Sermon “Jesus, the Person of Pentecost”
Our Lord, grant us eyes to see you, ears to hear, a heart to believe and follow, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, the day of Pentecost, is probably one of the most important holidays of the Christian Church. On this day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit in power upon the earliest Christian believers. We see the birth of Christianity in some ways. We see the reality of God’s promises. Yet, like most other Christian holidays, this one easily becomes obscured by the busy affairs of our civic and family lives.
Where did the celebration of Pentecost come from? The name means “fifty.” Seems like an odd thing to celebrate. But the holiday was named in Greek after its position on the calendar, fifty days after Passover. In the Old Testament we see this as the feast of the firstfruits. It’s the time the first of your produce becomes available. I looked at my little garden patch and saw, sure enough, there are some carrots there ready and waiting for me. Some years there are foods ready to be picked earlier, sometimes later, and this is a holiday that moves around depending on the date of Passover. But it’s at the start of the time when we can count on bringing in fresh fruits and vegetables. So it was a time for bringing your first fruits, the start of your harvest, the sign that God would provide for you, as an offering to be eaten before the Lord and to be shared with the priests and Levites.
Over the years, this first sign of God’s provision has become very important in the lives of his people. We like to track beginnings and celebrate them. After all, we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions on an annual basis. So it’s only natural that we would celebrate God’s gift of sustenance for another year.
But, like all the Old Testament holidays, this one foreshadows something more important. When God the Son asked God the Father to send God the Spirit, it was appropriate for the outpouring to come at Pentecost. This is the beginning of God’s provision for his Church as we await the end of the world. After all, we know that all prophecy points to Christ crucified for sinners. Think about the passage we read just a few weeks ago when Jesus appeared to his disciples on the road to Emmaus. Beginning with Moses he told them all about himself. So the feast of Pentecost points to Jesus, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in today’s reading points to Jesus, the whole life of the Church points to Jesus.
As we read last week, the Spirit will make us witnesses to the whole world. But we have to ask ourselves, to what are we witnesses? Again, we look to our passage from Acts. What did the listeners hear? They heard the disciples proclaiming God’s wonders in their own languages. What did the early Christians tell about? What was their message that shook their world and drew people to repentance and forgiveness? They proclaimed a clear message of God and his glory.
There’s our pattern. In the power of the Holy Spirit we proclaim God’s greatness. He then shows his greatness in calling sinners like you and like me to repentance and pouring out his forgiveness on them. So let’s remember some of those wonders of God for a moment.
Through Jesus, the living Word of God, the heavens and the earth and all that is in them were created. Without him nothing was created that was created. Through him all things came into being, and they all hold together in him, the architect and builder of all.
When man fell into sin, God the Father delivered the promise that from the seed of the woman a savior would be raised up who would crush the head of Satan. This very savior, Jesus Christ, born in the fullness of time, came to destroy the works of Satan, to destroy death itself. He himself is the firstfruits of the resurrection, showing that death, hell and the grave are defeated. He has done the impossible by taking the sin of the world upon himself and conquering sin, giving righteousness and life to all who believe he has taken their sin.
When God’s people were in bondage in Egypt, suffering the fruit of their sin, our Lord and Savior showed himself to be their deliverer. He gave them the sign of the Paschal lamb and later showed that Jesus himself is the true lamb of God. While the people of Israel could do nothing to save themselves God raised up a deliverer, bringing him out of the death sentence of the Pharaoh, showing signs and wonders to remove the children of Israel, all who believed on God, from the land of bondage.
As God was delivering his people from bondage in the land of sin he caused them to pass unharmed through the watery grave of the Red Sea. In like manner we pass through the grave of baptism, in which we are buried with Christ and raised up in newness of life. God delivers us from death into life, washing us, imputing his righteousness to us.
Throughout history, when God’s people find themselves in suffering and bondage because of their sin and unbelief, our Lord has always raised up a deliverer to rescue them from their slavery. This is what he did time and again during the period of the Judges. This is what he did through the years of the kingdom. This is what he did in the time of the exile, and in these last days God has raised up Jesus Christ, the deliverer who has crushed the head of Satan, who has been wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, who bore our sorrows, and who heals us by his stripes. In the fullness of time God brought forth his Son, born of a virgin, called Emmanuel, God with us. Very God of very God, he has come to deliver the love of God, in that all who believe on him should not perish but should have everlasting life. God has raised up his Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has promised never to leave us or forsake us. He has given his Holy Spirit as a surety of his salvation. And the work of the Holy Spirit is to proclaim the wonderful works of God, to draw people to himself, to call us, to enlighten us, and to sustain us until that final day.
Truly God has poured out His Holy Spirit upon his people. But how do we treat this gift our Lord has given us? Do we engage ourselves in proclaiming our own glories rather than the glories of God? Do we make ourselves busy about everything but the proclamation of God’s mercy? Are we well schooled in baseball statistics but know nothing of God’s records? Do we spend our time and energy encouraging our neighbors to be good people or even inviting them to come to church with us when we realize that our neighbors are no more able to be good people and conquer their own sin than we are able to conquer our own sin? Do we encourage a moralism rather than a reliance on the forgiveness of God in Christ? May the Lord rebuke that attitude in us and make us look to him in reliance on his forgiving love. We start our service with confession and absolution, confessing to God that what we do and what we do not do all constitutes sin. Are we then going to seek moral perfection and completeness in our own deeds? May it never be! That isn’t what Christ died for. That isn’t what God sent the Holy Spirit to do. Let us rather look to the wonderful works of God, not the filthy rags of our own righteousness. Let God be God and every man a liar, that God may be justified in all that he does. Let us then look not to ourselves, but to Jesus Christ who lived a perfect life on our behalf, died a perfect death on our behalf, rose as the firstfruits of the resurrection of the dead, and on this day of Pentecost poured out the Holy Spirit on his people to proclaim his mercy.
Let us pray.
Come, Holy Spirit, sent from above, direct our hearts and minds to the glory and praise of God the Father and Jesus Christ, God the Son. Take our minds off our broken selves, turning us instead to look to the wonders of God, the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment