Meditation on Acts 2:1—41
As I contemplate the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, I am reminded of when my kids were little. Serving in Ukraine, sometimes we would have the opportunity to visit Hungary and stay in a hotel with a swimming pool—a luxurious treat! On one occasion, Abigail and Matthew, our older two, were learning how to swim and doing pretty well. Elizabeth, our youngest, was trying with all her might to catch up to them. As I was swimming laps and the kids were trying to keep up, the hardest thing for them, of course, was learning how to breathe. They would swim as far as they could until they ran out of air and had to stop to pop their heads up and catch a breath.
Breathing is crucial for life. It’s so important that we don’t even have to think about doing it. Night and day, our bodies unconsciously make it happen, and our lives depend on it.
The Latin word spiritus, the Hebrew word ruah, and the Greek word pneuma all mean breath, wind, or spirit. But of course these translations carry all kinds of implications. Wind, for example, is an unseen phenomenon. You can’t see the wind itself, but only its effects. “Breath” might imply a quickly passing event. One of the refrains of Ecclesiastes is that life is but a breath—it passes quickly and is gone in a moment.
At the same time, we know that wind and breath, though invisible and sometimes momentary, can also be powerful forces that shake things up. The need to breathe becomes our only thought after being underwater a little too long. Spring storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes reminded us this past year of the destructive power of wind: trees were uprooted and tossed about like sticks, and roofs were peeled off houses as if they were cardboard.
Pentecost is the one Sunday of the year set aside for the church to focus on an important truth that we live out every other Sunday: that without the Holy Spirit, the church would be dead, just as we would be dead if we stopped breathing. The work we do in missions—reconciling people to God, each other, and all creation— would be completely ineffective and lost without the leading and working of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, just as our breathing usually happens without our noticing, the Holy Spirit often moves and works inconspicuously. The work of the Spirit continues throughout all of history, from the creation of the world to its end, to direct our attention to Jesus. When we faithfully seek the Spirit’s leading, we don’t always realize what amazing things God is doing, but afterward we notice the working of the Spirit.
I was invited to a conference in 2015 that led to a chance encounter, an invitation to Rwanda, and an experience so empowered by the Spirit that it changed my life and the direction of my ministry. Praying, listening, going, waiting—these all are seemingly insignificant acts that are used mightily by the Spirit to fulfill God’s mission in the world.
But sometimes the Spirit shakes the room we’re in. Sometimes, like a spring storm, the Spirit shows its power, and we can see things torn apart, but also new life growing. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Our lives were torn apart, and we experienced painful upheaval. But the Spirit was working in mighty ways as doors opened for ministry around Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. There was a scattering by the powerful wind of the Holy Spirit. To be clear, I’m not saying that the Spirit caused the war, but the Spirit used the situation to show God’s power in ways we would never have known otherwise.
As we celebrate Pentecost 2025, may the life-giving Spirit be the breath that animates all you do. May the unseen Spirit gently guide you as you strive to live each day faithfully. May the powerful Spirit shake what needs shaking in your life to push you into the better place God has for you, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
A Prayer for Pentecost
Heavenly Father,
thank you for the breath of life,
breathed into our first parents at creation.
Thank you for the breath of Christ,
blown on his disciples,
re-creating them in the Spirit.
Father, thank you for sending your Son to breathe
and give up his breath among us.
Jesus, thank you for ascending to heaven
so that you, together with the Father,
could send the Spirit to be our comforter, advocate, and guide—
the breath that fills the lungs of the church.
Father, thank you for continuing to fill us
with the life-giving Spirit who makes us new.
Thank you for the promise of the Spirit’s presence with your people
as we seek to be your body in the world today.
We confess that we are prone to ignore the Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life.
We take for granted the Spirit’s working.
We think that our will is the Spirit’s will.
Forgive us, Lord.
We want to run ahead of you
when you are telling us to wait.
We want to stay put or run the other way
when you are telling us to go.
We get caught up in the busyness of life
and don’t pay attention
to the whispers and the winds of the Spirit moving about us.
Forgive us, Lord.
Help us, Lord,
to sense the gentle whispers of the Spirit
so that we can follow you faithfully.
We pray for the powerful winds of the Spirit
that shake buildings,
change lives,
turn entire nations to you,
and transform the most unlikely of sinners into saints.
We thank you for your power,
manifest in our own lives and in the church.
Continue to fill us.
Be the breath in our lungs,
the fire in our hearts,
and re-create us again by the power of your Spirit
so that we would be more and more like your Son and our Lord,
in whose powerful name we pray.
Amen.
—George de Vuyst, © 2025 George de Vuyst, Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike. Used by permission