Sermon “Jesus, Blow the Wind of the Spirit on Us”
Lord of all life, you have given your life for us. Fill us with your Spirit that we may live your life and bring your Word to all around us, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
This is one of the great holy days of the Church. Not Memorial Day, that's a civic holiday, and it isn't until tomorrow. I hope we keep that distinction clear. Tomorrow is the day we specifically remember those who have given their lives for us in military service, and it is important. Celebrate the freedom you have due to the sacrifices of others. But we want to keep it all in perspective. That's a civil holiday, and it is a good one. This day, the day of Pentecost, is one of the feasts from the Old Testament which had such importance in the year of Christ's resurrection that we kept it as a very important celebration in the Church. Our country will not be observing it. And sadly many Christian churches will not either. But this Pentecost Sunday is a very important day. It is the second most common day of the year for people to be baptized, second only to Easter Sunday. This is the day on which the Church was born by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Here and now we begin our celebration of the season of Pentecost, the time of the Church, the time of living out our lives for Christ over the next six months before Advent. Our paraments are red today, symbolic of the great power and majesty of the Holy Spirit coming to dwell in us fleshly beings, making us living witnesses of Christ. Next week they will change to green, the color of life and growth as we continue to grow in Christ.
So Pentecost is a time of life. Yet our reading features death, not even dead bodies, but dead dry bones. We confess frequently that we are dead in trespasses and sins, that we have no life in us except the life that our Lord has given to us. But I look around this room and everyone seems to be alive. Is that right? Take a look around and see. We don't seem to be dead at all. Yet if you look some more and think about it, we are surrounded by people who are dead or at least dying. Some have broken bodies, injured, ill, aging, and suffering. But look more closely. There are more serious situations here. It's more serious because even the young and strong people here are broken. We have broken dreams. At this time of year there are a lot of graduations. And we'll be wanting to celebrate our graduates, maybe they will all be together next week and we can give them congratulations all together. The speakers at commencements often talk about the hope and future that their graduates have. I heard a speaker saying that this year's crop of graduates from one institution have high hopes, one hundred percent. And that is true. They have high hopes. All of them want to succeed, to excel in life, to work in ways that matter in this world. Do you know what? All of those people are going to be disappointed. Some of their hopes will crumble. Some of their hopes will collapse. Not everything we hope for will work out. Not everything we hope for will come to pass. And we are broken. We have broken dreams, we have broken ambitions. Every last one of us is broken in some way. Yet we who have broken dreams, just like we who have broken bodies, pull ourselves up and go on with life. The grace of God is greater than our broken bodies or our broken dreams. But I want to ask us to look around the room again. There are likely some here, and you know who you are, and your friends and family might know it, some people who have had your hope broken. Your body may fail you, your dreams may have been shattered, but when your hope was in Christ you could stand. But there may be some in this very room whose hope in Christ is broken. These are the people who are indeed the dead, dry bones we read about in Ezekiel. Those whose hope is not in Christ, those who have been broken in this way are broken indeed. May the Lord have mercy upon us. We no longer see clearly, we are indeed broken people.
The really bad news here, though, is that some of us are broken but that we don't even realize it until something brings us up short. We come face to face with reality. We find out that we are broken when we run up against that brick wall that we though was a door. We find out we are broken when our world falls apart and we don't know what happened. We just look at ourselves and see that we are those dead, dry bones.
In fact, though, this is not that uncommon. We are living in a world where we are surrounded by dead, dry bones, though they look like people who are living and working. Yet without the call of the Gospel, without a hope being set on the foundation of Christ and his apostles, we have no hope. Those people all around us, and some of us as well, have been killed. We've been killed by sin in the world. We've been killed by putting too much trust in our health, in our dreams, in our earthly hopes. And we have no way to bring ourselves back to life. We are without hope.
What does our Lord do about it? What does he do in Ezekiel 37? He calls all those dead, dry bones to come to life. He calls them to himself. He calls us to himself. Our Lord and Savior calls us and all our friends, neighbors, co-workers, all the people that we meet, all the people of this world to himself. He calls us by his Word, the proclamation of the Gospel. This is why we treat the Word of God so seriously. This is why we are having the Teen Bible Institute to help the young people in our community see how the Word of God makes sense and holds up to careful examination. This is why our men's group, starting this Saturday will focus on Bible study, prayer, caring for and encouraging one another, and serving our community. This is why our Evangelism and Faith in Action committees, meeting this week, strive to find ways to make the Word of God more prominent in all we do and say. Jesus calls us by his Word, the proclamation of the Gospel.
Jesus fills his people with life by the Word. He gathers people to himself and equips them for life. This priceless Word of God is our Lord's instrument to reveal himself, dying for our sins, rising from the dead to bring us life, and continuing to give himself to us in Word and Sacrament. This is our hope. This is our life.
As our Lord calls his people together, as he brings us to life by the Word, he gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim his great works. How many of us have been through some sort of training in evangelism? Sometimes those outlines, illustrations, and lists of Scripture proofs for various doctrines of the Church are helpful. But all too often we've been taught to evangelize people by telling them what Jesus has done for us and what he will do for the people we are talking to. How has Jesus changed my life? How has he made me more prosperous, more successful, more good looking? Really, you should have seen me before. What is it the first believers testified to in Acts chapter 2 verse 11? They didn't tell what Jesus had done to change their family relationships. Certainly Jesus working in their hearts, certainly he is helping us to live a more peaceful life, certainly he is helping us to be faithful employers and employees, there's no doubt about that. He probably hasn't helped our looks a whole lot, but we can sometimes see an air of peace in the lives of Christians. But this kind of testimony will not be lasting. What do the early Christians tell about? They tell about the wonders of God. They tell about his glory, they tell about his grace, they tell about how he is the true and righteous judge of all, they tell that he has given himself in this last day, through the person and work of Christ, to give us forgiveness, life, and salvation. The testimony is focused on God, not on us. As professor Normal Nagel used to say, “Don't tell me about yourself, tell me about your Jesus.” That is our testimony.
The Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus. He uses us to show Christ crucified for sinners, Jesus, the hope of the world, who gave himself for you and for me. And through that testimony he takes us, who were dead, dry bones, and he makes us a mighty army, bringing the Gospel to bear right where we are. How do we live out that testimony? I can't necessarily tell you how that works. But I do know that as we fill ourselves with the Word of God, as we pray that the Holy Spirit would blow upon us, as we seek to live in community with one another, and with that community centered on Jesus, he will use us to call our community to himself.
Where do we start? I'm speaking now to those who are broken, those who are realizing they are dead, dry bones. Look to our Lord in faith, as we have confessed throughout this service, as we continue with the confession of the Apostles' Creed and in the prayers of the Church. Look to the Lord. He is the one who gives us life and hope. He is the one who is actively calling us to himself right now. How do we continue? Read another chapter in the book of Acts and see how the early Christians continued. They devoted themselves to the Word of God, to fellowship, communion and prayer. They encouraged one another in Christ. May the Lord make us faithful instruments of the Holy Spirit, building one another up in Him.
Change our hearts, Lord. Blow upon us by the wind of your Holy Spirit. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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