Acts 2:1-21 The Coming of the Holy Spirit The Day of Pentecost May 27, 2012 THE SCRIPTURE TEXT: 1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?" 13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine." 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 " 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' (NIV) THE SERMON: 1 P a g e
It looked a lot like every other day. What s special about this day? No matter how often I teach Pentecost, it just doesn t quite stick in the student s minds. What happened on Pentecost, I ask? I may give a hint like, it s one of the three great festivals in the Christian Church Year? Pentecost is the celebration of one of the three members of the Triune God? And yet, I usually get mostly blank faces. Eventually one of the students remembers after I ve asked the question enough times in class. So, what s the big deal about Pentecost? It s easy to remember what happened on Christmas. From little on we ve recalled the events of that glorious day, when the angels sang in the skies and the shepherds visited the manger where the Son of God, our Savior became flesh. For weeks we practiced and rehearsed our songs and recitations for Christmas Eve. There are midweek Advent worship services, Christmas caroling, gifts and parties that all help us to celebrate Jesus birthday. Maybe we need a children s Pentecost Service, gifts, and food to help us celebrate this day. Again, we all know what calls for celebration on Easter Jesus rose from the dead. That doesn t happen every day! In fact, that doesn t happen period except it did. Jesus was the first to rise back to life from the dead, never to die again, to live eternally. We celebrate that occasion with song, with brightly colored eggs and decorations, with a feast of food. We might say Easter is a also a birthday celebration a birthday celebration of the Resurrection from the dead a day worthy of great singing and shouts of alleluia. So, what s the big deal about Pentecost? Well, it s a Birthday celebration also. Some have suggested that Pentecost should be celebrated with balloons and streamers. Some suggest that all the guests at this birthday party should dress in the color red. In fact, in the middle ages (a time period that we might picture in our heads as being drab and dark) some Churches actually had what they called a Holy Spirit hole in the ceiling of the church were they would drop doves into the church and have them flying around during the worship service. In Rome, they have a pretty cool tradition for Pentecost. At one of the basilica churches, which is a domed shaped church, at the very top of that tall dome is a circular opening where they dump red rose petals into the congregation, a veritable snowstorm of red rose petals. And what s cool is that the firemen of the city are the ones who dump the flame-colored petals through that opening 2 P a g e
on high. The pictures in the bulletin show what those rose petals look like as they come fluttering down throughout the gathered assembly of worshipers. You can see the symbolism of the flowers when you think about what happened on Pentecost Sunday. Jesus had told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for him to send them a gift. So, for ten days the disciples remained in Jerusalem waiting for that gift from Jesus. Remember, it was ten days ago, a week ago Thursday, that Jesus ascended up to heaven, to the right hand of the Father, to rule over all things. Those disciples had seen Jesus rising up into the sky after they had heard him give them a rather large assignment as the Apostles of his New Testament Church. Recall how Jesus had given them a worldwide mission to take the message of what they had seen and heard about Jesus as the Savior of the World, as the sacrifice and payment for all the world s sins, who had risen from the dead and proved that all our sins were paid for with death. That was a huge task that Jesus had given them. They really did need all the help that Jesus could give them to carry out this overwhelming work. Think about that Mission of the Church. Think about the challenges that stood against the followers of Jesus in seeking to carry out the Mission of the Church. There were the enemies of the good news about Jesus as the crucified and risen Savior of this world. The disciples had already witnessed that challenge first-hand. They had seen the hatred of the leaders of their very own people against Jesus and anyone who spoke the name of Jesus. And that wouldn t and doesn t get any easier. For all the challenges in the first century that the Apostle Paul faced as he tried to establish Christian congregations in his part of the world, today we still hear the sad news of Islamic extremists blowing up Christian Churches in places like Nigeria. But the challenges to Christ and his Church aren t just out there in some place half-way across the world. The unbelievers of this world are naturally born enemies of God and hate the light of the Word of God. The unbelieving thinks: how dare we call that a sin. How dare we question the choice of a person to abort a baby to murder a living human being. How dare we question a person s living arrangements outside of the divinely instituted state of marriage, or state that marriage should only be between one and one woman for as long as they both shall live. How dare we live according to the Bible and challenge sinful choices and lifestyles the unbelieving challenges us. But the challenges to Christ and his Church aren t just out there in the lives of our neighbors, either. How often doesn t the sinful nature within each of us 3 P a g e
