I’ll admit that when it comes to roles in our family, Ann is normally the card shopper. I’ll buy a card for Ann but usually, I just grab something at the grocery or drug store. But since Pentecost is so important, I figured that it warranted a trip to a card shop. 

Do you know that I found a lot of cards? They are really geared up for Father’s Day and graduation right now--row after row of cards.  Wedding and anniversary cards are big too along with birthday cards. They have every birthday card you can imagine. There was one rack of cards that had a variety of themes such as retirement and thank you cards. While I was perusing this rack, a woman came and asked one of the clerks if they had a Bon Voyage card in Spanish. She said, “Of course” and led her to a section near me. I figured if they have a Bon Voyage card in Spanish, they ought to have a Pentecost card. So I asked, “Could you help me? I’m looking for a Pentecost card. Where would it be?” She said, “That will be in the specialty section” and she led me to it and began looking on my behalf.  Have you ever looked at the specialty card section? They have cards for everything. They had a card for a dance recital and for losing a tooth, for becoming a US citizen and for dog sitting. They had a card for entering the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines. They even had a card for potty training and I thought, “Wow, the kid could read the card while sitting on the….” Then I thought, that’s either a really smart toddler or a really, really delayed child.  

After flipping through the specialty cards without luck, the clerk turned to me and said, “It doesn’t seem to be here. Just what sort of occasion is Pentecost?”  I explained to her what Pentecost is and she said, “Oh, that will be in the religious section.” Off we went and that section was impressive too. There are lots of baptism and first communion cards. There were cards for ordinations and for sending missionaries. There was even a card for a pastor going on sabbatical. I thought, “When I went on sabbatical before, I never got one of those cards.” By this time, the clerk was becoming frustrated so she said, “Let me go find someone who works with the cards. I’m sure she can find it.”

Off she went returning a few minutes later with another clerk. “Can I help you sir?” “Yes, I’m looking for a Pentecost card. Do you have one?”  She said, “Isn’t that a Jewish celebration? It will be down with the Bar and Bat Mitzvah cards.” 

 “Close” I said. “Pentecost is the Christian version of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. If you have Shavuot cards you’ll probably have Pentecost cards.”  She gave me this strange look and said, “Sir, I’m afraid we can’t help you.” As I left the store, the two clerks were in animated conversation, shaking their heads about my request. It caused me to wonder just exactly what she meant.

It does seem odd to me that we make this big thing about Christmas and Easter but when it comes to Pentecost, it pretty much escapes without much notice. It’s a very important day on which we commemorate the birthday of the church and the arrival of the Holy Spirit. We should have a big party and send cards. But alas, some of us don’t even know what Pentecost is and others  see it as just another day of worship.  

I wish I knew why the celebration of Pentecost got relegated to the stepchild position but I don’t. I don’t even know if it was ever on equal footing with Christmas or Easter. But I suspect it wasn’t. My hunch was that one of the reasons is that the Holy Ghost is a little scary. At least it was for me as a child when people talked about the Holy Ghost instead of the Holy Spirit. There is a reason they called it the Holy Ghost. The old King James Version Bible translated the word “spirit” all but seven times, ghost.  Modern Bible translations use the term Holy Spirit. The King James Version actually uses the phrase Holy Ghost 90 times. For instance, the Pentecost story reads this way in the King James Version:  “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:4, KJV). Now that’s scary to me, being filled by a ghost. It’s like something out of that Bruce Willis movie Sixth Sense or Ghostbusters when Rick Moranis is inhabited by a ghost.  

The word "ghost" meant something very different to the KJV translators of the Bible.  In 1611, when the King James version was originally translated from the Latin version of the Bible, the word "ghost" didn’t mean a scary apparition. It wasn’t intended to describe the deceased.  In Shakespeare’s time, the time of the King James translation, ghost meant the living essence of a person. Spirit described a deceased person that was wailing in the night or haunting your attic. As the English language evolved, people started saying "ghost" when speaking of the vision of a dead person and began to use "spirit" to describe the living essence of life.  So in a way, what happened is the two words switched meanings.

You can see this switch of meanings in another passage from the King James Bible.  Do you remember when Jesus startles the disciples by walking on water, late one night, walking to their boat out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee? Our modern version reads, “But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear.” (Matthew 14:26, NRSV) The King James version reads “And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It is a spirit’ and they cried out for fear.” (Matthew 14:26, KJV

The meanings of words can change. Spirit becomes Ghost, Ghost becomes Spirit. In modern translations, Holy Ghost is now Holy Spirit. Still, this doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason to call the Pentecost party off. Why do we say, “We had a lavish Christmas, a fine Easter--we don’t need to do anything for Pentecost.” That is what we say in the way we act.

