Pentecost

May 28, 2023

 

Acts 2.1-21

 

+ This  Wednesday, on May 31^st the Feast of the Visitation, I will celebrate a big event in my life.

 

It will be the 40th anniversary of my calling to the Priesthood.   

 

For me, that day was sort of my own personal Pentecost.

 

On that day, I felt the Holy Spirit move in me.

 

I knew that presence was holy and good and true and right.  

 

It was on that day that I clearly heard to Spirit say to me that God wanted me to be a priest.

 

Of course, I was a 13 year old Lutheran kid.

 

What did I know of priests?

 

But it was a very clear calling.

 

It was clear to me on that day that God wanted me to be a priest, for whatever reason.

 

And with that realization, my  life changed, and I was led to places by that same Spirit which called me that I would never have thought for myself.   

 

We are of course celebrating our own calling by the Spirit to serve God and each other today.

 

Pentecost is an important feast in the Church.

 

In fact, it’s one of the most very important feasts in the church, right up there with Easter and Christmas.

 

In fact, like Easter and Christmas, it even has a vigil service the evening before.

 

With the ending of this day of Pentecost, the Easter season officially ends.

 

This evening, I will move the Paschal Candle back out to the Baptismal font in the Narthex.

 

We will say Alleluia a bit less than we have during the season of Easter.

 

But, we will continue to live into the resurrection and into the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence among us.

 

Pentecost is the feast in which we celebrate the Holy Spirit—or more specifically the Holy Spirit’s descent upon those first followers of Jesus.

 

It also gives us an opportunity to think about a very important thing that we often just don’t think about but which works in our lives on a daily basis:

 

The Holy Spirit.

 

The Holy Spirit, after all, is God in our midst.

 

God’s very Presence here on earth with us and in us.

 

The Holy Spirit is that gift that Jesus told us would be the gift we receive now that we no longer have Jesus physically with us in the flesh as he was before his Ascension.

 

 

It’s a very important day in the life of the Church.

 

Today is essentially the “birthday” of the Church.

 

But, in Judaism, the feast of Shavuot was celebrated this weekend.

 

It actually ended last evening.

 

Shavuot is a wonderful and important Jewish feast.

 

It is now 50 days since Passover.

 

The word Shavuot is Hebrew for “weeks.”

 

The belief is that, after fifty days of traveling after leaving Egypt, the nation of Israel now has finally arrived at Mount Sinai.

 

And on Shavuot, the Torah, the “Law,” the 10 Commandments were delivered to them by Moses.

 

So, in a very real sense, this is an important day not just for Judaism, but for us as well.

The Torah, the 10 Commandments, are important to us too.

 

Our feast of Pentecost is very similar in many ways. 

 

It now 50 days after Easter.

 

The word “Pentecost” is the Greek word for 50.

 

And it’s connection with Shavuot is pretty clear.

 

Shavuot is this  feast on which the early Jews offered to God the first fruits of their harvests.

 

Now that is particularly meaningful to us Christians and what we celebrate on this day of Pentecost.

 

It is meaningful that the Holy Spirit came among us on this feast in which the first fruits were offered to God.

 

After all, those first Christiana who gathered in that upper room in our reading this morning from Acts, were truly the first fruits of the Church.

 

And let’s not forget that those first Christians were also Jews, gathering to celebrate the festival of Shavuot.

 

God chose to send the Spirit on those first followers of Jesus on just the right day.

 

Still, like nuclear power or electricity, God’s Spirit is sometimes a hard thing for us to grasp and understand. 

 

The Spirit can be elusive and strange and sometimes we might have a hard time wrapping our minds around the Spirit.

 

But it is clear from the words of Jesus before he ascends back into heaven what the role of the Spirit is for us:

 

 "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

 

Although Jesus’s prophecy from God might no longer be among  us as it was when Jesus himself was with us physically, the prophecy does remains with us in the sending of God’s spirit.

 

Jesus will leave—we will not be able to touch him and feel him and listen to his human voice again, on this side of the veil.

 

But God is leaving something amazing in Jesus’ place.

 

Jesus is gone from us physically, but God is still with us.

 

In a sense what happens with the Descent of God’s Spirit upon us is the fact that we now have the potential to be prophets ourselves.

 

The same Spirit which spoke to Ezekiel, which spoke to Isaiah, which spoke to Jeremiah, which spoke to Moses, which spoke through Jesus, also can now speak to us and be revealed to us just as it spoke and was revealed to those prophets from the Hebrew Bible and through Jesus.

