‘The Surprising Wind of Change’
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 1:1-4)
There’s a book that I’ve just finished that I’m been meaning to read for a number of years now: The Shack. For those who haven’t read the book, it’s a fictional story about a man whose daughter is abducted when she is a little girl. After many years, in the depths of his deep sadness about losing his daughter, the man has an encounter with God (Father, Son, and Spirit) over the course of a weekend. During that weekend, through many conversations with all three personifications of God, the man works through his life issues, religious issues, theological issues and comes to the point where he can forgive the man who kidnapped his daughter all those years ago.
During the story, many stereotypical perspectives about the three persons of God are broken. To begin with, God the Father is portrayed as a black African-American Woman called Papa. Jesus is portrayed as a hard-working Jewish Carpenter, and the Holy Spirit is portrayed as an Asian woman named Sarayu.
Since I was listening to the book as an Audio-book, after the story had finished, there was an interview with the author William Paul Young. During the interview, he shared something about how the names and personifications came about. What struck me was the description he gave as to why the Holy Spirit was called Sarayu.
He recounts a time when talking to a work colleague of his in India, he was asking for local names for wind. One of the names his colleague gave was the Hindi word ‘Sarayu’. When he asked what it meant, his colleague said ‘It’s the common wind that catches you by surprise’. The colleague went on to say: ‘It’s like when you’re so hot you think you’re going to die, and out of nowhere comes this wind that cools you down and changes everything.
I think this is a wonderful description of what the Holy Spirit does for us: it catches us by surprise and changes everything about us. On the Day of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit through the rushing wind was indeed a surprise to the disciples. They knew the Holy Spirit was coming, but they did not know how the Spirit would come. The rushing wind currently caught them by surprise, but when that wind blew, it changes their lives forever. Nothing was the same once the Holy Spirit had come into their lives.
The same is true for us today. I’m sure that many of us can recall times when the presence of the Holy Spirit in the situation we find ourselves in has come as a surprise to us. Yet because of the Holy Spirit’s presence there with us, the situation changes completely. And for those who have accepted the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives, the transformation that can be carried out is remarkable and often surprising to the individual and to those around them.
As we prepare to celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, may we not be surprised by Sarayu – the common wind that catches us by surprise. Rather, may we be ready to receive the very breath of God which changes everything. And in so doing, may we once again acknowledge the presence of the Holy Spirit in everything that we do … not just in those moments when we feel we need the Spirit the most.
