Sermon for Pentecost Sunday
Today is Pentecost Sunday.
Growing up in an Asian Pentecostal church, the story of Pentecost is a story dear to our hearts. This day marks the birth of the universal church. This gospel of good news proclaimed by Jesus is no longer good news that confined to nation of Israel and to the Jewish people. It is good news for the whole world, of all nations and of all different language groups.
The word “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word, “Pentekostos”.
It is a major Jewish festival celebrated fifty days after the second day of the Passover. It celebrates the summer wheat festival and the revelation of the law to Moses at Mt Sinai.
The day of Pentecost starts with the roaring of a mighty windstorm that could be heard throughout the house where the disciples were sitting.
And in the First Nations Version: “They saw flames of fire coming down from above, separating and resting on each of their heads. The Holy Spirit had come down upon them and began to fill them with his life and power. New languages began to flow out from their mouths, languages they have never learned, given from the Holy Spirit.”
Peter is barely recognisable from the man who had fearfully denied Jesus three times. He raised his voice, and asked the crowd to listen to what he had to say. He boldly proclaimed that Jesus, whom they crucified, was the Messiah and he is now exalted and at the right.
This courage by Peter and the eleven disciples to stand boldly in Jerusalem to proclaim the resurrection of the Messiah stands in stark contrast to the story of the disciples huddling behind locked doors in the gospel read that was read today. Terrified of being caught.
In that locked room, Jesus was suddenly standing in front of them. The first words that he said to them were “Peace Be With You”. He repeated those words after showing them where the iron nails had pierced his hands and where the spear had cut into his side.
In that locked room, Jesus offered peace. I don’t know about you but right now, I am desperate for peace. I feel like Jeremiah lamenting “Peace, Peace they say where there is no peace.”
It is easy to forget that the world has continually been in conflict – our great-grandparents and our grandparents lived through World War 1 and World War 2. Our parents, and some of us here, lived through the Cold War.
It feels like the world is fraying at the edges. The war in Ukraine is in its fifth year. There is a war in Iran. Attacks on Lebanon. The world has watched in silence as Sudan tears itself apart in a civil war for 3 years – 13 million people have been displaced and more than 8 million people face starvation and famine-like conditions.
And in our country, public discourse is feeling increasingly hostile. And as an immigrant, I am feeling the weight, again, of all that is being said about people like me.
The words of peace that Jesus spoke to the disciples remain true today. Peace be with you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. And the peace I give is a gift that the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.
This is the peace that is promised to you, a word of assurance, that comes along with the power of God.
Going back again to Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost, Peter referred to a prophesy by the prophet Joel:
“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.
Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days, I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy”
Joel followed this prophesy with a description of the Lord’s great and terrible day. God will “cause wonders in the heaven above and signs on earth below – blood and fire and clouds of smoke. The sun will become dark and the moon will turn blood red before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”
This vision of divine judgment by Joel is a message of both warning and hope. Peter is telling the crowd that they are witnessing the end of the present order and the beginning of the new order where the Spirit will be poured out and empower all: Sons and daughters. Slaves of men and women.
To Peter, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the disciples is the preeminent sign of the coming day of the Lord. It is a sign of urgency that warns of imminent judgment. This requires a missional response from us.
Jesus speaks of this mission, “As the Father has sent me so I send you.”
I don’t know whether we are in the last days. There have been many articles written and many podcast episodes devoted to exploring this topic. Many Christians believe that we are. There are some who described the war in Iran as part of a divine plan for the end days.
But I know that the message of hope and redemption that the gospel speaks of is needed right now. In times where we are confronted with evil and despair, and many of us have felt that evil and despair with the death of Kumanjayi Little Baby, this gospel of peace, hope, love and redemption feels more necessary in this broken world. We are to be bearers of that gospel.
This is my favourite part. This where the Holy Spirit comes in. As someone who starts off at a Pentecostal church, moving to a Baptist church and has now ended in the Uniting church, it is disconcerting how the different denominations speak of the Holy Spirit. From prominence to one occasionally spoken of, in prayer and liturgy.
For many people, experiences with the Holy Spirit have been viewed as an individual’s experiences of euphoria. I miss worship and prayer that is more charismatic in nature. I miss speaking in tongues in a congregational setting. I do not want to describe these charismatic worship and prayer experiences as the only experiences filled with the Holy Spirit as I have also found liturgy deeply moving and spirit filled.
I have personally found renewal in my experiences with the Holy Spirit. However, the gift of the Holy Spirit is not just about an individual’s heightened emotional experience. The gift of the Holy Spirit is communal and it empowers all of us. Both accounts of the Holy Spirit, Jesus in the locked room with his disciples and Peter out in the open in Jerusalem are communal experiences.
Jesus breathes on them and said “Receive the Holy Spirit”.
I wonder what it’s like for the disciples in the room. To have Jesus in the living flesh in front of them. Scarred. Jesus holding each of them by the shoulder as he breathed on them.
What does it mean to receive the breath of Jesus?
Jeremiah has started listening to the audiobook, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He has been listening to it relentlessly. There’s a scene at the end as Aslan started breathing on all these stone statutes (and they were turned into stone for believing in him).
‘For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back—then it spread—then the color seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper—then, while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. And now his hind legs had come to life.”
This the breath of life of Christ. It brings us from death into life and turns our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.
The church created by this gift of the Holy Spirit does not receive an object or the commodity. We don’t just have the spirit – the Spirit has us. I him, we live and move and have our being. The breath of the Holy Spirit empowers us to live a new life and we are drawn to life in a new way.
“The Holy Spirit is the intruding, invasive and energising power from God that comes like the wind to blow us beyond ourselves, to take actions, to dare dreams, to run risks that in our accustomed powerlessness are well beyond us. The assurance of Jesus is that the wind will blow us to freedom and courage in spite of our tired fearfulness.” (Walter Brueggermann)
I cannot talk about this story of Pentecost without talking about languages.
The disciples were “filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability. At this sound, the crowd gathered and was bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believes.”
This highlights the importance of language and the cultural translation that comes along with it in Spirit-empowered witness. Even at the beginning, the church of Jesus Christ is multilingual and multicultural.
I hope that the Pentecost story compels us, because I feel that it’s a story for this time, this moment.
May we be reminded that in the face of fear, Jesus spoke peace and breathed life. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit loosened tongues to break down barriers. Out of the heart of differences, God birthed the Church. Receive the Holy Spirit. Together, as a church, may we grow and be empowered into all that Christ longs to pour into us.
