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Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God our Father, and from His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Spirit, who He poured out upon this day, the Holy Church, throughout all eternity. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. A joyful Pentecost to you all. This is the 50th day after Easter, hence Pentecost, Pente meaning five. The 50th day after our Lord’s resurrection and of any day of the week that the Holy Spirit could have been poured out upon the church, not on Friday, not on Wednesday, not on Saturday, God chose Sunday to be the day that His Holy Spirit was poured out on the church, validating the very day of our Lord’s resurrection. Amen.
On this day did our Lord, 50 days after his resurrection, pour out upon his church for all eternity the Holy Spirit of our God. Now the Spirit’s work is to bear witness about Jesus to you, each of you individually, and through you individually to other people. That is the Spirit’s job. He who is God, the Holy Spirit, comes and brings himself to us in an amazing way on this day.
But in order to kind of get the context of when Jesus said these specific words in the Gospel reading that you heard from the center of the church, let me remind you of when it occurred. These words were spoken to his apostles in the upper room after he had just celebrated the Lord’s Supper, and just hours, just hours, mind you, before all of these apostles run away from Jesus and leave him in the garden. And just in the interesting way, three days later, when he rises from the dead and reveals himself to these same apostles, they’re very fearful, aren’t they? That’s the context when Jesus spoke these words.
But there’s one more thing that I want to add to them. Because the immediate ten or so verses prior to these words in the Gospel reading are vitally important. Listen to them. For Jesus says some things to you, to them, that is very, very remarkable.
Jesus said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I spoke to you? A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates the Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen…”
Wow. Wow. You know, if Jesus had a lick of sense, I’m speaking facetiously, if Jesus had a lick of sense, why did he choose of all times that moment in history to send out these men to proclaim him? Because of all times, the world at that time in that region hated Jesus and hated those who followed him. The Apostle Paul was, before he became Paul, when he was Saul, he was there to stone them. And you know what happened to these crazy men.
When Jesus revealed this to them, they didn’t get it, did they? When he was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane and they scattered, they didn’t get it, did they? So were they believers at that time? Could you count them among the invisible church, those who are believers in Christ, at that time when they didn’t get it and when they ran away from Jesus? Or were they only believers in Christ in our epistle reading, when they have the ability to speak in other known languages and proclaim Jesus and 3,000 are baptized? Is that when they’re a believer? Or are they believers at both times? That’s the point.
You see, you and I have a romantic idea of ourselves and of the church. We think the church has all of her stuff together when it looks like the church is boldly going forward. Many people are coming in through the doors and all kinds of things are happening. Really? That’s the only time when the church has the Spirit? Because the church had the Spirit at this point and people died regularly, martyred because of the faith. Doesn’t look too pleasing or glory-filled, does it? In fact, it would be almost 300 years of martyrdom and death and hiding. And always the odd and marginalized sect of society was the church. Before the Roman Empire embraced the church, and then it looked like the church grew beyond compare. Right?
Was the church as faithful to their Lord during that oppressive time as they were during the Roman Empire? What about those huge churches in Europe that were once filled with people? Was the church more of a believing church at that time than now in Europe where those sit empty like a museum? And it could even be said of St. Paul. There was once a time when each of those classrooms over there in Sunday school were filled. Each of those classrooms on Monday through Friday were filled. Each of these pews were filled. Was St. Paul more of a faithful church at that time than it is now?
And what about your life? Because in your life, you can look at those places where you have seen your life looking as fearful and anxious as these apostles who didn’t get it in the garden, they didn’t get it in the upper room, and they didn’t really get it until… Pentecost. And what did they get for it when they finally got it? Death.
See, this is so interesting. We have this romantic view that only when we see something manifest itself in a way that we perceive as positive do we really believe the Spirit’s at work at that moment. When we see something that doesn’t look to be growing and blossoming, we say the Spirit isn’t at work at that time. That’s because… we’re the problem. We’re the problem. Our mind judges things according to reason and logic. Our emotions and our heart, Lord have mercy, it judges things on all kinds of wacky things. You know that and I know that. For that has gotten us into trouble more often than we wish to admit.
Our passion within our hearts and bosom… I can only tell you how many times I have had to repent for such passion within myself. No different than you. No different than these men. God promised that they would not be left alone. That was God’s promise. They were not left alone when the church was martyred and was small, and they were not left alone when the church was blossoming and growing. Your and my church, the one holy Christian and apostolic church, is not more spirit-led because we see something happening that supposedly could prove it, and it’s not less led when we see things that deny such growth.
That’s our problem, not God’s. If we just look at history, the church has a flow and ebb. It sometimes is the thing and sometimes it’s not the thing. The Spirit always is among us. Now the problem though is that there has always been within the church a redefinition of the Spirit’s work. You see, some people like you and me, we want to judge things by what we feel or think and not by what God has proclaimed and revealed.
So there was also the same kind of concept that, well, I feel the Spirit, therefore I have the Spirit. But what if the feeling goes? Do you still have the Spirit? Then there are some who say the Spirit will only work if a certain man is the one who is proclaiming it. And none of us have that gift except that one man. And that’s a misuse of God’s revelation as well.
What God has said, if you continue reading in the second chapter of Acts… We just have the first 21 verses. If you keep reading, you will hear about when Peter baptized the people and they received the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit. And then a little bit later in that same book, it is said this, the apostles devoted themselves to, or the church devoted themselves to, the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, the prayers, and fellowship. It did not say any other thing. It did not say any other thing. Those are God’s means.
The Holy Spirit is God, and he can do anything he wants to, but you heard the text. Jesus bound him. He only proclaims what has been given to him to proclaim, and he will only proclaim what is mine, and I will give you what you need. He does not talk about a spirit that works hither and yon, and you never can be sure whether it’s from God or from Satan. He does not talk about a spirit bound to only one way, meaning only through one man, and that not even elected by the congregation but by a bishop.
God has chosen to bind himself to the word proclaimed, the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, fellowship and prayer, what goes on on a normal Sunday morning. And isn’t it interesting that the very thing that God has bound her church to, we’re tempted to be ashamed of sometimes. We’re tempted to think that we need to do something different. We’re tempted to think that the Spirit can’t work through these means. We’ve got to change it so that it works in a way that we can see.
If there ever was a time for that temptation, those 11 apostles had it. When they entered into a church that was persecuted and killed, what do you say to your son or daughter? Why are they taking grandpa away and they’re going to kill him? Why did they cut off his head? Well, because of Jesus. Well, I don’t want anything to do with Jesus. Well, then we better repackage this whole concept so that we can make it more palatable.
It’s not what those apostles did. They remained faithful to truth. And it was the truth that sustained them. Notice what happened to these men. They were frightened and scared in the upper room, remember? And after they were bound to those means by God and they were proclaimed to them and given the Spirit, they were bold, they were joyful, they were confident, and they didn’t have their Lord with them. They had God’s Word with them, which is the Lord in His Word revealed by the Spirit.
This is the gift that God has given to His church. Amen. This is the gift that continues to be what binds the church together. And we can be sure of it in the midst of so much uncertainty in this world. Because you and I are tempted to judge by what we see and by what we think and by what we feel. And that’s exactly where Satan wants us. And the Spirit says, judge by what I have told you and revealed to you and you can always come back to it. You can always check it. You can always validate it. It will always be true.
These are God’s great promises that brings confidence, not uncertainty; that brings joy, not fear; that brings boldness. In the name of Jesus, who gave us his Holy Spirit, amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting, amen.