The Day of Pentecost
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series III
Just when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the event known as Pentecost, occurred is a matter of debate: Luke has a totally different time-table than John; for John it happened on Easter evening, but for Luke it was forty-some days later. When the church year began to take shape, the church chose to celebrate Pentecost according to Luke's story (possibly for historical reasons) and it keeps to that forty-nine-day schedule (it is really the fiftieth day of Easter) for practical reasons today. The church needs to bring closure to the Easter cycle, as well as observe Pentecost at some specific time because it is part of the Gospel. What happened on Pentecost - the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and other believers - occurred because Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. Before his crucifixion, he had promised to send the Holy Spirit to the Twelve as their guide, helper, and teacher. The Holy Spirit descended upon them (and others) on, Luke tells us, the day the church calls Pentecost. Pentecost is a festival of the Gospel, but the giving of the Holy Spirit is not confined to one time, one place, or one group of people. God continues to pour out his Spirit upon believers in and through the word and the sacraments, and sometimes in ways that are stranger than the story that Luke relates in the second chapter of Acts.
The Prayer of the Day
The Book of Common Prayer and the Lutheran Book of Worship contain multiple prayers for Pentecost, which tend to cross denominational lines and coordinate quite nicely with one another. The first prayer in the Book of Common Prayer highlights the beginning of world mission:
Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit; shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
The Lutheran Book of Worship picks up the story in Acts 1 and offers a variation on the mission theme:
God our creator, earth has many languages, but your Gospel announces your love to all nations in one heavenly speech. Make us messengers of the good news that, through the power of your Spirit, everyone everywhere may unite in one song of praise; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Both acknowledge that the advent of the Spirit was the beginning of world missions through the preaching of the Gospel; the second prayer personalizes the point of the first collect.
The Psalm of the Day
Psalm 104:1ab, 24ac, 29bc-31, 34 (R); 104:25-34 (L); 104:25-35 (E), or 104:25-32 (E), or 33:12-15, 18-22 (E) - The one part of the Bible that all of the churches select for this Sunday's liturgy and which all repeat each year of the three-year liturgical/lectionary cycle is Psalm 104. Psalm 104 offers praise to God for the Spirit's work in the creation of the world; it contrasts with the New Testament's conception of the work of the Holy Spirit, which has an eschatological perspective to it. For additional comments on this psalm, see the material for Pentecost in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
The Psalm Prayer (LBW)
God of all light, life, and love, through the visible things of this world you raise our thoughts to things unseen, and you show us your power and your love. From your dwelling-place refresh our hearts and renew the face of the earth with the life-giving water ofyour Word, until the new heaven and the new earth resound with the song of resurrection in Jesus Christ our Lord.
The readings:
Acts 2:1-11 (R, E)
The Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A, contains comments on this annual first lesson.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (L, C)
The familiar story of the "valley of the dry bones" that will "rise again" (which the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches use for the third alternative reading of the Vigil of Pentecost) really has nothing to do with Pentecost, but it does parallel the account of what happened through the work of the Holy Spirit. Some scholars claim that it is a kind of parallel to the Pentecost incident, when the Spirit came to give new life to the people of the world through Christ's Gospel and church. The risen Lord could have said - and did in other words : "Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live." And, again: "Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.... And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live...." It is an appropriate reading for the celebration of Pentecost.
Isaiah 44:1-8 (E)
The Episcopal Church alone appoints this lection as an alternate first reading for the Day of Pentecost. It contains God's promise to help Israel, his chosen people, by pouring water on "a thirsty land." The Pentecost connection occurs in verse 3b: "I will pour out my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing upon your offspring." The recipients of the Spirit will experience a regeneration, which they know comes from the Lord; for that, they will praise the Lord and will say, as Christians have learned to do, "I am the Lord's."
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13 (R); 12:4-13 (E)
As the second reading of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches, this selection received homiletical consideration last year. For comments, see the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
Acts 2:1-21 (L, C)
As mentioned above, this reading is included in the lections for Pentecost in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A . Incidentally, this is the only reading for Pentecost that the Lutheran and Common lectionaries use in all three of the cycles/series of the church year. All of the first and third readings change from year to year.
