Don’t you think it a little strange that the Holy Spirit made a sound like a violent wind? And this sound filled the entire house where the disciples were gathered? Wind is almost non-descript. Although we speak of it as howling, it doesn’t have a real pitch until it makes the things it blows against vibrate, like the reed in a woodwind instrument.
Recently we recorded the sound of the wind on Mars. One of the instruments on our Perseverance rover has a microphone. The wind on Mars sounds like the wind on Earth. Maybe that’s evidence that the Holy Spirit is on Mars too— our triune God is too big to be constrained to just one planet.
When the wind blows, it sounds a lot like white noise, which is the name we give non-descript sound: tuneless, but there. We call it white noise because all of the audio frequencies or pitches in musical terms have equal intensity. And that is very similar to what we call “white light,” where all of the wavelengths of visible light are equally reflected , so the light doesn’t seem to have a color. Whether we’re talking about sound or light, what I want you to remember is that the entire spectrum of possibilities is contained in it, even though you can’t pick out a specific sound or color of light.
When we read about the first Pentecost, the first things we are told about the Holy Spirit’s arrival is that it was sudden, it sounded like a really violent wind, and it filled the entire house. This next part is kind of freaky. The disciples became like the channels of a radio, each filled with the spirit sound, but then speaking it in a specific language—not a jumble of every sound, but a distinct language! The Holy Spirit made each of the disciples into a loudspeaker broadcasting a specific set of sounds. It’s just like the way you can use a prism to split light into the colors of the rainbow: proof that all of the colors were there in the first place: we just couldn’t see them.
Apparently, curious on-lookers in multi-cultural Jerusalem also must have heard the commotion on that first Pentecost, because we are told that people gathered when they heard the sound. But the really interesting thing that happened next, is that these people, who all spoke a variety of languages, could each hear something in their own language. The Holy Spirit needed people who were filled to the brim with that very Spirit of Truth, to speak of it to all kinds of different folks, using language that each of the different people could understand! Do you see what this means for you? The Spirit of Truth just sounds like rushing wind when we blabber on about God, and faith and love and hope in a one-size-fits-all way. The Spirit of Truth needs the voices of all the disciples to speak that truth in the particular way that people need to hear it. We are to be the voices that decode the great rushing wind into the Words of Truth in the languages that people understand.
Who each of you are, and how each of you speak is a special message that only you can decode for someone who speaks your language. My language might sound like rushing wind to some of you, but I know there’s at least one of you for whom it will be what you needed to hear, because the Holy Spirit brought us together. The next time you have an opportunity to talk to a someone face to face, whether it’s family, friend or perhaps someone you are meeting for the first time, remember to use your words with love and confidence, not necessarily because they are words you need to say, but they might be the life giving words of the Spirit of Truth that the other person needed to hear.