I want to say how pleased I am to be here as your gust preacher. Not your guest preacher, since I hang out here pretty regularly. But your gust preacher, sharing the story of a very windy day in Jerusalem. Have no fear - a gust preacher is not necessarily long-winded. I learned from a master. My close friend Richard who was my intern supervisor almost forty years ago, gave me some very important advice on preaching. "Tim, don't preach long sermons. When you see someone constantly looking at her watch, prepare to end quickly. If she shakes her watch and holds it to her ear, say 'Amen' and sit down immediately."

That is good advice - and especially this morning. Yesterday somebody held up the worship bulletin and said, "Pastor, you've got a temple talk tomorrow and you're Confirming fifteen kids. You've got everything there but the kitchen sink." She looked again, noticed the Baptism, "Make that including the kitchen sink!"

"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind." This morning your gust preacher wants to quickly touch upon that event. Pentecost literally means "fifty." It is fifty days after the Jewish Passover. By the forty-ninth day, the last of the spring crop would have been harvested. On the fiftieth day, the first fruits of the harvest would be offered to God at the Temple in Jerusalem. No wonder Jerusalem is crowded with Jewish pilgrims. The harvest is over. It's time to rest. Relax. Worship. But this is to be no ordinary Pentecost; God has in mind a different harvest.

Jesus once told his "You no longer will be fishermen; you will be fishers of men, and of women too. You are now in the people business." Well, in the same way on this harvest festival called Pentecost, the disciples quickly catch on that as followers of Jesus, they are to harvest, not wheat and barley, they are to harvest hearts for heaven.

When the sun rises on that fiftieth day beyond Easter, the disciples are gathered together. It is Sunday, so probably the gathering behind closed doors means the group is breaking bread and sharing wine and talking about Jesus. Judas has been replaced, so there are twelve disciples, and probably Mary Magdalene is with them; maybe Salome and others who had first come to the empty Easter tomb. Since Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday, very quickly the first day of the week became a new Sabbath, a new time for gathering and worship. Perhaps Peter, who among the disciples is so prominent, perhaps Peter is sharing a story about Jesus. And just as they are about ready to share bread and wine, their communion is interrupted by commotion! A mighty wind comes knocking at the chambers of their hearts. A violent wind. A holy gust.

Before they know what is happening, they are whooshed into the midst of the crowds on the streets of Jerusalem. These uneducated disciples are so fired up with the power of God they begin preaching on street corners. Berlitz school graduates, every one of them. Speaking fluently in tongues they had never before heard. The rushing wind of the Spirit is a tornado - it is a tongue twister! And the disciples begin to experience God in a way they had not known was possible.

Peter preached a powerful sermon, which concludes, "'Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ ... and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added." One sermon and a harvest of three thousand. In my wildest dreams, I never thought one sermon of mine could convert three thousand. But in all honesty, my wildest dreams never have anything to do with preaching!

Our Confirmands have already received the wind of the Spirit. About thirteen years ago, in some sanctuary, at the kitchen sink we call the font. Our prayer this morning is for Almighty God to "Stir up in them the gift of the Holy Spirit." The Spirit is there ... we pray for a bit of stirring. More than a bit. We pray, "Get pushy with them, God. Blow through and through their lives." Our God is a long winded God ... a breath of fresh air in each one of us. The Holy Spirit is among us this morning ... among we who are God's people! God the Father. God the Son. And measuring with the barometer of faith, we acknowledge God the Holy Gust!

In the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, an old farmer was talking about the train from Paris to Rome. He said, "a hundred years ago they laid these tracks through the Alps even before there was a train - because they knew some day their would be a train." How about that for speculation? As well as an act of faith. "... they laid these tracks ... because they knew some day there would be a train." Fifteen sets of parents - fifteen children to the font. The track was laid; the foundation. And now fifteen youngsters at the altar rail.

I had asked each of these young men and women why they wanted to be confirmed. They were eloquent in telling how they want to be seen as adults. How they want to vote at meetings. How they want to assist at worship. One student threw in, "I want to be confirmed because my parents want me to be." How beautiful is that? "I want to - because my parents want me to!"

In the same way, Ryan and Mandy, in partnership with the Church, begin to lay the very same foundation of faith at the font. They know that some day, not now, but some day, their Hannah, God's Hannah will need that foundation.

I hope you'll be here with me on Pentecost Sunday, May 28, 2023, as Hannah is Confirmed. Well, it might be a bit unlikely I'll be here - although, in my wildest dreams.... But not to worry - Pentecost Sunday 2023 and there will be a parson in the pulpit at Hannah's Confirmation. Even now, God's Spirit is blowing through the heart and mind of someone, somewhere, a person who will one day be Hannah's gust preacher - as I have been for these fifteen Confirmands!

In addition I'd like to say that I've ... wait! I see somebody shaking a watch. Time's up. Amen.