 

That is who the Spirit is in our midst.

 

The Spirit we celebrate today—and hopefully every day—is truly the spirit of the God that came to us and continues to be with us.

 

It is through this Spirit that we come to know God in ways we might never have before.

 

God’s Spirit comes to us wherever we may be in our lives—in any situation or frustration.

 

God’s Spirit is with us, as Jesus promised, always.

 

Always.

 

For those of us who want to grasp these experiences—who want to have proof of them—the Spirit doesn’t fit well into the plan.

 

We can’t grasp the Spirit.

 

We can’t make the Spirit do what we want it to do.

 

In that way, the Spirit truly is like the Wind that came rushing upon those first disciples.

 

So, how do we know how the Spirit is working in our lives?

 

Well, as Jesus said, we know the tree by its fruit.

 

In our case, we know the Spirit best through the fruits God’s Spirit gives us.

 

Remember what the feast of Pentecost originally was?

 

It was the Jewish feast on which the first fruits were offered to God.

 

In a sense, what happens on our Pentecost, is God returning those fruits back to us.

 

On the feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the fruits the Spirit of God gives to us and we can be thankful for them, and, most importantly, share them in turn with those around us.

 

The Spirit comes to us and manifests itself to us in the fruits given to us by the Spirit.

 

For me, the Spirit of God came to me not in a noisy, raucous way, but rather in a quiet, though just as intense, way.

 

The Sprit of God as I have experienced it has never been a “raining down” so to speak, but rather a “welling up from within.”

 

The fruits of the Spirit for me have been things such as an overwhelming joy in my life.

 

When the Spirit is near, I feel clear-headed and, to put it simply, content.

 

Or, in the midst of what seems like an unbreakable dark grief, there is suddenly a real and potent sense of hope and light.

 

When the future seems bleak and ugly, the Spirit can come in and make everything worth living again.

 

We experience God’s Spirit whenever we feel joy or hope.

 

As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, the Spirit of God is a Spirit of Truth.

 

We experience God’s Spirit when we strive for truth in this world, when truth comes to us.

 

In turn, we are far from God’s Spirit when we let bitterness and anger and frustration lead the way.

 

We frustrate God’s Spirit when we grumble and mumble about each other and hinder the ministries of others in our church, when we let our own agendas win out over those who are trying also to do something to increase God’s Kingdom in our midst.

 

We deny the Spirit when we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

No doubt everyone here this morning has felt God’s Spirit in some way, although we might not have readily recognized that experience as God’s Spirit.

 

But our job, as Christians, is to allow those fruits of the Spirit to flourish and grow.

 

For us, we let the Spirit of God flourish when we continue to strive for truth and justice, when we stand up against the dark forces of this world.

 

The Spirit of God compels again and again to stand up and to be defiant against the dark forces of this world!

 

That dynamic and life-giving presence of the Spirit of God speaks loudly to us.

 

Certainly we have seen God’s Spirit at work here in our congregation as we celebrate a bountiful harvest—the growth and vitality here.

 

We see the Holy Spirit at work in the ministries we do, in the love we share with others, with the truth we proclaim as Christians, even in the face of opposition.

 

We experience this Spirit of truth when we stand up against injustice, wherever it may be.

 

This is how God’s Spirit comes to us.

 

The Spirit does not always tear open the ceiling and force its way into our lives.

 

The Spirit rather comes to us just when we need the Spirit to come to us.

 

Though, often the Spirit comes to us as fire—an all-consuming fire that burns way all anger and hatred and fear and pettiness and nagging and all the other negative, dead chaff we carry within us.

 

So, this week, in the glow of the Pentecost light, in the Shavuot glow with the Law written deep in our hearts, let us look for the gifts of the Spirit in our lives and in those around us.

 

Let us open ourselves to God’s Spirit and let it flow through us like a caressing wind and burn through us like a purifying fire.

 

And let us remember the true message of the Spirit to all of us.

 

Whenever it seems like God is distant or nonexistent, that is when God might possibly be closest of all, dwelling within us, being breathed unto us as with those first disciples.

 

On these feasts of Shavuot and Pentecost—these feasts of the fruits of God—these feasts of the fire of God—let us give thanks for this God who never leaves us, who never stops loving us, but who comes to us again and again in mercy and in truth.