SPIRIT FILLED WISHES . . . .

DID YOU EVER WISH FOR SOMETHING GOOD?

You ever wish for candy to soothe your lively soul?
you ever think you're dandy for cleaning out your bowl?
You ain't such hot stuff no how for wanting the wrong thing.

It's one thing to buy a device like this.
It is another to learn how to use it.
 THAT TAKES BRAINS!

You got to do the "low bow" before the Rightful King.
The King himself will love you, 'cause lovings what He do.
The Spirit is within Him, He'll give it to you too.
He never said he'd go away and leave us in the lurch.
Our Lord said He's got spirit plus to give to all the church.
So stop your wishin' for odd things that live below His line
Open hands for the Spirit, it's then you'll be just fine.
'Cause Jesus said He'd give it, who stands by every word,
So pull the plugs out from out yore ears, it's time you finally heard!

[FROM "The Big Book of Best Loved 'Pomes' for Fambly and Friends"]

Have you ever run into some really smart people; and you found yourself wishing for what they had in the way of brains, intelligence, and experience?  That's right you wished for what they had!  Admit it!  You have in fact wished this very thing!
In my own employment my immediate supervisor is a man who has invested his mind in the company and its products.  And he has, over the course of years, learned a lot about the various Apple products -- the iphone, the ipods, and now those wondrous ipads.  He has learned how they work and how to fix them.  Not only that he has learned a lot about our customers -- what they need, what they want, what they want to hear, and how best to help each one of them.  He has also learned how to teach everything that he knows, and teach it well.

Sometimes you just wish you could
scoop out somebody else's experience
and drink it right down

And sometimes I wish that all of his intelligence and all of his experience was contained in something like a giant rain barrel.  And I could just walk over there with my big dipper spoon (like the one in the picture), and dip down into the barrel of his knowledge, and pull up the dipper and hold it over my head, and pour it all over me!  And then do it again and again, until I had fairly baptized myself with all of his knowledge and experience.  And I believe that if I could do that, well then I would know -- almost instantaneously -- what he himself knows.  That's what I wish.

But alas, that's not going to happen, because that is not the way things work.  If I want to get that man's intelligence I will have to do it by doing what he did:  by reading the same material he read, practicing with the products themselves, and talking to thousands of customers.  It takes years of work, learning, and practice.  And there is no other way.

But still, I wish it was otherwise.  And that's all right.  Because I am wishing for something that is in its own way a genuinely good thing.
And I bring this up because wishing for something that is genuinely good is itself a good thing!   (Sounds redundant, doesn't it?)  Even the people of God do it.  Even God's people in the Bible have done this.  And sometimes, God even consents to grant their wish.
          This happened with Moses, though it did not happen entirely within his lifetime.  Moses wished for something genuinely good.  And his was an unselfish wish, because he wished it for other people.  He wished for the Holy Spirit to come to more than just a few.

Moses needed help.  God said, "Go get
seventy known elders of Israel.
I'll come down and 'fix'em'!"

The story of his wish comes at a time when God's people the Israelites had finally left Mount Sinai and were making their way to the promised land.  But they were crossing a huge, hot, thirsty desert, and the people were complaining about the limitations on available food.  (Basically they were saying, "Manna ain't enough!")
Their complaints about food led to Moses' own complaint to God:  there were so many people and only one of him.  There were so many problems, and only one leader to bear the burdens of them all.  It was just too much!  He needed help, and he didn't mind asking God for that help!
(And by the way, since we're all wishing for good things today, I wish you would do the same:  don't ever mind asking God for help when you need it, because He doesn't mind listening to you, and then giving you precisely the help you need!)

Listen to how that story of need developed in Moses' troubled life:

10.  Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents.  The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.
11.  He asked the Lord, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant?  What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?
12.  Did I conceive all these people, did I give them birth?  Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nursing mother carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors? . . .
14.  I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.

15.  If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me -- if I have found favor in your eyes -- and do not let me face my own ruin."

Moses was carrying a very heavy load.
And he didn't have this guy's nice clothes either!

