Office Hours
8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday-Friday
Phone: (608) 838-3586
Fax: (608) 838-6685
E-mail: secretary@hope-in-action.org
to have your information updated or added!

THE DAY OF PENTECOST

Blowin' in the Wind

Acts 2:1-21

I finally have my gear bag packed for the Boundary Waters.  I’ll be running a load of stuff up to Appleton this week.  I take off on Saturday morning.  We should be on the water by the time you all gather for worship next Sunday.

When I get ready for trips to the Boundary Waters, I always think back on previous trips.  Some are memorable because they are good; some are memorable because they are hard; and some aren’t memorable at all.  At least, I’ve tried my best to forget them.

I often think, though, of my first trip as an adult.  I went once as a kid.  I was four years old.  My older brother was seven and my mother was pregnant.  I don’t know how my parents did it.  I sometimes find it difficult on these trips with grown men.

But my first trip as an adult was not with this group of men I have been going with.  When I got to Trinity, I discovered that the youth director had been taking ninth grade confirmation students on an adventure trip before being confirmed in the fall of their tenth grade year.  She loved to ride bikes and that’s the kind of trip she would take them on.

But Matt, who started the fall after I arrived, loved to canoe.  Because I was in charge of confirmation, he asked me for permission to take the next year’s class on a Boundary Waters trip.  I gave him permission with the stipulation that he take me along.

He worked the next year at planning the trip.  He consulted with my friend, Dave, about routes.  He planned meals and work schedules.  He reserved equipment and permits.  He was very thorough, but because it was his first canoe trip, he made some miscalculations.  We didn’t arrive at our entry point until 7:00 in the evening, long after any sane canoer is safely encamped.  One of the reasons (there were several) was that Matt had gotten the wrong entry permit, so, after we left the Ranger Station, we had to go back into town and buy new maps.  Our first two miles of canoeing was along a very shallow river, which had turned to mud in many places because of the lack of rainfall and was barricaded by beaver dams in others.  To make a long story short (I’ll save the long story for another time), we made it to our campsite on Big Moose Lake sometime after midnight.

The next day was cool and cloudy.  We decided to lay low that day.  In fact, given our difficult beginning, I would have been happy to stay there for two more days.  The only portage out from Big Moose Lake was a 680 rods (nearly two miles) into Cummings Lake .  But our three confirmation kids wanted to go for it.  And I couldn’t back out.

We made the long portage, although it took more than one trip.  The one thing that kept me going was the thought that, since we were making such a long portage, it must be a remote lake and we would have no problems finding a campsite.  While Matt and one of the boys went back to retrieve the last two packs, I took the two other boys and headed out.  It took us three miles of paddling and six camp sites to find one that was open. 

I dropped one of the boys off with the Duluth packs to hold the site and took the other to paddle back up Cummings Lake .  The wind had really started to blow now.  I felt exhausted from the portage and now had to paddle three miles into a stiff wind to make sure Matt found us.

We eventually all arrived at the site, got our tents set up and had supper.  For a long time, I sat in front of the fire.  It had been a very long and tiring day in what was already an exhausting trip.  And tomorrow, we would have to get up and do it all over again – paddle three miles back against the wind and then do another two mile portage.  I wasn’t sure I was up to it.

So, I sat in front of the fire.  There was a stone fireplace on that campsite and someone had done us the wonderful favor of leaving a stack of firewood next to it.  I thought, “Maybe the wind is blowing because it is trying to teach me something and it won’t stop until I learn what it is it is trying to teach me.”

I thought about the day. 

It was tiring being out in the wind.  When the wind blows, it presses against you and you have to press back otherwise you’ll get blown off your feet.  On the other hand, it is also empowering.  I watch the fire in front of me blaze happily away.  It was easily the best fire I had ever made.  Although I didn’t really do much.  It just takes the right wood and a good wind.

The wind is firm, but it is also flexible.  When I headed back into the wind this afternoon with a canoe, we were battling the wind.  I looked ahead and saw a point.  I thought, “If we can just get around this bend, the wind won’t be so strong.”  But when we rounded the point, the wind was even stronger on that side that it was on the previous side.

When the wind blows, it’s nice to have it at your back.  But in a strong wind, it can almost be as much work when it is behind you than when it is in your face.  You often spend more time steering to stay on course than you do paddling.  But it forces you to keep your feet and to keep your focus.  Otherwise, you’ll lose your direction.

We went to bed that night.  The tents were flapping in the wind.  When I woke up in the middle of the night, the wind was still blowing.  And then I heard the thunder.  I thought, “Oh, great.  This is getting worse.  Now we’ll have to deal, not just with the wind, but with the rain.”

I went back to sleep.  When I awoke, I could not hear rain.  And then I realized that the wind had stopped. 

When I woke a third time, it was six o’clock.  I got out of the tent and looked up at the sky.  It was completely grey, but the wind was still.  I walked down to the lake.  The water was completely calm.  I looked off into the west and just above the western horizon was a thin line of blue.  The sky was beginning to clear!  And by the time we hit the water, the sun was shining brightly upon us.

I don’t remember much about the portage back.  I do remember reaching the end of the portage and seeing a beautifully calm and sunny Big Moose Lake stretch out before me.  I do remember sitting at a camp that evening watching a full moon rise in stillness above the lake.  It was then I realized another advantage of the wind.  It blows the mosquitoes away.

The wind blows on the disciples.  It is a violent wind.  It doesn’t knock them off their feet, but it does bring tongues of fire.  It also brings tongues of speech. For they begin to speak in many dialects of the mighty acts of God.

This wind will continue to blow.  It will blow them to places where they do not intend to go.  It will blow law-abiding Peter to an encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch, one who is outside the law.  It will blow Paul, a one-time persecutor of Christians, all the way to Rome to suffer persecution for Christ’s sake.  It will blow them and all the followers of Jesus all over the world.

And it is still blowing.  It is blowing in you and it is blowing in me, that, wherever we go, we might speak of the mighty acts of God, who brings down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, who fills the hungry with good things and the rich sends away empty.

This is the might of God.  This is the mercy of God.  And this is the message of God, which comes to us and through us by the Holy Spirit – the good news of Jesus who brings life even out of death.