A Call to New Birth”
June 9, 2019
Pentecost
Pentecost was a unique and holy moment, with the coming of the Holy Spirit upon God’s people, but it isn’t as if Jesus had never spoken of the Spirit’s unlikely doings. He told Nicodemus that
“The wind [or the Spirit – the word in New Testament Greek is the same] blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” [John 3:8]
From time to time the Holy Spirit has decided to turn up its normal, gentle breeze, it’s constant and quiet breathing of life into the Church to the level of a gale.
In August of 1801, a small Presbyterian log church in Cane Ridge, Kentucky announced that they were going to offer a couple of days of preaching services to conclude with communion on the last night. They were hoping the local community would find When thousands of people started pouring in from the backwoods, the local clergy called in extra preachers from the neighborhood and built a bunch of outdoor platforms for them to stand on in front of the crowds. Peter Cartwright, who was nineteen at the time, recalled,
“The people crowded to this meeting from far and near. They came in their large wagons, with victuals mostly prepared. The women slept in the wagons, and the men under them. Many stayed on the ground night and day for a number of nights and days together. Others were provided for among the neighbors around. The power of God was wonderfully displayed; scores of sinners fell under the preaching, like men slain in mighty battle; Christians shouted aloud for joy.
To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday evening of said meeting, I went, with weeping multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul, an impression was made on my mind, as though a voice said to me, “Thy sins are all forgiven thee.” Divine light flashed all round me, unspeakable joy sprung up in my soul. I rose to my feet, opened my eyes, and it really seemed as if I was in heaven; the trees, the leaves on them, and everything seemed, and I really thought were, praising God. My mother raised the shout, my Christian friends crowded around me and joined me in praising God; and though I have been since then, in many instances, unfaithful, yet I have never, for one moment, doubted that the Lord did, then and there, forgive my sins and give me religion.”
Our meeting lasted without intermission all night, and it was believed by those who had a very good right to know, that over eighty souls were converted to God during its continuance. I went on my way rejoicing for many days.”
Apart from the good that it did for the people who responded, the events at Cane Ridge kicked off the establishment of camp meetings all over the country. Places like Ocean Grove, Chester Heights, and Mt. Gretna were part of that.
A little over forty years later, the country was at war with itself. Soldiers who found themselves close to death began to ask questions about the meaning of life, about justice and injustice, about what they were doing in combat, about all sorts of things. That was when another series of spontaneous revivals arose in both armies. This is from a history of Virginia by Stephen Woodworth:
“Revivals in the armies took different forms. In 1862 a Georgia soldier serving in Virginia wrote that although there had been none of what he called "revival meetings"—large, enthusiastic, often highly demonstrative religious services—nevertheless a strong religious movement was in progress, characterized by nightly prayer meetings
in many regiments and a large upsurge in Bible reading among the troops. At other times the army revivals included more traditional displays of heightened religious interest. During the first months of 1864, delegates of the United States Christian Commission, an organization established by Northern churches to minister to the spiritual and material needs of the soldiers, set up a tent in the Vermont Brigade of the Union's Army of the Potomac. Though the tent could hold two hundred men, it hosted overflow crowds at nightly meetings, with many men unable to get close enough to hear the preaching. Services lasted an hour and a half, with a short sermon followed by a lengthy experience meeting in which many soldiers took part. Similar meetings were taking place throughout the Army of the Potomac that winter, as well as in the camps of the Army of Northern Virginia.”
in many regiments and a large upsurge in Bible reading among the troops. At other times the army revivals included more traditional displays of heightened religious interest. During the first months of 1864, delegates of the United States Christian Commission, an organization established by Northern churches to minister to the spiritual and material needs of the soldiers, set up a tent in the Vermont Brigade of the Union's Army of the Potomac. Though the tent could hold two hundred men, it hosted overflow crowds at nightly meetings, with many men unable to get close enough to hear the preaching. Services lasted an hour and a half, with a short sermon followed by a lengthy experience meeting in which many soldiers took part. Similar meetings were taking place throughout the Army of the Potomac that winter, as well as in the camps of the Army of Northern Virginia.”
The time was right. The need was there.
Who would have expected that? But I guess
“The Spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” [John 3:8]
In April of 1906, a spontaneous revival began at a chapel on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. The Assemblies of God, that run the University of Valley Forge, and most churches that call themselves “Pentecostal” trace their beginnings to this. The happenings at Azusa Street went on until around 1915 before dying down. Can you imagine a nine-year revival? Five days of Vacation Bible School can be exhausting!
“The Spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” [John 3:8]
And Jesus continues:
“So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [John 3:9]
What happens when you do go with it?
Peter Cartwright, whose recollection of his conversion at Cane Ridge I shared earlier, became a Methodist circuit rider. Most Methodist preachers, even today, start out assigned to a circuit. My first appointment had three churches. Another I served had two. Cartwright was appointed to Illinois. That was his territory – all of Illinois. He wasn’t preaching to ten thousand people at a time, but to four or five here and a dozen there, but his work left its mark. And he was just one of thousands who came to faith in Christ that summer.
As to the Civil War revivals, I like to think that it was the Christian witness offered to one another by people gathered from what were then distant places eventually allowed them to see even their enemies, when the smoke cleared, as brothers in faith and to begin the hard work of rebuilding across the lines of victor and vanquished, so much so that fifty years after Gettysburg some of the survivors of those bloody days stood on the land where they once shot at each other, shook hands, and then sat down to a picnic lunch together.
“I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” [Matthew 5:44-45]
One of the blessings of the Azusa Street Revival was that those present saw the gifts of the Spirit being shared out among both dark- and light-skinned people. In the time when Jim Crow laws were being laid down across the continent, the Holy Spirit was at work breaking down the barriers that humans were trying to reinforce.
“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.” [Acts 2:17]
There is no one way, but an infinite number of ways, that the Holy Spirit makes its way into the human heart and soul. It might in a crowd of people standing and waving their hands with tears running down their cheeks. It might be at a campfire at Innabah or Pocono Plateau. It might be when you’re called on to stand up for what is right, and you suddenly find courage you didn’t know you had. It might be when you find words that don’t feel like they’re entirely your own and you say to yourself later, “Where did that come from?” It might be at a moment when you are overcome by joy or beauty. It might be right now, this very moment, or in the car on your way home today.
“The Spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.” [John 3:8]
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