May 15, 2005

There they sat all together in an upstairs room, a group men and women brought together to be Jesus’ disciples. They had been with Jesus throughout his ministry. They had seen his miraculous works. They had heard his message about the kingdom of God. They had seen him die on the cross and then again after he was raised from the dead. And they had seen him ascend into heaven just a few days ago. But, they did not quite understand what was going to happen. And so there they sat waiting.

Before Jesus ascended, they had hoped it was the time when Jesus would fulfill his promise and restore the kingdom of Israel, but Jesus told them that it was not for them to know the times or periods that the Father has set. In fact, all they were told was that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they would be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

But nothing had happened yet. They were still waiting, still dependent upon the Father’s faithfulness, still dependent upon the Father’s control of the timetable. All they could do was wait and pray. And so there they sat. Somewhere between anxiety and anticipation, somewhere between confusion and hope.

And then on the fiftieth day after the Passover Feast, on the day of Pentecost, something happened. As the disciples sat in the upper room, suddenly, from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind that filled the whole house in which they were sitting. Then they saw divided tongues, as of fire, appear among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability.

Soon the event of Pentecost spilled into the streets for the sound had attracted a crowd of devout Jews from every nation under heaven who was living in Jerusalem, but they were bewildered at what was taking place. Each of them heard these Galileans speaking in the native language of each of them, in the languages of nations throughout the known world. The Spirit of God was erupting upon the world scene. The message of the Gospel was breaking out into the world.

For Christians, Pentecost is just as a defining moment in God’s salvation history as is Easter. In the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God once again dramatically and radically broke into the course of human history to do something new, the create again, just as God did in the beginning of creation when the wind from God swept over the face of the waters, just as God did when the Spirit of God breathed life into dust and created a human being. In Pentecost, God’s spirit was once again unleashed upon the disciples to create a new people, a new people whose source of strength comes from a power outside themselves, a power they had never known before, a given power to become the people they were meant to be, a given power for a purpose so that they would be enabled to go public in all boldness and confidence as Christ’s witnesses to the ends of the earth.

John the Baptist had said that the Christ, “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” These were not just idle words, they pointed to the promise of what was to come, that one who came after John would be the one who would be filled with the power of the Spirit, who would be the bearer of God’s Spirit in the world with a purpose to bring good news to the poor, with a purpose to bring forgiveness of sins and the power for new life and the salvation of the world. And now the same Spirit, which filled Jesus Christ and sent him into the world to proclaim and embody the kingdom of God, is now the same Spirit that has filled his disciples.

Suddenly they were no longer simply followers of Jesus, nor just observers of what God had done in and among them in Jesus Christ, nor were they simply passive recipients of a promise of eternal life. The coming of the Spirit of God changed them. The disciples were now called apostles, people sent forth into the world with a purpose. The word apostle means to be sent forth with a purpose. These disciples, now apostles, are now sent out to give witness to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They were now sent out as bearers of God’s Spirit themselves, people filled with and driven by the power of God’s Spirit, just as Jesus had been.

Pentecost is the great reminder that being a Christian means that we cannot be a people who look only to the past events as though they have no bearing on the present. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are not just events that we simply just accept as we wait around for him to come again. Nor are they simply events in which we must know and believe as if they are part of some history test we are preparing for.

Pentecost challenges us and pushes us to remember that these events, this person Jesus Christ, has cosmic implications for who we are now and our purpose as God’s people. Pentecost challenges us and pushes us to remember that we too are no longer to be just disciples, but apostles, and to be Jesus’ apostles is more than just about acceptance, knowledge or belief, it is about embodying the good news of Jesus Christ, to make his work of forgiveness and reconciliation our work, to make his ministry to the least and the lost and the left out our ministry, to make his proclamation of the kingdom of God our proclamation, to make his witness of God’s deeds of power, our witness to him.

To be given the Spirit is to be given the very presence and power of God within us, through us, and among us that changes, transforms, and empowers us for a purpose in the world. The power God gives us is not the power that the world understands or even wants. The world scoffs at the power we have been given, and labels it spiritualism or pietism or worse. It evokes in the world a windstorm of ire and confusion, because it goes against the grain of the way by which power is achieved in this world through materialism, individualism, domination, and politics.

But these are all fading realities of a world that is fading away, for we see what the world cannot see, a new reality of the kingdom of God through the power of the Holy Spirit that fills lives with the divine fire that sends us out into the world as different people than we once were, and lifts us to new heights of being and doing as God’s people in the world and for the world.

This given power for a purpose points us beyond ourselves to the expansive and inclusive nature of God’s work in the world. It turns our inward focus to an outward focus. It turns us, the church, from being maintainers of tradition into being apostles on a mission with a message, a mission to the ends of the earth, with a message that proclaims witness to the One who is the good news to the world.

Today we celebrate an amazing event, an event that transformed a band of fearful and unsure men and women into a community of believers on fire for the Lord, an event that forever changed them from being just simply disciples, to witnesses and proclaimers of the good news of God in Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; the coming of the very presence and power of God that breathed life into the church and continues to empower all us who confess Jesus is Lord.

Here at the table we are embodied with the spirit of the living Christ, and given the presence and power of him who died for us. Here at the table we learn to love, because God first loved us. Here at the table we learn to share all that we have, because God first shared with us God’s very self. Here at the table we are filled so that we may fill others, just as God first filled us at our baptism. Here at the table we are invited to come, not just for ourselves, but so that we may leave here today having been enriched and empowered by the one who sends us out, so that we may go public with the message of Jesus Christ, so that we may be bearers of Christ in the world. Amen.