Pentecost Sermon

Today is the Feast of Pentecost, a day to remember the story of God’s redeeming and a day to participate in the story of God’s redeeming: We gather in prayer. And we proclaim the good news.

The good news of our faith is the good news about God’s character: God created us. God loves us. And God is redeeming us from all our brokenness and sorrow.

The good news of our faith is the good news about how to be human – to be like Jesus in his obedience to God and his way of mercy and compassion towards all our neighbors.

The good news of our faith is that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

And, the good news of our faith is that Jesus has been raised to the right hand of God, where he himself received the Holy Spirit, and has now poured it out upon us.

This is the Feast of Pentecost, which Jesus had anticipated earlier in his ministry:

“‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Jesus said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:37-39).

But now he is glorified.

He was crucified, resurrected, and ascended to heaven. And, as Peter proclaimed at that first Pentecost, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses….And being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear….Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:32-33, 36).

The celebration today is our profound hope that God’s Holy Spirit is with us in a new way – that the arc of God’s redeeming has indeed moved forward.

For this is how it is in this world – it is a forever advancing story: The plates that make up the crust of the earth are forever moving and changing the landscape. Creatures themselves are forever evolving and adapting to the condition of their world. Our lives begin as just a couple of cells, that divide and divide until we become these human creatures, with bodies and souls, that grow and learn and live and die. All of creation is an advancing, “becoming” story.

And that story now includes this moment, this pouring out of the Spirit, to be “God with us” in a new and penetrating way, like the spring rains that saturate the earth. Who we are as a people now includes this as part of our story, part of our reality, part of who we are.

We are the beloved of God, forgiven – and given – God’s Spirit.

So over the years, the church has developed its way of remembering and retelling this story. After all, we humans need traditions and festivals – with pageantry and symbols – to satisfy our human craving that we belong to a story and a reality that is bigger than ourselves. And so we wear red, and wave streamers, and we tell the story in fresh and dramatic ways.

And… we want more than a story. We want more than a faith that must only rely on the experience of others long ago. If our faith tells us the Spirit is here with us, wouldn’t it be nice, if at least once or twice in our lives, it was our experience too?

I was tempted this week not to write a Pentecost sermon at all. “Just show up Sunday morning, Eric, and be prepared for the Holy Spirit to take over.”

The temptation was (if I am honest) a mingling of both laziness and genuine spiritual desire:

• I’d love to have the week off from sermon writing

and

• I would love to experience something of that Pentecost moment. Here.

I would love – for me, for the parish, for Gig Harbor, for the world – to experience afresh the power and the tangible, overwhelming evidence that God is real, that the gospel we proclaim is real.

And there is no shame for us in desiring such an experience. After all, it was – in Jesus’ ministry – his teaching joined with his miracles that made his reputation spread far and wide. People were being healed of their diseases and being set free from demonic possession. Now, surely (!) the healings and the deliverance were valuable in their own rights. But their excitement was bigger than that. They were excited about the one doing the healing: God must be here, now, in him, with us. This is exciting stuff.

We humans have, built within us, an insatiable desire to know and believe that God is real – that there is a larger, truer reality to our existence beyond our basic, biological instincts. We need something that assures us these intrinsic yearnings for holiness – for otherness, for God-ness – aren’t just some cosmic joke. It is human to want this – to need this – to be real.

And, beginning at Pentecost, it was the miraculous signs that launched the church into its identity, into its ministry, and into the far reaches of the Roman empire.

And, fascinatingly, the miracle that launched it all was unlike any in Jesus’ ministry and – so far as I know – unlike anything that’s happened in the history of the church ever since.

Suddenly, and without logical explanation, the apostles were able to proclaim the gospel in all the different languages of the people who were gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Pentecost. The bulk of those who were there, and listening, were Jewish. They were the diaspora – the Jewish community that lived throughout the Roman empire. But also listed, are the “proselytes” – gentiles who were attracted to Judaism and participated in the Jewish way of life and worship.

Practically speaking, there was a certain cleverness on God’s part (you might say) – a kind of efficiency in it all. The pilgrims got the good news, then went back to all the different cities from which they’d come, and brought the story with them. These nameless people became the first missionaries.

But there’s more than efficiency at stake here. This was a turning point – a red letter day (you might say). It was a miracle like none other. And at its heart lies the miracle of understanding and conviction. They hear and they understand God’s deeds of power: that the same Jesus – whose life and ministry they had been aware of, and in whose crucifixion they had participated – had been raised to life, and had ascended to the right hand of God, and is now both Lord and Christ.

And with their understanding they ask, “What should we to do?” And Peter replies, “Repent and be baptized, everyone 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.”

Most of us here have already been baptized. And there’s no need to repeat it. Once is enough. We trust that, if God is the one forgiving us and grafting us in to be the Body of Christ, then God’s work will stick.

But the gift of repentance remains ours. Repentance is a lifelong pattern of faith. Whenever we become convicted of our sins – of our faithlessness, of our heresies or bad theologies, of our fears, of our bad behavior, of our lack of love – we name it for what it is, trusting in God’s unending mercy, and then we let it go. It is forgiven. And we begin afresh, walking in the way of Christ.

But it well may be that there are some here this morning who have not been baptized and for whom, at this moment, it is quite clear that you would like to be. So, after the choir has sung the anthem, I will simply ask if anyone wants to be baptized. And if the answer is yes, just join me at the back by the baptismal font. And we’ll let the Spirit take it from there.

Today is a day to remember what God has done in advancing the story of human redeeming.

Today is a day to pray and to desire a fresh outpouring of the Spirit, in us and in this world.

Today is a day to repent of whatever ways we have been walking contrary to the way of Christ.

Today is a day to hope: that this world and its story belong to God, and that the story is not yet over – for you or for any of us.

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. For out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”