Pentecost
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons:
With an Eye to the New
This reading from Acts is the stated lesson in all three cycles of the lectionary. The preacher may therefore want to consult the expositions in Cycles A and B also.
In our first lesson for last Sunday, just before his ascension into heaven, the risen Christ commanded his disciples to remain in Jerusalem and to wait until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49) by the gift of the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 1:8). Only then would the disciples be equipped with the power and ability to be Christ's "witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Our text for this Sunday now records the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon them.
We often make the mistake of speaking of God's Spirit as a beautiful, ethereal feeling that is given to us in quietness and peace. But if you have ever heard Bach's presentation of the Holy Spirit in his B-Minor Mass, you know that the Spirit comes with great energy. Bach's chorus is full of rapid, staccato notes that sweep on toward their climax in powerful sounds. The Holy Spirit of God is no quiet ghost. It is power, energy, transforming might from the almighty God of the resurrection.
So it is too in our text for the morning. The Spirit rushes upon the gathered disciples like a mighty wind that whirls about in the whole room (v. 2). It brings with it flames of fire -- always a symbol of God's presence in the scriptures -- that divide and rest on the head of each of the disciples. The Spirit transforms their speech, so that suddenly they can speak in the language of Mesopotamia and Palestine, Asia Minor and Egypt, Rome and Crete and Arabia. And it prompts the disciples to tell of "the mighty works of God," in all of those languages (v. 11), so that travelers from all those lands can understand what is being said.
Several major themes thrust out at us from this text. First of all, it is clear that God keeps his promises. His Christ had promised the disciples at the Last Supper that he would not leave them desolate, but that he would come to them in the Person of the Holy Spirit as their Advocate, Counselor, and Teacher (John chs. 14-16). Further, the risen Christ had promised the apostles that they would be clothed with the power of the Spirit from on high. Here now, at Pentecost, the Son of God keeps those promises, as he always keeps his promises. We can count on that. We modern Christian disciples of our Lord are never left on our own, dependent on our own abilities and power to spread the gospel. Rather, God in Christ grants us the gift of himself in the third person of the Trinity, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, and he is with us to the end of the age, as he promised he would be (Matthew 28:20), empowering us also to be his witnesses to the end of the earth.
Where do we receive that Spirit of Christ? Usually not in a pentecostal experience like that given to the first disciples. Rather, the Holy Spirit is granted to us first in our baptisms, and then repeatedly it is poured out upon us through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and through the Word of the gospel when that is truly preached from the pulpit. Every Christian is a recipient of the Holy Spirit. That is the gift that has made us Christians, and apart from that Spirit, we cannot lead a Christian life or be Christ's faithful disciples. "Apart from me, you can do nothing," Jesus taught us (John 15:5), and he comes to us in the Spirit.
Second, in the whole sweep of the Bible's history, it is clear that when the disciples are enabled to speak in the languages of all their Mediterranean world, the judgment that fell on all nations at the Tower of Babel has been reversed. In the story of Babel, in Genesis 11, which is actually the story of us all, God confused the languages of all peoples and scattered them abroad on the earth, as a judgment on their pride and attempts to run their own lives. In short, all forms of human community became impossible, because there was no understanding any more between husband and wife, brother and brother, society and society, nation and nation (the story of Genesis 3-11). And that is true, isn't it? We can't get along with one another anymore. We are constantly at odds with one another, in our homes or in our communities or in the world at large, filling our lives with angers and violence, misunderstandings and wars.
But now, suddenly at Pentecost, all the various people understand one another. Their language is no more confused. They hear as one company the mighty acts of God. And it is the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes that understanding possible.
Is that not the story of the Christian mission, that wherever the gospel is told in the love and power of the Spirit, controversies are healed, barriers of race and gender and nationality are overcome, and persons are enabled to live in harmony and peace with one another? Certainly that Spirit has healed many broken marriages and united many disrupted communities and enabled black and white and red and yellow to be bound together in "one great fellowship of love" in the church "throughout the whole wide earth." The Holy Spirit is a power to heal all of our broken relationships.
Third, in his sermon explaining what is happening to the gathered company at Pentecost, Peter quotes the words of the prophet Joel, verses 17-21 (Joel 2:28-32). Back in the fifth century B.C., Joel had declared what would happen "in the last days," that is, at the time when God would come to put down his enemies and to usher in his kingdom over all the earth. Shortly before that time, Joel proclaimed, there would be a mighty outpouring of the Spirit "on all flesh," so that all ranks of persons would be able to speak the Word of God, as the prophets of old had spoken it. That was what was happening there in that room at Pentecost, Peter explained. The Spirit was being given to all.
In short, a new age was beginning. The coming of the Kingdom of God was being prepared. Jesus Christ had embodied in his person the powers of that kingdom (cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 11:20), and now by the gift of his Spirit to the disciples, that power was spreading through all the world. God was beginning to usher in his final rule over all the earth. His final coming would be ushered in by "wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath" (v. 19), but before that time, the gospel was to be preached, so that all who believed and called on the name of the Lord would be saved, in the final judgment, for eternal life in the Kingdom of God (v. 21).
Can you believe that, that there is now the power of the Kingdom of God let loose in this world by Christ's Spirit, that you and I stand at the beginning of the new age of the kingdom, and that by our words and living we can spread a gospel that can bring eternal life to every person on earth? That's our situation, good Christians. God's kingdom is coming on earth, even as it is in heaven. You and I have been granted his Holy Spirit to empower us to spread the Word. And our mission, given us by the Spirit, can mean eternal life or death to everyone who observes our living or who hears our words from God. Pentecost has been called the birthday of the church. But it is not like every other birthday party. It is our call to be the witnesses of God's new age, that all persons whom he loves, and whom we are to love, may become participants in his everlasting kingdom.
