Acts 2:1-2
And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were bewildered, because they were each one hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and marveled, saying, "Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God." And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others were mocking and saying, "They are full of sweet wine."
But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: "Men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: 'AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,' God says, 'THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT UPON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; EVEN UPON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT and they shall prophesy. AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE, AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BENEATH, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE. THE SUN SHALL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS, AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME. AND IT SHALL BE, THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.'
Pentecost
My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
Today is the church festival we call "Pentecost". We call the day "Pentecost" because the events we commemorate occurred on Pentecost. I know that sounds strange, but it is the first thing that our text this morning tells us. Luke wrote, "When the day of Pentecost had come, . . .". He didn't write that because we have come to call the festival "Pentecost", but because the Jews had a celebration they called Pentecost. Actually it was called "Shavuot", known as the Festival of Weeks, but the Greek name for the day, which counted how many days it came after the Passover, was "Pentecost", or "Fifty". The Jewish Pentecost was a harvest Festival - the festival of the first fruits. It was called Pentecost because it was precisely fifty days after Passover - 49 days, or seven weeks, after the second day of Passover.
Christians just never changed the name. They didn't change it because it still worked. It came the same fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb, which occurred in connection with the Jewish Passover. Since the time of the destruction of the Temple and the end of the sacrificial system of ancient Israel, the Jews have re-targeted the day to celebrate the giving of the Torah to Moses. For Christians, it is the birthday of the Church, the day that God poured out His Holy Spirit visibly upon the disciples and drew to Himself over three thousand new believers in one day. Our text - the part that I read this morning - doesn't give us that information, but it follows later in the same chapter of Acts. Our theme this morning is simply, "Pentecost".
It struck me as interesting that the day that God began the church and started the harvest of souls called the Church was a Festival of Harvest - of First Fruits for ancient Israel - in the religion of the Apostles and those first Christians. In Matthew 9 and in Luke 10, Jesus spoke of the work of the Church, or of the Gospel, as a harvest, saying, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." On Pentecost, God gathered in the first fruits of that harvest, in a manner of speaking. Those who came to believe on that day were among the first fruits of the Gospel - and among the very first members of what we now call the Christian Church.
Pentecost is the day that the Holy Spirit was poured out visibly on the Church. It was not the first that the Holy Spirit had been given. One only needs to read the Scriptures of both the Old and the New Testaments to realize that. Jesus, Himself, spoke of the Spirit speaking through the prophets and through David. For example, Jesus, in Matthew 22, said, "Then how does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying, 'THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT THINE ENEMIES BENEATH THY FEET"? If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his son?", and in John 14, even while promising to send the Spirit, Jesus said that the Spirit was already in them!
The pouring out of the Spirit visibly was a visible and tangible reminder that the Church is the work of God, not of man. We inhabit the Church, but it is built by the work of God, and we inhabit it by His gift and work, not our own. Jesus wanted the Disciples - now called Apostles - to know that they were not going to have to go it alone. He was with them with His Spirit at every step. And He is with us. That is why we celebrate Pentecost. We do not go it alone either. The church leaders that believe it is 'all up to us' and 'in our hands' are ignoring, or doubting, the message of Pentecost. The Church today is not our doing, or our building, or from our efforts. It is a gift, given to us by our Lord through the working of His Holy Spirit through the means of Grace.
Pentecost is the day that the Lord jump-started the Church. It is a great celebration because it heralds the faithfulness of God. The world had waited at least four thousand years for this particular day. It also reveals for us the way the Lord seems to work. He works in clusters of observable activities, separated by periods of unnoticed and unremarkable working. There was creation, and then hundred of years. Then came Noah and the flood. Then it was quiet for hundreds of years. Then God spoke to Abraham, and it got quiet for hundreds of years. Then Moses and the Exodus - which involved a long time of quiet for most of those on the Exodus. The period of the Judges was a period of nothing much seeming to be happening, and then, bammo!, God worked through the judge of that time. Then came the Kings, Saul and David, and Solomon - and it was time of relative quiet. Sure there were prophets around, but not much happening that wasn't pretty much day-to-day. Then came the destruction of Jerusalem - and seventy years of quiet. Then they came back home to rebuild, except God was pretty quiet then, and it seemed like the people were on their own to rebuild for the most part.
Are you seeing the pattern? The times when everyone could see God was at work were few and far between. When God did make Himself known, it was not usually fun or exciting, in the good way we tend to like. It was fast, and furious, and challenging, and painful. Yeah, God was at work, but the fur was really flying! Between those times it was quiet. Just the preachers making noise. The church grew, and God was at work, but it was so that you had to trust that He was there and look for His work to find it. Otherwise, it was just like now, sort of every-day ordinary seeming. Even when Jesus was on earth, it was pretty calm most of the time - except for at His birth and at His death.
So, on Pentecost, God kicked up a ruckus. It was good and everyone was aware that it was God at work, but then it led to the persecutions of the time just after the Apostles - actually starting up in time to kill most of the Apostles. Then the church just went forward and things have been pretty quiet - a little ruckus with Luther and His gang, but other than that, pretty ordinary. Which is how God works. He works in pretty ordinary circumstances and pretty ordinary ways - through Word and Sacrament, by the daily work of His Church. And He looks to His people to be believing - and faithful. Or not. He blesses faithful one way, and not faithful another.
Even when God is doing something special, we don't expect the world to understand or even treat it as something special - or at least we shouldn't. There were those who heard the sound of the mighty rushing wind that wasn't there, and saw the tongues of flame, and heard the disciples speaking in all of those different languages, and still decided that it was just a bunch of drunks. They still felt that they had to ridicule what was going on. The mighty rushing wind was actually there. It was the spirit - Greek uses the same word for wind and for breath and for spirit. He was moving in a powerful way, and yet those who decided to ignore it found alternative explanations for what they were witnessing, even though the explanations hardly fit the situation, even from an unbelieving and rational point of view.
So, today - Pentecost - we sit in our worship space, rented quarters, and the few of us gather together to celebrate this work of God in making His church start up in a big way. We might be tempted to wonder why God isn't doing big and noisy things among us today. Looking at the history, I am glad that He is not. Things tended to get difficult and messy very quickly when He did. But I also take note that God works in those quiet times. He builds His church. He gathers His people. He cleanses us from our sins and feeds us with this amazing food of the body and blood of our Lord, though hidden beneath the forms of bread and wine. He still pours our His Spirit, both in the preaching of the Word and in the waters of baptism. And I notice that while the noise and the flame and the wonderful gift of tongues drew the crowd, it was the Spirit at work through the simple Word preached that did the work and called those thousands to faith that day - and the millions since.
Maybe God is working up to another big noise in our world. It sure seems that we could use it. Perhaps the next big noise is the final return of our Lord. We could use that, too. But in the meanwhile, Pentecost reminds us of how God works, and tells us that we are part of something old and precious, and worked entirely by God. From the cross, to the empty tomb, to the place where the Spirit made all that racket and drew all those people to Himself, it is all God at work on our behalf. Your sins are forgiven, and you have been gathered by Him into the holy fellowship of His bride, the Church. It is the fulfilment of all those ancient promises, spoken through the prophets so long ago.
It is called "Pentecost". And the cool part is, that it is still true, just as the Prophet Joel said, as quoted by Peter on that first Christian Pentecost, AND IT SHALL BE, THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE SAVED.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
(Let the people say Amen)
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