Homily for the Feast of Pentecost [Gen 11:1-9 / Acts 2:1-21 / John 14:23-31]
Make no mistake about it: it had all been for this. To pour out the Spirit, He had first by that same Spirit taken flesh from the holy Virgin. To pour out the Spirit, He had lived that life of love, suffered and died, descended to Hades, and then rose in victory on the third day. To pour out the Spirit, He had ascended into heaven and assumed his seat at the right hand of the Father, far above all rule and dominion. And it was this day, 50 days after He rose from the dead, that He kept His promise. The Spirit rushed into human history like never before with a startling suddenness that was impossible to miss. Totally unlike the quiet way our Lord Jesus entered our world in Bethlehem. The Spirit makes, what we call, an entrance.
On Pentecost it was wind – not a nice gentle breeze, mind you. A “mighty rushing wind.” Think hurricane. Think tornado. Think the kind of wind that comes suddenly from nowhere and just about knocks you flat. THAT kind of wind. And in the wind? Fire! Flames! Flames that divide and rest on each of the Apostles. Whatever God was up to now was no secret. God Himself was announcing to anyone and everyone: These men have a message to hear! Listen up! You can’t miss them! They’re the men with flames dancing at their lips!
And the crowds who heard and felt the roar of the wind, came rushing together, utterly confused about what was happening. And what did they find? They found Babel reversed! Instead of language dividing this person from that, they heard each of the Apostles speaking and testifying to the great works of God – and each one of them heard them preaching in their own language. Just like native speakers. And they turned to each other and asked: “What on earth CAN it mean?”
But no matter how great a pyrotechnic show God puts on, some folks will just discount it. That’s the nature of our unbelief. “Aw, they’re just plastered!” some begin to say. But suddenly out of all the speakers, one stands forward. They may only have muttered it to themselves, but he knew what they said. He stood forward and said: “Not drunk. No way. No how. It’s only nine in the morning for Pete’s sake!” He had their attention now. And he told them: “This is it, folks. This is the promise God made a long time ago through Joel – to pour out His Spirit on all flesh! It’s happening. Right here before your very eyes. And that means the rest of the promise of Joel is true for you too: everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The time for God’s universal salvation has been begun! Let me tell you about that Lord right now.”
Our second reading stops there, but you remember how it went on. Peter preached and laid into them with both the Law (“this Jesus whom you killed!”) and the Gospel (“repent and be baptized everyone of you for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”), no less than 3,000 people took the plunge that very day. They got into the baptismal water and there received the exact same Spirit that had fallen on the disciples. What joy overflowed as the age of the Church dawned – God’s promises and work in Jesus Christ began to reach through Israel to bless an entire world! To bring together those who had been divided from each other into one family, one household.
God had been itching since the days of exile from Eden to pour out His precious Spirit on all flesh, the Spirit who is true God, proceeding from the Father and resting eternally on the Son. The Spirit whom Jesus called “The Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name.” Jesus promised: “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
The Spirit is our great teacher. He is not focused on Himself, though, but on Jesus. “To bring to our remembrance all He said.” That’s why Peter, filled with the Spirit, only wanted to talk to the people about the Lord, crucified and then raised and triumphant, pouring out this gift of the Spirit and calling all people to receive Him freely in Baptism. That Jesus wanted them to receive this Spirit that would enable them to believe in Him and love Him and serve Him. This Spirit who would forever free them from the chains of sin and the power of death because the Spirit would show everyone Christ as the Atonement for ALL sin and Christ as the Victor over ALL death and the Spirit would whisper in their hearts: “And He did it all for you! Because He loves you! Believe it, child! It’s true!”
How Luther had the hang of that! Remember how the Catechism put it: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”
That's why we are dancing for joy on this day. To us who could never believe on our own, never come to faith in Jesus by all our struggling and striving, to us our Risen and Ascended Lord has sent a Helper! He has sent the One who not only gives faith, but keeps us in faith, and strengthens that faith until our last hour comes. And then our Helper will not leave us. No way. He will sustain us through death and bring us with Christ into the life that never ends. He will be the one who raises our bodies from the dead and transfigures them – “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come!” That's Spirit's work!
The Spirit poured out upon the chosen apostles on this day landed on YOU too. Happened in your Baptism (just as it did for the 3,000)! Your Baptism is your personal Pentecost. But there’s more. Christ doesn’t just pour out His Spirit once and that’s it. Not at all. A couple chapters after our second reading today, Luke records that the house where they were gathered was shaken and the Spirit descended afresh on the same apostles. You receive Him and all of Him and yet there is always more. Your Lord wants to keep pouring the Spirit into you. Not just through your Baptism, but through your hearing of the Word (where He is always at work to strengthen your faith) and through the Supper, where by the Spirit’s power Christ feeds you with His body and blood, constantly renewing the forgiveness of sins.
Because the Spirit is the gift Christ keeps on giving us, the holy Church rejoices this day to cry out over and over again – in hymns and prayers to the Blessed Third Person of the Trinity - “Come, Holy Spirit! Fill our hearts! Amen!"
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