question Christ and his rule in our hearts and lives? How often doesn t our own sinful nature argue that selfishness, greed, drunkenness, sexually lewd songs, TV shows, movies and images aren t really all that bad? How often don t we want to reject something God has said in his Word because we don t agree with it? Do we reject God s Word because we just don t see it that way, when it doesn t make sense to us? The fact of the matter is that though we may not like it, if God teaches it in his Word he must have a good reason for commanding it, even when we can t see what difference it might make. For instance, someone once illustrated the point this way: In Africa, ministers do not have to struggle with a society that tolerates living together before marriage, there they believe in marriage. The problem those African ministers have to face is often that of polygamy, marrying more than one woman, which our country knows is wrong. Just because a whole culture will tolerate a sin, that doesn t make it alright in God s eyes. Which leads to the bigger issue: how does the Church of Christ change hearts and the way someone thinks about something? How does the Church lead people to see their sinfulness and their need for a Savior from sin? How does the Church lead people to the forgiveness that only comes through Christ Jesus? It s an enormous task. It s an impossible task. Remember our first lesson this morning? God told Ezekiel to go and look out over a valley of dead, dry bones. And God explained that these dead, dry bones were the nation of Israel. Similarly, God would say the same thing today about all the unbelievers out there in the world. This is the true miracle of Pentecost, of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Without, Pentecost, without the gift of the Holy Spirit, Christmas and Easter are meaningless, because nobody would benefit from what Jesus has done, because nobody would believe in the gift of the Father, and the saving work of Jesus on the cross, or of his resurrection from the dead. For Colossians 2:13 states, You were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature but God made you alive with Christ. Nobody would have believed forgiveness was possible through the work of Jesus. Nobody would have understood it. St. Paul explained to the Corinthians, The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). Again, we can refer to the picture of our first lesson from Ezekiel. All of those dead dry bones click-clacked back together, yet they still did not live. In other words, there are still a lot of spiritual zombies walking around in the world 4 P a g e
today. They ve got flesh and blood, they live and move, yet they don t have real life, spiritual life, life with God. Here s what God told Ezekiel to do, Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet a vast army. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord (Ezekiel 37:9,10,14). This is what happened at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came down in a great sound of wind, blowing where and when he might. And he came with fire, and created faith and life. Jesus had promised his disciples this gift. He had said to them, 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever 17 the Spirit of truth (John 14:16,17). It is the Word of Truth that creates faith, through which the Holy Spirit works to bring us to faith, to make us holy ( sanctify them by the truth John 17:17), to save us. But still, the message must be spoken if the Holy Spirit is going to work faith in a person heart. This too is the miracle of Pentecost. Jesus promised his disciples, I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). There those timid, fearful disciples were, standing there boldly speaking the wonders of God, fluently speaking in languages they had never learned before. For the Holy Spirit uses human language and works a miracle. A person hears the wonders of God, the message of salvation through Jesus in his own language, he understands the words, and then the Holy Spirit creates faith in the truths those Words of God communicated in human language. Thus dead bones come to faith. In fact, 3,000 unbelievers came to spiritual life that day, through baptism and the hearing of the Word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit working. Thus those people came to hear the law which convicted them as sinners and showed them their need for a Savior. Then they heard the glorious gospel message that God had sent a Savior to pay for their sins and free them from punishment, instead washing them clean, free of all unrighteousness. The Holy Spirit worked through the message of God s Word spoken by human messengers. The people heard the good news and a miracle took place they believed. They believed this truth in their hearts and confessed it with their lips and lives. Thus the last verse of our text came true, 5 P a g e
21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' And thus the New Testament Church was born. Happy birthday, Christian Church. Today, we celebrate Pentecost. We celebrate the miracle of faith worked in our hearts by the working of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate our rebirth, our being born again, our Christian birthdays through baptism and the life-giving Word of God. Maybe we should all get dressed up in red for this party. Maybe we should let doves fly around and red petals fall to remind us of the miracle of the Holy Spirit working life among us. Maybe we should sing Happy Birthday to the Church today. And maybe we should follow up singing Happy Birthday with and many more. For that s also our part in celebrating and living in the joy of the first day of Pentecost. A miracle had taken place in the Church. The life-giving Word of God was being spread in many different languages so that Jesus mission to the Church might be carried out take it to all the world. And Jesus does that through us. It s not coincidental that just as Ezekiel was told to prophesy to the dead lifeless bodies and when he did speak God s Word to them they came to life, that Peter also tells us as members of the New Testament Church that all of us, men and women, young and old, are to prophesy, to speak the Word of God to the unbelievers, the dead, spiritually lifeless people around us. It isn t our power that is going to change people s hearts, it is the power of God, spoken through our mouths, that God uses to change hearts. You see, God gives all of us the powerful word of God to share in our individual lives, a power that really can give life, the Word of God, through which the Holy Spirit works. Don t be scared of that word prophesy. All that means is that you tell others God s Word. When you prophesy, you don t change it, you don t worry about if it s going to work, that s God s work to do. You just pass it along. Invite someone to the birthday party. Happy Birthday Church. Here s what we ve got at our party. We ve got Jesus. We ve got life. We ve got joy. We ve got the bread of life and we re going to eat it too. And maybe we ll even wear red to show how fired up we are. What s the Big Deal about Pentecost? Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people, and kindle in them the fire of your love. Amen. 6 P a g e