Acts 2:1-11 (E)
The Book of Common Prayer obviously intends that this part of the Pentecost story should be read every year either as a first reading or, when an Old Testament alternate reading is used, as a second lection. Comments are located in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
John 20:19-23 (R, E)
This is the first reading in the Roman Catholic and Episcopal lectionaries for all three lectionary cycles of the church year. Homiletical commentary is included in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
John 7:37-39a (L)
The Roman Catholic Ordo and the Episcopal lectionary, as well as the Lutheran lectionary, set this reading in the liturgy for the Vigil of Pentecost. The Lutheran Church alone appoints it for the Day of Pentecost, Cycle B. It speaks of an invitation Jesus made to people to "come to me and drink." Believers will be filled, according to John, because they have been refreshed by Jesus Christ. John says that Jesus was talking about the work of the Holy Spirit when he gave this invitation on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. He used the ceremony of that last day - the drawing of water - to refer to Moses striking the rock in the wilderness so that water gushed forth from it to assuage the thirst of the people.
John 14:8-17 (E)
It was in the context of the last meal before the Passover, when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, that Philip requested of Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." A little weary of the lack of perception and understanding on the part of the disciples, Jesus replied, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father?' " After informing the disciples that they will carry on and do the work he has received from the Father, Jesus tells them that he must return to the Father, but that the Father will send them a Counselor, the Holy Spirit, to comfort, sustain, and strengthen them for their work. The disciples probably didn't understand what he was talking about until they had received the Holy Spirit after his resurrection and ascension and had begun to preach the Gospel to a hostile and evil world.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (C)
The first two parts of this reading (15:26-16:4) used to be the Holy Gospel for Exaudi, the Sunday after the Ascension. This Gospel - and those others that announce the promise of Christ that the Holy Spirit will come to the believers - ought to be read first, not last, because the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 speaks of the fulfillment of that promise. The Spirit will bear witness to Christ, as will his followers, and John says that he will "convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment." In a way, the first function of the Holy Spirit is to continue and complete the work of Christ so that the disciples will mature in the "truth" he has given to them. His coming will result in Christ's glorification - and theirs, too, when they face persecution and even martyrdom in the name of Jesus.
A Sermon on the Gospel, John 20:19-23 (R, E)
Homiletical comments and suggestions are located in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A. This is a "perennial" Gospel in the lectionaries of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches.
John 7:37-39a (L) - "Christ and the 'Charged Water'."
1. Whether it is known, those who do not know the Father God in Jesus Christ are dying of thirst. People who are literally dying of thirst are dramatically aware of their predicament, but those who are spiritually thirsting have to be told of their condition and called to Christ through repentance and faith for a drink of "charged water."
(Suggestion: Read some of Antoine de St. Exupery's true stories of the desert people of North
Africa, as well as his own experience of nearly dying of thirst after a plane crash in the Sahara
Desert in Wind, Sand and Stars.)
2. Jesus offers living water - water that is "charged by the Holy Spirit" - to all who will have it, not simply to refresh us, but to empower us to believe and to serve the Lord. Once "charged" by the Spirit, living water will usher forth from our hearts to the world.
3. The living water - the Gospel of Jesus Christ - will light up the lives of those who receive it when they hear the Good News of Christ. That spirit-charged water makes believers of all who take it into their hearts.
4. The living water also makes witnesses of us all - not only believers - when the Holy Spirit charges us with Christ and the Gospel. The faithful can do all things, face all things, for they know that God is with them.
(Note: There is a baptismal dimension in all of this which relates to Easter and Pentecost.
Pentecost was, after all, a "reserve date" for people who missed their baptism on Easter.
Our baptism is renewed - re-charged - by the work of the Holy Spirit.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (C) - "The Strange 'Trinity'."
The work of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus revealed and detailed it after his resurrection and ascension, is never finished; it continues in every age and in every generation of people to give power to the word of God and to open the hearts of sinners to the Gospel and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It does this by:
1. Convincing - even convicting - the world of sin. The human race has turned its back on God, his will, and his ways in the mistaken belief that God is not really necessary in the world - especially today. Many modern problems have sin as the reason for their existence.
2. Convincing the world of righteousness. Jesus set things right between God and his people by his suffering death on the cross. That's the Good News! He did for us what we can't do for ourselves: he saved us from sin and death. He really has begun his reign over heaven and earth.
3. Convincing the world ofjudgment. There is a judgment coming - a final judgment - which we are beginning to perceive in the ecological, economic, and political problems peculiar to this age. When he comes again, the Lord will enact the judgment and set all things right again.
4. In the meantime, aware of this "Trinity," our prayer rises to Almighty God, in the name of Jesus Christ: "Come Holy Spirit, come - and make us ready for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
John 14:8-17 (E) - "Second Sight."
1. Philip was spiritually blind. He and the other disciples wanted to see God the Father; they never recognized him in Jesus Christ. They were spiritually blind!
2. What they really needed was a measure of "second sight" - the ability to perceive the love and grace and power of God at work in the ministry of Jesus Christ. How blind could they be, these men who had heard what Jesus said and witnessed the things he had done in the name of God?