I know, I know:  it seems a rather flowery way of speaking about one's own misery.  But you should at least know that Moses does a really great job of conveying to God just exactly how he feels at this point after so many trials of carrying this people, seemingly by himself, and with little help since they all left Egypt.  He does not feel good at all about things just now!

But as with every cry of the heart, God the Father hears and He has a ready answer.  More than that, where there is need justly stated He has a solution which meets that need.  God has a solution for  the problem that is presented and that His people themselves present.  The following verses combine perhaps several traditions, but together they reveal God making it clear He has a plan which will solve Moses' problem.  God wastes no time dithering with Moses or even consoling him in an empathetic way.  Instead the Lord goes right to the instruction of what Moses must do next:

16.  The Lord said to Moses, "Bring me seventy (70) of Israel's elders who are known by you to be leaders/elders and scribes among the people.  Have them come to the tent of meeting that they may stand there with you.
17.  I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you, and I will put it on them.  They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone."

That was God's plan.  All Moses had to do was round up the seventy elders.  The plan involved God sharing His own Spirit:  the very spirit which at that time was resident only in Moses' life.  God's plan was taking that same Spirit and making it available to others who could also lead, carry, and assist.  That's what God said, and that is what Moses did as told in the rest of the episode:

24.  So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered the seventy men from the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle (tent).
25.  Then the Lord came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was upon him and placed it upon the seventy elders, and they prophesied, although they did

Moses ain't the kind of guy
that I'd ever want to make mad . . .
He might decide to split something . . . .

not do so again.
26.  But two of the men had remained in the camp.  The name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other was Medad.  And the spirit rested upon them.  Now they were among those listed, but they had not gone out to the tabernacle.  Nevertheless they prophesied in the camp.

Thus God's plan is worked out as He had instructed.  Moses did his part, recruiting the seventy elders, and God did His.  And the Spirit that was on Moses was placed by God on them all.

But, as is so often the case with people and stories in the Bible, God seems to love throwing curve balls at least once each chapter!  The curve ball here is the two elders, Eldad and Medad.  They evidently got the word, they were on the list of the chosen, but they (for whatever reason) did not go over to the tabernacle, located outside the camp, with all the others. 

Now, if you've read the first five books of the Bible at all you might well think that this is the kind of slacking off or outright disobedience to God which could very well cost them their lives!  You might well expect the Lord to slay them with fire for not being at the right place and at the right time.  Yet God does not do this!  Instead He does the very surprising opposite:  He gives them His Spirit too, and they behave just like the other sixty eight elders, prophesying within the camp!  Perhaps God is telling us that in matters of the Spirit, He permits a degree of freedom which His creative, intelligent people will need if indeed they are going to share in the leadership of others.

The seventy elders started prophesying by the Spirit of God!
(but not for long . . . . Drat!)

We accept this intellectually  if we take time to think about it in the context of the whole Bible.  But there are some people in all ages who cannot understand this kind of divine exception.  There was even then, for instance, near to Eldad and Medad an observant (some would say, "tattle tale") young man who saw they were doing what spirit-filled prophets do, but doing it at the wrong place.  It's interesting that it is a young man who sees this and believes it to be wrong.

27.  And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying within the camp." 
28.  So Joshua the son of Nun, one of those serving Moses, answered and said, "Lord, make them stop!"
29.  Then Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake?  Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!"
30.   So Moses returned to the camp, he and the elders of Israel.

And there it is:  Moses being confronted with opposition not over what he was doing, but over what God had done!  It is then that Moses expresses his great wish:  Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!"
That was Moses' wish that he expressed some 13 centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ.  It was a good wish.  It was one that God the Father of Jesus overheard.  And it is one that God granted through the life and words of His Son Jesus.