Maybe it is because the Spirit’s nature is inanimate which causes us to be a little unsure about the Holy Spirit. We can hang a picture on the wall of Jesus. Michelangelo painted a picture of God at the moment of creation. We can imagine God sitting up on a throne somewhere, looking exactly like a Renaissance marble statue.  But we can’t see the Holy Spirit. Even Luke had difficulty describing the Holy Spirit in Acts.  Did you catch that? In the Book of Acts, Luke describes the Holy Spirit this way: “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” (Acts 2:2-3) Was it wind or did it just sound like wind? Was it fire, or did it just appear to be fire?” It sounds something like the way people describe the traumatic experience of a tornado. “The wind sounded like a train coming through the house.” Something hard to describe is hard to experience or to even know if you want to experience it.   

How appealing is that to you?  Wind blowing you around while fire is dancing on top of your head—is it something you want? Add to this the description of the outside observers, “They're drunk on cheap wine." (Acts 2:13, The Message)  Okay, now maybe we can see why there aren’t Pentecost cards. Who would send a card to a drunk going through a natural disaster?   

Someone who struggles with the concept of the Holy Spirit passed along a newspaper report from heaven. Written like something you’d see in the Indianapolis Star, it reads:  

HEAVEN—Calling the Holy Trinity "overstaffed and over budget," God announced plans Monday to downsize the group by slowly phasing out the Holy Ghost. "Given the poor economic climate and the unclear nature of the Holy Ghost's duties, I felt this was a sensible and necessary decision," God said. "The Holy Ghost will be given fewer and fewer responsibilities until His formal resignation from Trinity duty following Easter services on April 20. Thereafter, the Father and the Son shall be referred to as the Holy Duo."[1]

Have we phased out the Holy Spirit? I hope not because not only do we need the Holy Spirit, it was offered to us as a gift by Jesus. Everyone knows it is wrong to refuse a gift.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus promised the gift of the Spirit. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”  (John 14:16-17) Later, John describes how Jesus presents this gift to the disciples.  On the evening of Easter, Jesus appears to the disciples in a locked room. He says “receive the Holy Spirit” and then he breathes on them. He commissioned them by opening his mouth and pouring what was inside of him onto them. They could literally smell his breath and smell where he’d been.

It wasn’t just the smell of a tomb or the death of Golgotha and even the smell of Galilee where he taught them. It was smell far beyond, back when the world was being born because this gift is the very breath that God used to form the world. That’s the word that is used, the same word used to describe God breathing life into the world on the first day of creation. Those Disciples could smell the very breath that separated the water from the earth, the new smell of life in the formation of Eden, the smells of God’s breath when God scooped up dust, shaped it like clay and blew the breath of life into Adam and Eve. They filled their lungs with his breath and as they breathed out, it was if they had been created all over again.[2]

It is a different perspective on the Holy Spirit. Instead of the Spirit being God’s fiery violent wind, it’s God’s gentle breath. Instead of pushing us around it’s nurturing us.  I’ll admit to liking the latter rather than the former. I’m uncomfortable being blown around and appearing drunk, but I’m very comfortable, even eager to be filled by God’s breath and I like the thought of being nurtured.  In fact, most Christians are this way. Over the centuries since the first Pentecost, there have been more who breathed God’s breath than harnessed God’s violent wind.

This may be the real reason that Pentecost isn’t as big as Christmas or Easter. It’s hard to celebrate something that is more inside you than out, something that people can see and touch and identify. But we should celebrate it as we affirm that the Holy Spirit is actively working at filling us today as believers. It’s a gift promised by Jesus. When we receive him in our lives, God’s breath will fill us, change us, shape us, help us. I don’t know anyone who can say that at sometime in their life they don’t need help. I know I do and I know where to find it.

In fact, that’s what I should have done. If I’d had my wits about me, it would have been the perfect ending to the conversation with those two ladies. When the clerk said, “I’m afraid we can’t help you” my response should have been. “That’s okay. I don’t need help.  That’s what the Holy Spirit is for.” They might have thought that I was drunk but in this regard, I’d be in good company.

That’s what Pentecost is about, the sending of God’s breath to help us. It’s why I’m grateful for the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, or whatever you choose to call it. I give thanks for this day. Maybe that’s what I’ll use next year--a thank you card.