Pentecost 2009

Our Epistle reading this morning from Acts, chapter 2, provides the Bible’s only account of what happened on that first Christian Pentecost, around the year A.D. 33. It was obviously something very mysterious and powerful that happened to those first Christians who were gathered in a house somewhere in the city of Jerusalem.

Our text describes this event as being like the sound of a violent rushing wind that filled the entire house where these people were gathered. And then mysterious tongues or flames of fire settled down on each one of them. And every one who was there was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. They did so as the Spirit inspired them and gave them the power of utterance.

If you’ve ever been through a hurricane, you know the eerie sound those violent winds make. Winds and the Spirit of God are often connected in the Bible. For example, Jesus told Nicodemus that “the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

In fact, the Hebrew word for “wind” and “spirit” is the exact same word. We cannot see the wind, but we can feel it, and we can certainly see its results and consequences.

So it is with the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. We cannot see Him, but we can feel Him, and we can certainly see the results and consequences of the Holy Spirit at work in a person, group, or institution.

There will be transformation, and there will be power, or ability, to accomplish things for the kingdom of God. Sometimes the person or institution may seem to be “on fire” for God: enthusiastic, passionate, zealous; having boldness in speaking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having moreover the ability to withstand the fiery assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which hate the Spirit of God and seek to do everything they can to quench that Spirit.

Those first Christians who were filled with the Holy Spirit in our Epistle reading were given the ability to proclaim the mighty acts of God, and to do so in such a way that all who heard them understood exactly what they were saying. Cretans and Arabians, Jews and converts to Judaism—all were able to hear in their own dialects the magnificent, mighty acts of God.

My friends, both as individual Christians and as the Church of Jesus Christ, we, too, are called to proclaim the Gospel, the mighty acts of God, and to do so in such a way that the non-Christians and the unchurched and the fallen away in our circle of influence will understand what we are saying.

Now, let’s be frank and admit that we Anglicans are not particularly good at such proclamation. Many of us were taught that it’s bad manners to talk about religion, Jesus, or our faith with others. We know that the Baptists are trained and taught and encouraged to share their faith, but not us Anglicans.

This past week Pastor John Cole and I were discussing this passage from Acts chapter 2, and he said that this passage was “not for us” Anglicans. If a person wants speaking in tongues and exuberant worship and praise and preaching, they need to go to a Pentecostal church. Certainly not to a staid, historical, liturgical, traditional church like ours.

But, friends, those first Christians gathered in that house in Jerusalem were not all that different from us. They, too, were part of a historical, liturgical, traditional faith: 1st-century Judaism with its staid pattern of synagogue and Temple worship. They, too, had liturgical prayers, readings from the Scriptures, and chants and hymns using the Psalms. We have no evidence that they were excessively emotional or zealous. Nor were those who heard them: the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia. They all followed the Jewish pattern of faith and worship.

But when the Spirit of God and of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father that Jesus had told them about, fell upon them and filled them, they were transformed. And the words that they spoke under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit made complete sense to those who heard them; those who were not followers or disciples of Jesus.

I hope you will agree with me that we also need to experience the indwelling and the in-filling of the Holy Spirit. We also need to be able to put into words what God has done in our lives and why we believe in the Christian religion.

Perhaps you have difficulty seeing in your Christian practice of the faith anything other than the fulfillment of a duty. You may not have had any direct, personal experience of the living God that you can recall or point to. Maybe you would like to have such an experience but don’t know how to go about it getting it.

I pray that each one of us here today would have an experience of the Holy Ghost just like those first Christians gathered in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. I pray that the Holy Spirit, the Strengthener, would fall upon each one of us gathered here this morning and enable us to give witness to what God through Christ has done in our lives.

Please, as you come forward to receive Holy Communion (or a blessing) this morning, ask the Holy Spirit to descend upon you in a new and powerful way. As you receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, surrender yourself to Jesus Christ and ask that He fill you with the Holy Spirit. Amen.