Rev. Dan Safarik: The ‘Holy Gust’
My son Paul is 31 now. When he was about 7, we were in a doctor's waiting room in Omaha. I saw him put his hand very gently on the head of a 2-year-old boy.
I listened and I heard him say ... "In the name of the Father and the Son and the FIRE OF GOD!" I realized he was doing a dry baptism like he had seen his father (me) do many times at church services.
Paul got the name Father and Son, but he couldn't remember Holy Spirit. Actually the "FIRE OF GOD" is pretty close.
Which brings up the observation that the general church population doesn't know much about the Holy Spirit. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this subject.
I think some of the confusion might have to do with the term Holy Ghost. I know that kind of threw me off when I was young. The King James Version of the Bible usually used the words Holy Ghost. When I looked it up I found out the words spirit and ghost were the same thing at that time.
There is an Anglo-Saxon word, GAST, which developed into the word GHOST. This had in it the meaning of the Old Norse, GUSTER, which has become GUST, the sudden movement of wind. This fits in well with the day of Pentecost that involved a strong blast of wind and the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus' followers.
On the morning of the day of Pentecost the place where the disciples were sitting together was suddenly filled with what seemed like a great gust of wind from heaven. It certainly was from God and nothing that the disciples had done of their own. (Acts 2:1-11)
All of this reminds me of Ezekiel. He was given a divine command to prophesy to the wind and called it to blow on the dead bodies in the valley of his vision. It was the breath of God that breathed in them and filled them with new life. (Ezekiel 37:9-14)
It seems that we need some kind of revival to blow on our country to bring us new life. As I write, there was another school shooting in Omaha yesterday, two days ago there were three shootings in Lincoln. How can we stop the terrible things going on in our country except by some big wind from God to blow us off our feet?
Buffalo Bill Cody used to tell about an English visitor to the West. While riding through a Rocky Mountain canyon one day, a tremendous gust of wind swooped and actually carried the Englishman off the wagon seat. After he picked himself up and combed the sand out of his hair, he said, "I say! I think you overdo ventilation in this country."
We need to ventilate a change in our lives with the wind of God.
Prayer: Our Lord, may we reach out to catch as much of the wind of the Holy Spirit as we can. Amen
The Rev. Dan Safarik retired as a full-time pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church in Lincoln and now serves part time at St. Mark's UMC in Lincoln. Email him at
