“From Disciples to Apostles”

Joel 2:27-32

Acts 1:1-14, 2:1-11

June 4, 2006

Pentecost

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.

With Jesus’ resurrection, they had hoped it was the start of a revolution, a revolution that would restore the kingdom of Israel, and fulfill the promises of God. And yet, Jesus had promised something very different than what they expected. He had not promised them the glorious return of Israel or the coming of God’s kingdom as they understood it. No, instead Jesus had promised them something much bigger, something much more glorious, something beyond their expectations.

Jesus had promised the coming of the eternal presence of God’s very self, a presence and power that would change them and empower them to be much more than just disciples, but apostles, apostles with a mission to be the witnesses of Jesus Christ and his gospel, not just in Jerusalem, but in all of Judea, in all of Samaria, even to the ends of the earth.

But now all these disciples could do was wait, wait for the coming of the promised Holy Spirit, wait to receive the presence and power that Jesus had promised them at his ascension. All they could do was trust in Jesus’ promise and the Father’s faithfulness, all they could do was trust that the Father was in 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, somewhere between discipleship and apostleship.

But then it happened.

On the fiftieth day after the Passover Feast, on the day of Pentecost, something happened that changed them forever. 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. 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 had erupted upon the world scene. The message of the Gospel was breaking out into the world. The disciples were no longer just disciples. They were now apostles – sent ones with a mission, a mission to tell the world the message of the good news of Jesus Christ.

We cannot ever underestimate the importance of what happened on Pentecost. It too, just as much as Christmas and Easter, is a defining moment in God’s salvation history. 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 one coming after him, “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” These were not just idle words, they pointed to the promise of who was to come, that the 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 come to 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. These disciples, now apostles, were now sent out to give witness to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They were now sent out as bearers of the Spirit of God, ordinary people filled with and driven by the extraordinary presence and power of God.

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 observe throughout the year as we wait around for him to come again. Pentecost challenges us and pushes us to remember that these events, this person Jesus Christ, has cosmic implications for who we are 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 faith and 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 be given the Spirit is to be given the very presence and power of God within us, through us, and among us, the very presence and power of God that is given to change, transform, and empower us ordinary people with an extraordinary purpose in the world. It is the Spirit that gives us the ability to be different people than what we once were, to dream dreams and see visions of the new reality of God’s kingdom, to believe that the impossible is possible, to stand up with the full conviction of faith and declare to the world that God is here in the midst of human life, that God is at work in the world to bring reconciliation and redemption.

Sometimes I think that we have forgotten what we have been given. Sometimes I think that we have become too comfortable with our faith and piety. Sometimes I think that we are all too willing to quench the work of the Spirit within us, either because we are fearful of what might happen, or because we do not want to be changed and transformed into instruments of God’s work in the world.

But the same Spirit that came to the disciples that day long ago on Pentecost is the very same Spirit that has come to each one of us. And it is that same Spirit who also calls us disciples to be apostles, pointing us beyond ourselves to the expansive and inclusive nature of God’s work in the world. It is that same Spirit who turns our inward focus to an outward focus, who turns us the church and body of Christ from being simply maintainers of traditions into the missional church to the ends of the earth, with a message to tell about the One who is the Savior of the world.

If we are to truly be the church in mission, if we are to truly be God’s missional church, we must begin now to not only reclaim this gift of the Spirit, but we must also begin now to embody the work of the Spirit within us. Just as the coming of the Holy Spirit transformed a band of fearful and unsure men and women into a community of believers on fire for the Lord, so it must also transform us. Just as the coming of the Holy Spirit forever changed the first disciples into apostles with a mission and purpose, so it must change us. Just as the coming of the Holy Spirit breathed life into the church of yesterday, so it must continue to breathe life into the church of today. This is what we celebrate today, and this is what we must begin to reclaim anew today. Pentecost may be the end of the Easter season, but it is to always be the new beginning of our ongoing journey of faith in the presence and power of God. Once again we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into us, the Holy Spirit who is the gift of God’s very self for God’s people.

And it is here at the table where it once again takes place. Here at the table we are given spirit of the living Christ, and given the presence and power of him who died for us. Here at the table we once again come to be changed, transformed, and renewed by the presence and power of God, so that from this table we may leave here today ready and willing to embark on our mission to the ends of the earth. Here at the table we are invited to come, not just for ourselves, but for the world, so that we may leave here today having been 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 the living Spirit of Christ in the world, not just as disciples, but as disciples who are the apostles of Jesus Christ. Amen.