Pentecost
– May 19th and 20th, 2018 – Acts 2, John
14
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
The
last 4 or 5 weeks or so have all been leading up, preparing us for
this week. The time spent in John’s Gospel, hearing our Lord in
the Upper Room, promising the Apostles the Spirit, were all leading,
all driving to our Lesson from Acts 2 today – the day of Pentecost,
the birth of the Christian and Apostolic Church, the Church which you
and I are a part of, the Church which not even hell itself can
prevail against. And so, when we consider Pentecost, we see and
learn how our Lord shapes and grows His Church, even to this day –
so then let us ponder what it is that our Lord does on Pentecost, and
how that is done now in our midst.
First
things first – we see and learn that God has an impeccable sense of
timing. It has been 50 days since Jesus rose – 7 weeks. It’s
been 10 days since the Ascension – and what of the Apostles? They
had been left to hang on out in Jerusalem. Well, why would God just
have them hang out – why not just dive in and get to things right
away? Because God is patient and does things at the proper time.
God waits for Pentecost. Now, one of the things that we end up
saying that isn’t quite accurate is that we will refer to Acts 2 as
“that first Pentecost.” It’s not – it’s not the first
Pentecost. Pentecost was a Jewish festival – Shavout – the
festival of weeks, one of the major holidays – 50 days after the
Passover. And all good Jewish men would go to the temple and bring
the first fruits of the year, the barley harvest, in as an offering.
This is why we hear from Acts, “Now there
were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under
heaven.” It was a day of a major
festival, so you have people from all over the Roman Empire and even
beyond who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate this year’s Shavout
in Jerusalem at the temple.
So,
when the Holy Spirit comes upon the Apostles, and they preach in the
temple, who hears it? Not just the local folks – but folks from
all over the world, who are then going to go and return to their
homes. This is fantastic timing by God. And while the disciples
might have been sitting around bored wondering, “come on God, get
on with it already” – when God acts, it is the right and proper
time. This is something we need to remember as well. The Church
belongs to the Lord, and He establishes the harvest. He is the One
who grows His Church, and He acts with wisdom and love for His
Church. We are not in control – God is. This can be a very hard
truth for us to accept as Americans. As Americans we like to be in
control – we’ll just work hard and then we’ll be whatever we
want to be – we can be self-made men. There are no self-made
Churches – this congregation is not formed by our own wisdom, by
how suave and entertaining the pastor is, or any of that. No, the
Church grows by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word
of God, at work here in our midst, bringing us to faith, growing us
in the knowledge of God, and establishing in us ever more love and
devotion and trust in God Almighty and in Christ Jesus.
And
this leads us to the second, big lesson of Pentecost. We often think
of Pentecost as the Holy Spirit’s big day – look, here’s the
Holy Spirit, here is power and might and speaking in tongues. Catch
the Spirit – woo-hoo! Is that the point of this day… that we
become some type of holy cheerleaders – We’ve got spirit, yes we
do, we’ve got spirit how ‘bout you? Yeah! Go team Jesus!
Pentecost wasn't about excitement, or speaking in tongues (Paul has
to warn the Corinthians off of trying to do that all the time) or
even really about the Holy Spirit – and we miss this because our
lectionary, our system of readings cuts off the story right when it
starts to get good. It’s like we’re on a roller coaster and we
get to the top of the first hill and then… we’ll just stop here.
The good stuff is what comes next.
To sum
up what we heard, the Spirit falls on the apostles, and the folks all
hear them in their own language – over 15 languages are mentioned.
It's a miracle of hearing, people hearing preaching – and so Peter
stands up to preach. Peter explains from the Scriptures that this is
what Joel told us all would happen – listen now to how Peter
drives right on in in the next verses. This is Acts 2:22-24. “Men
of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you
by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through
Him in your midst, as you yourselves know – this Jesus, delivered
up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you
crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up,
loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be
held by it.” The point of Pentecost is
this – that Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection for our
salvation is proclaimed in the various tongues of the world.
You
see – the Holy Spirit has a very simple job. He points to Christ.
He proclaims Christ. He opens our eyes, opens our minds, so that we
understand the Word of God which proclaims Christ Jesus to be our
Savior from sin. John 14 – “But the
Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, He
will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I
have said to you.” Or John 7 – Jesus
says, “Whoever believes in Me, as the
Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living
water.’ Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed
in Him were to receive…” The Spirit
brings the Word to us, and then establishes and grows and protects
faith in Christ Jesus and His salvation. The Spirit focuses us upon
Christ. The Spirit is why when we hear God’s Word we are pointed
to Christ, why and how we understand all this Church stuff really
being about Christ and His love for us. The Spirit is why Christ
Jesus and Him Crucified has remained the heart and center of all that
we are and hear in the Church. The Holy Spirit keeps us in Christ
Jesus so that we believe and have life in His Name.
The
special tie for you in this is your Baptism. When Peter finishes his
sermon, the people say, “Now what?” And Peter’s response, Acts
2:38-39, is as follows: “Repent and be
baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all
who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.”
Baptism gives the forgiveness of sin, and it gives the Holy Spirit.
When you were baptized in Christ’s Name, in the Name of the Triune
God, your sin was forgiven. More than just that – the Holy Spirit
entered in to you, took you up as His own dwelling place. Again, we
cannot emphasize enough that Baptism is God’s Work, it is something
that God does upon you, that God gives to you. Peter’s not telling
these people to jump through hoops for God. Be baptized… that’s
passive, that’s receptive. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Again – passive, receptive. Baptism isn’t what we do for God,
it’s a gift wherein God works upon us. Even… our children, for
this promise is for you and for your children. All about what God
does – because everything in the Church is ultimately about what
God does – the God who loves you, becomes man for you, goes to the
Cross and suffers and dies for you.
There
is another spirit at work in this age, the spirit of antichrist, the
spirit of Satan. And how do you recognize Satan at work? Not by
horns and a pitchfork, but by this. False and lying spirits will by
hook or by crook try to distract you from Christ Jesus. This is what
John says in his first Epistle, chapter 4 – Beloved,
do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they
are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that
does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the
antichrist, which you have heard was coming and now is in the world
already.” How do you know? What do
they say about Jesus? Do they confess that Jesus has come, that He
is true man and true God, that He is the Christ, the Messiah, the
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world – is their focus
upon Christ and Him crucified? If not, don’t listen to them. Is
their focus upon what Christ Jesus has done for you… or what you
need to do for God (which generally involves you obeying them and
giving them stuff)? If it’s the latter, don’t listen. Do they
point out how Christ has done everything required for your salvation
and gives this gift freely – or do they attach strings to it, say
that you yourself must add a bit of this, a bit of that? If it’s
the latter, don’t listen. If they glorify and extol you rather
than Christ, if they point to how wonderful you are, do not listen to
them. We are simply this – sinners who have been redeemed and
forgiven by a gracious and loving God, even Christ the Crucified who
has risen and given us His own life by the power of His Word and
Spirit.
And
this is the focus of the Christian Church – it has been since those
3000 were baptized and returned to their homes and proclaimed Christ
and Him Crucified. This is what shapes us today, as we, the Baptized
in Christ’s Name, are gathered together by the Holy Spirit around
the Word of God and Christ Jesus' own Supper. May our eyes ever more
be upon Christ Jesus, even to all eternity. In the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
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