3. "Second sight" is a gift of God that comes through the Holy Spirit. Christ offers it through his word and the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
4. Receive the spirit in faith and "see" God with your "second sight."
A Sermon on the First Lesson, Acts 2:1-11 (R, E)
See the homiletical comments and sermon suggestion in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (C, L) - "The 'Bare Bones' of the Living Dead."
There's a church in Rome that not many tourists get to see, despite the fact that it is located on the famous Via Veneto (the foot of the street, actually), the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione. Natives call it the "Church of the Bones" because there are four rooms in the basement which comprise the cemetery of the Cappuchins, a Franciscan order who occupy the church. Bones of hundreds of monks who have died and were buried here have been disinterred and are to be seen in each room; it has the looks of a haunted house, or Halloween - piles of skulls, vertebrae arranged in geometrical designs, leg bones, arm bones, all disconnected. One room contains complete skeletons wired together and clothed in the Cappuchin habit, standing or seated on benches before several crosses planted in the earth over the graves of those monks who died recently. The soil is from the Holy Land and "bridges" the Mediterranean Sea so that those who die in Christ might be buried in the soil that held him for those three days. The motif in this valley of the "dry bones" is that of waiting expectantly for the resurrection. The dead as well as the living keep watch for the return of Christ and the day of new life - "And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you will live."
(From my sermon, "The Day of New Creation," You Are My Beloved Children written with Frederick Kemper and published by Concordia Publishing House.)
1. Without Jesus Christ, the world is filling up - not only with garbage but with the "bare bones" of unbelievers and sinners. Death must be faced by all at the end of life - the "bare bones" will become dead bones.
2. Through the work of the spirit, Christ puts flesh - faith - on our "bare bones," enabling us to receive and believe his word and to grow in the faith.
3. The Spirit continues to flesh out the "bare bones" of our faith so that we may live in hope and actually look forward to the time when he will indeed open the graves of the dead and receive both the living and the dead into his eternal kingdom.
4. The "bare bones" and the dead bones will live again. Jesus proved this in his resurrection. He has promised us that same life.
Isaiah 44:1-8 (E) - "Promises and Pentecost."
1. The God of the two covenants - the old and the new - is a God who makes gracious promises to his people.
2. He has promised to "pour out his Spirit" upon his people to give them vigorous and abundant faith and life.
3. God is as good as his word. He keeps his promises, as he has revealed over and over again since the beginning of time.
4. Pentecost is the culmination of God's promise to "pour out his Spirit" upon the earth. Those who receive the Spirit receive new and everlasting life.
A Sermon on the Second Lesson, 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13 (R); 12:4-13 (E)
A sermon suggestion for this reading can be found in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
The Prayer of the Day
The Book of Common Prayer and the Lutheran Book of Worship contain multiple prayers for Pentecost, which tend to cross denominational lines and coordinate quite nicely with one another. The first prayer in the Book of Common Prayer highlights the beginning of world mission:
Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit; shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
The Lutheran Book of Worship picks up the story in Acts 1 and offers a variation on the mission theme:
God our creator, earth has many languages, but your Gospel announces your love to all nations in one heavenly speech. Make us messengers of the good news that, through the power of your Spirit, everyone everywhere may unite in one song of praise; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Both acknowledge that the advent of the Spirit was the beginning of world missions through the preaching of the Gospel; the second prayer personalizes the point of the first collect.
The Psalm of the Day
Psalm 104:1ab, 24ac, 29bc-31, 34 (R); 104:25-34 (L); 104:25-35 (E), or 104:25-32 (E), or 33:12-15, 18-22 (E) - The one part of the Bible that all of the churches select for this Sunday's liturgy and which all repeat each year of the three-year liturgical/lectionary cycle is Psalm 104. Psalm 104 offers praise to God for the Spirit's work in the creation of the world; it contrasts with the New Testament's conception of the work of the Holy Spirit, which has an eschatological perspective to it. For additional comments on this psalm, see the material for Pentecost in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
The Psalm Prayer (LBW)
God of all light, life, and love, through the visible things of this world you raise our thoughts to things unseen, and you show us your power and your love. From your dwelling-place refresh our hearts and renew the face of the earth with the life-giving water ofyour Word, until the new heaven and the new earth resound with the song of resurrection in Jesus Christ our Lord.