In our first lesson for last Sunday, just before his ascension into heaven, the risen Christ commanded his disciples to remain in Jerusalem and to wait until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49) by the gift of the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 1:8). Only then would the disciples be equipped with the power and ability to be Christ's "witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Our text for this Sunday now records the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon them.
We often make the mistake of speaking of God's Spirit as a beautiful, ethereal feeling that is given to us in quietness and peace. But if you have ever heard Bach's presentation of the Holy Spirit in his B-Minor Mass, you know that the Spirit comes with great energy. Bach's chorus is full of rapid, staccato notes that sweep on toward their climax in powerful sounds. The Holy Spirit of God is no quiet ghost. It is power, energy, transforming might from the almighty God of the resurrection.
So it is too in our text for the morning. The Spirit rushes upon the gathered disciples like a mighty wind that whirls about in the whole room (v. 2). It brings with it flames of fire -- always a symbol of God's presence in the scriptures -- that divide and rest on the head of each of the disciples. The Spirit transforms their speech, so that suddenly they can speak in the language of Mesopotamia and Palestine, Asia Minor and Egypt, Rome and Crete and Arabia. And it prompts the disciples to tell of "the mighty works of God," in all of those languages (v. 11), so that travelers from all those lands can understand what is being said.
Several major themes thrust out at us from this text. First of all, it is clear that God keeps his promises. His Christ had promised the disciples at the Last Supper that he would not leave them desolate, but that he would come to them in the Person of the Holy Spirit as their Advocate, Counselor, and Teacher (John chs. 14-16). Further, the risen Christ had promised the apostles that they would be clothed with the power of the Spirit from on high. Here now, at Pentecost, the Son of God keeps those promises, as he always keeps his promises. We can count on that. We modern Christian disciples of our Lord are never left on our own, dependent on our own abilities and power to spread the gospel. Rather, God in Christ grants us the gift of himself in the third person of the Trinity, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, and he is with us to the end of the age, as he promised he would be (Matthew 28:20), empowering us also to be his witnesses to the end of the earth.
Where do we receive that Spirit of Christ? Usually not in a pentecostal experience like that given to the first disciples. Rather, the Holy Spirit is granted to us first in our baptisms, and then repeatedly it is poured out upon us through the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and through the Word of the gospel when that is truly preached from the pulpit. Every Christian is a recipient of the Holy Spirit. That is the gift that has made us Christians, and apart from that Spirit, we cannot lead a Christian life or be Christ's faithful disciples. "Apart from me, you can do nothing," Jesus taught us (John 15:5), and he comes to us in the Spirit.
Second, in the whole sweep of the Bible's history, it is clear that when the disciples are enabled to speak in the languages of all their Mediterranean world, the judgment that fell on all nations at the Tower of Babel has been reversed. In the story of Babel, in Genesis 11, which is actually the story of us all, God confused the languages of all peoples and scattered them abroad on the earth, as a judgment on their pride and attempts to run their own lives. In short, all forms of human community became impossible, because there was no understanding any more between husband and wife, brother and brother, society and society, nation and nation (the story of Genesis 3-11). And that is true, isn't it? We can't get along with one another anymore. We are constantly at odds with one another, in our homes or in our communities or in the world at large, filling our lives with angers and violence, misunderstandings and wars.
But now, suddenly at Pentecost, all the various people understand one another. Their language is no more confused. They hear as one company the mighty acts of God. And it is the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes that understanding possible.
Is that not the story of the Christian mission, that wherever the gospel is told in the love and power of the Spirit, controversies are healed, barriers of race and gender and nationality are overcome, and persons are enabled to live in harmony and peace with one another? Certainly that Spirit has healed many broken marriages and united many disrupted communities and enabled black and white and red and yellow to be bound together in "one great fellowship of love" in the church "throughout the whole wide earth." The Holy Spirit is a power to heal all of our broken relationships.
Third, in his sermon explaining what is happening to the gathered company at Pentecost, Peter quotes the words of the prophet Joel, verses 17-21 (Joel 2:28-32). Back in the fifth century B.C., Joel had declared what would happen "in the last days," that is, at the time when God would come to put down his enemies and to usher in his kingdom over all the earth. Shortly before that time, Joel proclaimed, there would be a mighty outpouring of the Spirit "on all flesh," so that all ranks of persons would be able to speak the Word of God, as the prophets of old had spoken it. That was what was happening there in that room at Pentecost, Peter explained. The Spirit was being given to all.
In short, a new age was beginning. The coming of the Kingdom of God was being prepared. Jesus Christ had embodied in his person the powers of that kingdom (cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 11:20), and now by the gift of his Spirit to the disciples, that power was spreading through all the world. God was beginning to usher in his final rule over all the earth. His final coming would be ushered in by "wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath" (v. 19), but before that time, the gospel was to be preached, so that all who believed and called on the name of the Lord would be saved, in the final judgment, for eternal life in the Kingdom of God (v. 21).
Can you believe that, that there is now the power of the Kingdom of God let loose in this world by Christ's Spirit, that you and I stand at the beginning of the new age of the kingdom, and that by our words and living we can spread a gospel that can bring eternal life to every person on earth? That's our situation, good Christians. God's kingdom is coming on earth, even as it is in heaven. You and I have been granted his Holy Spirit to empower us to spread the Word. And our mission, given us by the Spirit, can mean eternal life or death to everyone who observes our living or who hears our words from God. Pentecost has been called the birthday of the church. But it is not like every other birthday party. It is our call to be the witnesses of God's new age, that all persons whom he loves, and whom we are to love, may become participants in his everlasting kingdom.
