The Day of Pentecost is celebrated on the 50th day of
Easter. (Its origins come from the Jewish tradition marking the 50th
day after Passover.) It is the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit, the Third
Person of the Holy Trinity, as the power of God among us. The Acts 2 reading
describes the Christian church’s first Pentecost in Jerusalem when those
gathered heard “a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” Verse 4 continues, “All
of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages,
as the Spirit gave them ability.”
One of the musical elements offered in our Pentecost worship this Sunday is a 21st-century hymn, As the Wind Song, that supports this notion of Christianity being multi-lingual. The hymn is bi-cultural in origin: the text was written by a hymn writer in New Zealand, and the tune – called wairua tapu, meaning “Holy Spirit” in Maori – by a composer in Singapore. The hymn dates from 2004 and was translated to Chinese a year later; the Chinese characters are included in the publication of the hymn in our Glory to God hymnals. The multi-ethnic nature of the hymn, and the celebration of Pentecost in general, will be further enhanced by the many languages that will help us hear the Acts 2 lesson in full on Sunday: Arabic, English, Farsi, Japanese, Koine Greek, and Spanish.
As the Wind Song is a new hymn for me. I’m struck by the poet’s use of simile, the literary device “involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid.” In her text, Shirley Erena Murray brilliantly uses this device to depict the Holy Spirit. She pairs various phrases with a line that returns each time, “… so it is with the Spirit of God.” Take a look:
As the wind song
through the trees,
as the stirring of the breeze,
so it is with the Spirit of God,
as the heart made strangely warm,
as the voice within the storm,
so it is with the Spirit of God.
Never seen, ever known
where this wind has blown
bringing life, bringing power to the world,
as the dancing tongues of fire,
as the soul’s most deep desire,
so it is with the Spirit of God.
As the rainbow after rain,
as the hope that’s born again,
so it is with the Spirit of God,
as the green in the spring,
as a kite on a string,
so it is with the Spirit of God,
making worlds that are new,
making peace come true,
bringing gifts, bringing love to the world,
as the rising of the yeast,
as the wine at the feast,
so it is with the Spirit of God.
Murray gives a nod to Methodism, the faith of her upbringing, in this text. The fourth line of the first verse – as the heart made strangely warm – is a phrase attributed to John Wesley, the Father of Methodism, when he described his “Aldersgate experience” that eventually led to his breaking with the Anglican Church and founding of a new movement that we now call Methodism.
Musically, Swee Hong Lim wrote this tune using the pentatonic scale. As you might guess, this is a scale that employs just five pitches (as opposed to eight pitches that we find in musical scales such as ‘major’ and ‘minor’). In this case, the entire melody is made up of these five notes: D, E, G, A, and B. It is surely no coincidence that a Pentecost text is matched with a tune employing the pentatonic scale! (Note the common prefixes…)
In our Pentecost service this year, our friend Lydia Graham joins me in interpreting this hymn as a solo during the musical offering. I'm grateful for her willingness and her skill - not only as a vocalist, but also a violist. I hope you enjoy this new hymn as much as I have!