The readings:
Acts 2:1-11 (R, E)
The Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A, contains comments on this annual first lesson.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (L, C)
The familiar story of the "valley of the dry bones" that will "rise again" (which the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches use for the third alternative reading of the Vigil of Pentecost) really has nothing to do with Pentecost, but it does parallel the account of what happened through the work of the Holy Spirit. Some scholars claim that it is a kind of parallel to the Pentecost incident, when the Spirit came to give new life to the people of the world through Christ's Gospel and church. The risen Lord could have said - and did in other words : "Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live." And, again: "Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.... And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live...." It is an appropriate reading for the celebration of Pentecost.
Isaiah 44:1-8 (E)
The Episcopal Church alone appoints this lection as an alternate first reading for the Day of Pentecost. It contains God's promise to help Israel, his chosen people, by pouring water on "a thirsty land." The Pentecost connection occurs in verse 3b: "I will pour out my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing upon your offspring." The recipients of the Spirit will experience a regeneration, which they know comes from the Lord; for that, they will praise the Lord and will say, as Christians have learned to do, "I am the Lord's."
1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13 (R); 12:4-13 (E)
As the second reading of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches, this selection received homiletical consideration last year. For comments, see the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
Acts 2:1-21 (L, C)
As mentioned above, this reading is included in the lections for Pentecost in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A . Incidentally, this is the only reading for Pentecost that the Lutheran and Common lectionaries use in all three of the cycles/series of the church year. All of the first and third readings change from year to year.
Acts 2:1-11 (E)
The Book of Common Prayer obviously intends that this part of the Pentecost story should be read every year either as a first reading or, when an Old Testament alternate reading is used, as a second lection. Comments are located in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
John 20:19-23 (R, E)
This is the first reading in the Roman Catholic and Episcopal lectionaries for all three lectionary cycles of the church year. Homiletical commentary is included in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
John 7:37-39a (L)
The Roman Catholic Ordo and the Episcopal lectionary, as well as the Lutheran lectionary, set this reading in the liturgy for the Vigil of Pentecost. The Lutheran Church alone appoints it for the Day of Pentecost, Cycle B. It speaks of an invitation Jesus made to people to "come to me and drink." Believers will be filled, according to John, because they have been refreshed by Jesus Christ. John says that Jesus was talking about the work of the Holy Spirit when he gave this invitation on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. He used the ceremony of that last day - the drawing of water - to refer to Moses striking the rock in the wilderness so that water gushed forth from it to assuage the thirst of the people.
John 14:8-17 (E)
It was in the context of the last meal before the Passover, when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples, that Philip requested of Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." A little weary of the lack of perception and understanding on the part of the disciples, Jesus replied, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father?' " After informing the disciples that they will carry on and do the work he has received from the Father, Jesus tells them that he must return to the Father, but that the Father will send them a Counselor, the Holy Spirit, to comfort, sustain, and strengthen them for their work. The disciples probably didn't understand what he was talking about until they had received the Holy Spirit after his resurrection and ascension and had begun to preach the Gospel to a hostile and evil world.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (C)
The first two parts of this reading (15:26-16:4) used to be the Holy Gospel for Exaudi, the Sunday after the Ascension. This Gospel - and those others that announce the promise of Christ that the Holy Spirit will come to the believers - ought to be read first, not last, because the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 speaks of the fulfillment of that promise. The Spirit will bear witness to Christ, as will his followers, and John says that he will "convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment." In a way, the first function of the Holy Spirit is to continue and complete the work of Christ so that the disciples will mature in the "truth" he has given to them. His coming will result in Christ's glorification - and theirs, too, when they face persecution and even martyrdom in the name of Jesus.
A Sermon on the Gospel, John 20:19-23 (R, E)
Homiletical comments and suggestions are located in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A. This is a "perennial" Gospel in the lectionaries of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches.
John 7:37-39a (L) - "Christ and the 'Charged Water'."
1. Whether it is known, those who do not know the Father God in Jesus Christ are dying of thirst. People who are literally dying of thirst are dramatically aware of their predicament, but those who are spiritually thirsting have to be told of their condition and called to Christ through repentance and faith for a drink of "charged water."
(Suggestion: Read some of Antoine de St. Exupery's true stories of the desert people of North
Africa, as well as his own experience of nearly dying of thirst after a plane crash in the Sahara
Desert in Wind, Sand and Stars.)
2. Jesus offers living water - water that is "charged by the Holy Spirit" - to all who will have it, not simply to refresh us, but to empower us to believe and to serve the Lord. Once "charged" by the Spirit, living water will usher forth from our hearts to the world.
3. The living water - the Gospel of Jesus Christ - will light up the lives of those who receive it when they hear the Good News of Christ. That spirit-charged water makes believers of all who take it into their hearts.
