June 8, 2025 – Pentecost

When you came to church this morning, I bet you were thinking, “I really hope Pastor April teaches us about physics today.” You weren’t? Well… my apologies. I promise I won’t get too far into it because, well, if I went too far into it, I wouldn’t understand it enough to say anything about it. But this morning, I want to talk about a theory of physics that has existed for a very long time. Around 350 B.C., the philosopher Aristotle wrote a work called Physics. Physics, to him, included almost everything in the natural world. In the days after folks like Copernicus, the focus of physics became more mathematical than it was for Aristotle. 

Aristotle believed physics included everything from our minds and memories to biology and the natural world. One of the theories he posed is the theory horror vacui, which means “fear of empty spaces” in Latin. Basically, Aristotle believed that empty spaces could not stay empty. You may have heard the phrase “nature abhors a vacuum” and this is where the idea originated. If a place is empty, the forces of nature will work to fill it. Even though scientists have studied this on a molecular level and have found that on rare occasions, empty spaces remain, I have experienced the truth of Aristotle’s theory regularly in my daily life.

What happens when you finally clean off that end table? Someone will set something on the table so that it’s not empty anymore. If we empty the refrigerator, we buy more food to fill the shelves. If the house is quiet, we turn on music or open the windows so that some sound comes in. If there’s empty soil in the garden, weeds will grow. I think this is one reason it is important for us to cultivate a sense of comfort with empty spaces – especially inside our hearts and minds – because if we don’t, we’ll always find ways to fill them, and often in ways that aren’t healthy or helpful.

Jesus told a story about this in Luke 11. He said, “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it returns, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.” In other words, if what’s bad in our lives is removed, but we don’t put anything good in its place, it’s very possible the bad will just creep back in, and often worse than it was before.

I tell you all this because the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 is all about being filled. In fact, the word “filled” appears three times in the passage we heard this morning. Interestingly, every single time the word “filled” is used in the English, a different word is used in the Greek – three different Greek words, all translated as “filled.” So, what does it mean to be filled?

Ten days before the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus ascended into heaven. He told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem and that they would receive the Holy Spirit. In that in between time, I imagine the disciples struggled to know what to do. While Jesus was on earth, they had a purpose. They followed him. They learned from him. They woke up everyday knowing that he was with them. After the crucifixion, they were overwhelmed with grief, and they didn’t know what to do. But when Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to them several times. He taught them and ate with them. Once again, they had a sense of purpose and a calling – to be people who learned from Jesus. 

When Jesus ascended into heaven, their purpose was to wait. And I don’t know about you, but waiting isn’t a very satisfying thing to do. It feels like an empty space. It feels like there’s no purpose except being uncomfortable or letting your imagination run wild. I give the disciples credit that they didn’t do nothing or turn to something destructive during this time. Instead, under Peter’s leadership, they chose a replacement for Judas who had betrayed Jesus and then died. After that, it seems they stuck close to the house where later, they would be filled with the Holy Spirit.

“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, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” The whole house was filled – πληρόω play-ro’-o. This word for “filled” means to completely fill, but it very literally means “to cram a net,” or “to level up a hollow.” If you have a hole in your yard and you fill it so that it becomes level with the rest of the ground, this is play-ro’-o. It’s full. No hole remains. The house where the 12 disciples were was filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit. 

Luke–the author of Acts–describes the Spirit as a “sound like the rush of a violent wind” and with an appearance like “divided tongues, as of fire.” A tongue of fire rested on each of the disciples–a miracle that was both individual and collective. This is when we get the second use of the word “filled,” this time the Greek word “πληθύνω play-thoo’-no” – a word related to the first one that means “to fill completely” or even to “fill to one’s individual capacity.” The Holy Spirit filled the house and the disciples all the way up. Where they had been emptiness and waiting before, there was now fullness of the Spirit. 

Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples began to tell the crowd that gathered the good news about Jesus. As they spoke, each person heard about Jesus in their native languages, a profound miracle considering how many nationalities were gathered in Jerusalem. The people were “amazed and astonished.” I love the Greek here. The words for “amazed and astonished” can also mean “to be beside one’s self” or “out of one’s mind.” What they were experiencing was so miraculous that they couldn’t make sense of it. They were shocked. They couldn’t explain what was going on, and where there’s a lack…where there’s a void… we fill it with our own ideas. 

This brings us to the third word for “filled.” Verses 12-13 say this: “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’” The word for “filled” here is a basic word that means “to be filled,” and it could be with anything good or bad. It’s also used as a euphemism for when someone has had too much to drink. In response to the miracle of hearing in their own languages, some of the people allowed themselves to have an empty space – a lack of an answer – to have a sense of awe and wonder – , but others filled that space with mocking and sneering. They simply couldn’t stand not being able to explain it. So, they created a reason that made sense to them. 

If it’s true–and I think it is–that empty places don’t stay empty very often, then it’s most likely true that something is filling us right now. On the most basic level, any of us who look to Jesus are filled with the Holy Spirit, but on a day-to-day basis, what do we choose to fill ourselves with? Or, what do we allow ourselves to be filled by?

I realized recently that I have a tendency to become angry about something and stuff it down rather than dealing with it in a healthy way. I used to think that if I pushed it down, it just magically disappeared. The truth is, things we don’t deal with don’t go away; they just fester, and when that happens, they come out in ways we don’t expect: like bouts of self-loathing when you realize you don’t have all the ingredients you need for the dinner you’re in the middle of cooking, like impatience with others, or a lack of resilience when tough things inevitably arise. 

I suspect each of us are filled with things we don’t even realize, but the best way to know what’s in our hearts is what comes out of us–either in our words or our actions. Many of us may bring to mind this wise saying of Jesus: “It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks,” but we may not remember what comes right before it: “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil.” What’s in us has a way of showing up in our words and our actions.

Earlier this week, Walter Bruggemann, a prolific and renowned Old Testament scholar and author who has been incredibly influential to many people (myself included) died at the age of 92. Even though Bruggemann was incredibly intelligent and scholarly, he had a way of writing about faith that made sense to people from all walks of life. He wrote this about the Holy Spirit: “In truth, however, being baptized with God’s Holy Spirit does not mean charismatic acting out. It means, I take it, we may be visited by a spirit of openness, generosity, that ‘the force’ may come over us, carry us to do obedient things we have not yet done, kingdom things we did not think we had in us, neighborly things from which we cringe.”

For the disciples on that Pentecost day, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and the evidence was that they spoke words of love and good news to people from all over the gathered world. For us, what we are filled with will also come forth from us. And while, we may not find ourselves miraculously speaking to people in other languages, I suspect the results will look a lot like the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5: “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 

This week let’s pause to reflect on what we allow to fill us. What do we take in without realizing it, and what do we stuff down and bury rather than process in a healthy way? What would it look like to change those patterns and habits? Take a look at the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Which of these would you most like to grow in? Which needs the most attention in your life? If you’re feeling brave, ask someone you trust to help you notice when this fruit starts showing up more in your life. 

May we all be a people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, and may it be evident in the way we live our lives.