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. And part of the confusion about the Holy Spirit concerns this title, Comforter. It makes him seem all warm and fuzzy. But that's not what the Greek says, nor the original English either. The Greek word is parakletos, and it had a wide variety of meanings. As William Barclay pointed out, its basic use was legal. A parakletos was someone who would defend you in court, either as a lawyer, a character witness, or an expert witness. That's why some translations render it “Advocate” or “Counselor.” The Holy Spirit is someone who takes your side when you are facing judgment. Paul tells us that when we pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in groaning or sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26) It is comforting to know that the Spirit pleads our case before the Father.
Another meaning for parakletos is someone who rallies soldiers when they are dispirited. That's why Wycliffe translated it using the word Comforter. The English word comes from 2 Latin words: com meaning “with” and fortis meaning “courage.” Comforter originally meant “someone who instills others with courage.” I think that's a very good description of what the Spirit does in the second chapter of Acts. Everyone focuses on the miracle of the disciples speaking in tongues. But this is really the first time they proclaim the gospel of the risen Christ to anyone outside their circle.
Ever since Jesus' death the disciples have been holed up in the upper room. Even Jesus' resurrection didn't make them get out to spread the good news. But filled with the Spirit they are emboldened and speak out. It's only after they start that they realize that they are able to communicate with anyone, regardless of their language. Their audience was an assortment of Jews from the Diaspora, the Jewish communities spread throughout the Roman empire, who grew up speaking whatever the native language in their area was.
They had come for Passover and stayed for Pentecost, the harvest festival that falls 50 days after Passover. It is also called the Feast of the First Fruits, when farmers presented the first of their ripened grain to God. So it's appropriate that we see the first fruits of those who hear the gospel. We are told that 3000 converts were made that day.
Every good action begins with courage. Taking the first step to befriend someone takes a bit of courage. Telling others about Jesus takes courage. Refusing to go along with the crowd takes courage. Confronting evil takes courage. Facing up to the evil in yourself takes courage. Changing your life takes courage.
Courage is what separates heroes from those who merely have good intentions. Courage is what turns dreams into reality and dreamers into explorers and inventors and reformers. Courage is what turned a tiny Jewish sect into a faith embraced by people of every language and culture and race and nation. And the Holy Spirit was and is the source of that courage.
That's important because evil people can be courageous, too. But their courage is fueled by arrogance or hatred or greed or rage or, paradoxically, by fear. Ultimately it was the fear of an imagined worldwide Jewish conspiracy that drove the Nazis to genocide. You don't try to wipe out those you have no fear of but those you fear deeply. It was fear of the corrupting influence of the decadent Western culture that drove the Al Qaeda pilots to fly into the World Trade Center.
The courage that comes from the Holy Spirit is rooted in love. Perfect love, as 1st John says, casts out fear. (1 John 4:18) It is love that gives a mother the courage to defend her kids from a male larger than she. It is love that gives a doctor the courage to enter a plague-infested area and treat the sick. It is love that gives a teacher the courage to educate children in a school disrupted by violence, drugs and despair. It is love that gives us the courage to marry.
Our passage from 1st Corinthians tells us that we all have gifts from the Spirit. The gifts are varied but they all come from one Spirit and they all serve the body of Christ. And yet fear keeps people from discovering their gifts or, if they know them, from fully exploring and using them.
We might fear being different. Even though our culture glorifies individuality, we don't want to be perceived by our friends and family as being too different from them. We mistake uniformity for unity. And yet, as Paul points out, the oneness of the body is based on quite different parts of the body working together in harmony.
We might neglect our gifts because we fear failure. A coach once said that winning isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing. To which our culture says, “Amen.” It isn't even important what you succeed at. Our society lauds successful gangsters, like Al Capone, successful pornographers, like Hugh Hefner, and even successful cheaters like athletes who use steroids. And the biggest insult in our culture is to be called a loser. So many think “If I don't try, I can't lose.” We forget that one form of failure is the failure to act, especially when inaction allows others to come to harm.
We might even neglect to discover and develop our gifts because we fear success itself. Maybe we shun the spotlight. Or maybe we fear the changes that come with success. We're not sure we can handle all of that. Or maybe we fear that we cannot sustain our success. The only thing worse than being seen as a loser is being seen as a has been., someone who succeeded and then blew it. The internet is flooded with articles with headlines that say, “The reason that Hollywood won't cast_____ anymore.” People love to praise people on the way up and then turn around and disparage them on the way down.
The problem is that we are buying into the world's definition of success. To God, a successful person is one who simply follows him. God judges us on the motives for our actions (Matthew 6:1) and the nature of our actions (Isaiah 1:15-17), not the results. Those we may leave to him.
Although perfect love casts out fear, we are not perfect. A person can't free their self from all fears. But courage isn't the absence of fear; it's the overcoming of it. As poet Piet Hein wrote, “To be brave is to behave/ bravely when your heart is faint./ So you can be really brave/ only when you really ain't.” Ask almost anyone who did something courageous and, if they are honest, they'll probably tell you they were shaking with fright the whole time. Or else that they were so focused on what they felt had to be done that it never occurred to them that what they were doing was dangerous. Hacksaw Ridge is a movie based on the amazing true story of Desmond T. Doss, an army medic in World War 2 who was a devout Christian and a pacifist. In boot camp his fellow enlisted men took his pacifism for cowardice and harassed him. At the brutal Battle of Okinawa, he saved 75 men who were wounded, dragging them to the edge of the ridge while under Japanese fire and lowering them to doctors who could operate on them. He was the first man in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor despite never firing a shot and the only medic to win both that and a purple heart.
At Pentecost the disciples were so filled with the Holy Spirit that they just had to proclaim the gospel, regardless of the cost. And there were costs. Almost all of the original 12 died as martyrs, mostly in distant lands. They did it out of love—love of God and love for humanity. They couldn't bear letting people perish in moral darkness when they had the light of God's love to share. Everywhere they went, people thought they were mad, bad or dangerous to know. But others listened to them and then to their hearts and said, “This is what we were looking for. This is what we were lacking.”
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you are looking for a comfortable religion, I certainly wouldn't recommend Christianity. But if you are looking for something that challenges you, that inspires and excites and sometimes even scares you, if you are looking for something worth giving your life to and giving up your life for, then take up your cross and follow Jesus. He who dares wins. Pray that the Spirit fills you with the courage that comes from the love of God in Jesus Christ, who risked more than we can imagine to win us back to himself.
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