4. The living water also makes witnesses of us all - not only believers - when the Holy Spirit charges us with Christ and the Gospel. The faithful can do all things, face all things, for they know that God is with them.
(Note: There is a baptismal dimension in all of this which relates to Easter and Pentecost.
Pentecost was, after all, a "reserve date" for people who missed their baptism on Easter.
Our baptism is renewed - re-charged - by the work of the Holy Spirit.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (C) - "The Strange 'Trinity'."
The work of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus revealed and detailed it after his resurrection and ascension, is never finished; it continues in every age and in every generation of people to give power to the word of God and to open the hearts of sinners to the Gospel and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It does this by:
1. Convincing - even convicting - the world of sin. The human race has turned its back on God, his will, and his ways in the mistaken belief that God is not really necessary in the world - especially today. Many modern problems have sin as the reason for their existence.
2. Convincing the world of righteousness. Jesus set things right between God and his people by his suffering death on the cross. That's the Good News! He did for us what we can't do for ourselves: he saved us from sin and death. He really has begun his reign over heaven and earth.
3. Convincing the world ofjudgment. There is a judgment coming - a final judgment - which we are beginning to perceive in the ecological, economic, and political problems peculiar to this age. When he comes again, the Lord will enact the judgment and set all things right again.
4. In the meantime, aware of this "Trinity," our prayer rises to Almighty God, in the name of Jesus Christ: "Come Holy Spirit, come - and make us ready for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
John 14:8-17 (E) - "Second Sight."
1. Philip was spiritually blind. He and the other disciples wanted to see God the Father; they never recognized him in Jesus Christ. They were spiritually blind!
2. What they really needed was a measure of "second sight" - the ability to perceive the love and grace and power of God at work in the ministry of Jesus Christ. How blind could they be, these men who had heard what Jesus said and witnessed the things he had done in the name of God?
3. "Second sight" is a gift of God that comes through the Holy Spirit. Christ offers it through his word and the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
4. Receive the spirit in faith and "see" God with your "second sight."
A Sermon on the First Lesson, Acts 2:1-11 (R, E)
See the homiletical comments and sermon suggestion in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (C, L) - "The 'Bare Bones' of the Living Dead."
There's a church in Rome that not many tourists get to see, despite the fact that it is located on the famous Via Veneto (the foot of the street, actually), the Church of Santa Maria della Concezione. Natives call it the "Church of the Bones" because there are four rooms in the basement which comprise the cemetery of the Cappuchins, a Franciscan order who occupy the church. Bones of hundreds of monks who have died and were buried here have been disinterred and are to be seen in each room; it has the looks of a haunted house, or Halloween - piles of skulls, vertebrae arranged in geometrical designs, leg bones, arm bones, all disconnected. One room contains complete skeletons wired together and clothed in the Cappuchin habit, standing or seated on benches before several crosses planted in the earth over the graves of those monks who died recently. The soil is from the Holy Land and "bridges" the Mediterranean Sea so that those who die in Christ might be buried in the soil that held him for those three days. The motif in this valley of the "dry bones" is that of waiting expectantly for the resurrection. The dead as well as the living keep watch for the return of Christ and the day of new life - "And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you will live."
(From my sermon, "The Day of New Creation," You Are My Beloved Children written with Frederick Kemper and published by Concordia Publishing House.)
1. Without Jesus Christ, the world is filling up - not only with garbage but with the "bare bones" of unbelievers and sinners. Death must be faced by all at the end of life - the "bare bones" will become dead bones.
2. Through the work of the spirit, Christ puts flesh - faith - on our "bare bones," enabling us to receive and believe his word and to grow in the faith.
3. The Spirit continues to flesh out the "bare bones" of our faith so that we may live in hope and actually look forward to the time when he will indeed open the graves of the dead and receive both the living and the dead into his eternal kingdom.
4. The "bare bones" and the dead bones will live again. Jesus proved this in his resurrection. He has promised us that same life.
Isaiah 44:1-8 (E) - "Promises and Pentecost."
1. The God of the two covenants - the old and the new - is a God who makes gracious promises to his people.
2. He has promised to "pour out his Spirit" upon his people to give them vigorous and abundant faith and life.
3. God is as good as his word. He keeps his promises, as he has revealed over and over again since the beginning of time.
4. Pentecost is the culmination of God's promise to "pour out his Spirit" upon the earth. Those who receive the Spirit receive new and everlasting life.
A Sermon on the Second Lesson, 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13 (R); 12:4-13 (E)
A sermon suggestion for this reading can be found in the Lectionary Preaching Workbook III, Cycle A.