Think of what this means:  God answered Moses' anguished cry when Moses made it.  But He

Eldad and Medad prophesied outside the camp!!
The EPA did not approve, but couldn't
do one danged thing about it!

answered Moses' wish centuries later in the time of the Lord's own choosing.  And God showed the importance of fulfilling Moses' wish in passages like this, where His own Son speaks of the high importance of the Holy Spirit:

Luke 11:13  "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"

Says Jesus.  And in saying this He underscores the importance of the Spirit more than any material good or need that we might think of or ask for.

But specifically, how did God do this?  How did the Leader of Moses and the Father of Jesus fulfill the ancient wish of Moses?
Well, we all know very well the story that Luke tells of that first Pentecost Day after Jesus had risen from the dead (Acts 2:1-40).  Yet, Jesus Himself took into His own hands to fulfill Moses' wish in His own way on the very day that His own empty tomb was discovered.  He did this in that upper room in Jerusalem with most of his remaining disciples present.  The door of that upper room was shut because the disciples were afraid of the Jews.  But that did not stop Jesus from appearing among them.  He said,

19. . . . "Peace be with you."
20.  When he had said this He showed them His hands and His side.  Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
21.  So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you.  As the Father has sent me, I also send you.  22.  And when He had said this He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive Holy Spirit."
23.  "If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any they are retained."


There it is!  That is John's version of God working through Jesus and fulfilling the wish of Moses!  These ordinary followers received the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed upon them.  They didn't have to go to the tent of meeting or even the Jerusalem Temple.  The Son of God came to them, and simply gave them all the Spirit.  This was an important gift because with it they received power and commission to go forth and to forgive as Jesus had forgiven.  That is to say, the fulfillment of Moses' wish brought them, and it brings us

THE CALL TO GO FORTH . . . 

THE CALL TO GO FORGIVE . . . .
That was a significant gift because following Jesus' death, the disciples might well have been likely to go without forgiving those who had killed Jesus.  But now with God's Spirit they could go forth, seek out others, and both preach and offer God's forgiveness to all.

Jesus showed them His hands and His feet.
Then He breathed on them
and showed them His Spirit . . . .

Moses had to wait a long time to see his great wish come true.  But he (being alive with all the
saints before God) did live to see it.  The Spirit could and would be given to all followers of Jesus who were open to receiving that gift.  And God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ would be made available to all!


It raises great questions for us today in the Church.  And you are part of the Church so the God of Moses is asking you great questions:    What is your wish?  In light of what happened to Moses long ago, what do you wish for?  Is it something as good, noble, and far-reaching as Moses' wish?  Perhaps in light of the challenge we have heard of recently from our own church leaders, this is that special time when God's people at St. Paul's are to ask of Him great and unselfish things -- things that we will need in the days ahead to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ.

And while we pray and think of that, we also accept that God has spoken His Word over us for the present:  He had said that we are now at least equipped to plumb the depths of our own heart -- or better -- to let the God of Moses search our hearts, and plough the ground of our souls.  God, the Farmer, is seeking to turn over that soil and see what godly, far-reaching wishes might truly be there.  And when He does this, you can express them loudly and longingly back to Him.  And this you must do with that great wish once He uncovers it!


But regardless of what your great and godly wishes are for God's people now or in the future, you today have the fulfillment of Moses' wish:  Jesus says to you also today, "Wish for the Spirit for yourself!  And then when you entertain that thought seriously, He says to you, "Receive Holy Spirit.  As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you!  If you forgive the sins of others, they stand forgiven!"  You are free, you are released then, and equipped and commissioned to go out in the name of Jesus Christ and forgive.


PRAYER: 
Holy Father, our Loving God, we have all dreamed dreams large and small.  And we've all made wishes.  But today on Pentecost we ask you to direct us to will and want that good gift of Yourself

At Pentecost Day all the disciples
received the Holy Spirit
as Jesus had promised.

that you long to give to us:  even the Holy Spirit.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

BIBLE STORY FOR YOU TO READ, USE, AND LOVE!

Numbers 11:10-17, 24-30

10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.
11 He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?
12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors?
13 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ 14 I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.
15 If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”
16 The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you.
17 I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.
AND
24 So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent.
25 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.
26 However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp.
27 A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28 Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”
30 Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

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