Sermon: Day of Pentecost, John 20:19-23, May 28, 2023Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Sermon: Day of Pentecost, John 20:19-23, May 28, 2023

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Today is Pentecost Sunday, a major festival of the church year when we celebrate the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. In terms of its popular appeal, Pentecost doesn’t have the same command on our attention as Christmas and Easter, but perhaps it should. (Many of you are in on it by wearing red today, a color associated with occasions when we invoke the Spirit’s presence, calling to mind the tongues as of flame recorded in Acts.)

The word, Pentecost, by the way, comes from the Greek meaning fiftieth. Christian Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter. But this was first a Jewish festival, Shavuot (shuh-voo-owt), which is the 50th day after Passover. This was at first a harvest festival, but then later also came to commemorate the giving of the Law on Sinai and the Jewish people receiving the Torah. For Christians, Pentecost shifts the focus to God giving the gift of the Holy Spirit to God’s people, especially the followers of Jesus.

But as you listened carefully to today’s readings, perhaps you realize that we heard two accounts of the coming of the Spirit, one recorded in Acts 2 when the Spirit descended from heaven like the sound of a violent wind and tongues like fire rested on each of the apostles.

But then we also heard the account from John’s Gospel where Jesus himself appeared to the disciples on the day of resurrection and imparted to them the Holy Spirit, carried on his very breath. “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’… ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:21-22)

So, which is the definitive story of the sending of the Holy Spirit? The story in Acts or the story in John? My answer is both.

For here’s the thing: while Jesus was born of Mary once, and Jesus died only once on the cross, and was raised from the dead only once, the Holy Spirit comes again and again and again sent by God in a variety of ways on a variety of missions to a variety of people, for a variety of reasons.

Even in Luke-Acts, that two volume set authored by the same evangelist, we hear that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born (cf. Luke 1:15b).

And the Holy Spirit came to Mary that resulted in her conceiving Jesus in her very womb (cf. Luke 1:35). And the Holy Spirit rested on Simeon as he waited in the temple for the appearing of Jesus (cf. Luke 2:25-26).

And the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form like a dove when he was baptized by John in the River Jordan (cf. Luke 3:22). And the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil for forty days (cf. Luke 4:1). And Luke reports that Jesus began his ministry filled with the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 4:14). And that’s just reports of the Spirit’s coming in the first part of Luke’s gospel.

The Spirit’s presence is found throughout the scriptural witness, including the prophet Joel, whom Peter quoted in his sermon in Acts, today’s first reading: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your children shall prophesy, and your youth shall see visions, and your elders shall dream dreams. Even upon all of my slaves, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18)

So, there is not one occasion of the Holy Spirit coming in scripture, but many and various comings for varying reasons.

The apostle Paul makes that clear in today’s second reading from 1 Corinthians: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:7) Paul continues that the Spirit comes to give some wisdom and others knowledge and still others faith and gifts of healing and working of powerful deeds and prophecy and discernment of spirits and speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues. “All of these,” Paul writes, “are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (1 Corinthians 12:11)

Thus, another crucial point to make is this: even if the Spirit comes to lots of different people for lots of different reasons, and via various manifestations, there are not many spirits, but one Holy Spirit sent from God. Paul also makes this clear: “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

So, with all of this in mind, one Spirit coming again and again for different reasons, let’s return to the two stories of the Holy Spirit’s coming in today’s readings.

Let’s start with the account in John. It’s the day of resurrection, Easter Day, and the risen Jesus, himself, appears to the fear-filled disciples behind locked doors.

Jesus announces his Peace, and he breathed on the disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Here the Spirit is imparted on Jesus’ very breath. It’s his Spirit even as it’s also the Spirit of God the Father who sent Jesus.

And here’s the reason for the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples on the day of Resurrection: Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

According to the account in John, the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples so that they can continue Jesus’ ministry of peace-making and reconciliation, of forgiving sins. Through the Spirit they are given the authority to forgive.

That contrasts, but also complements, the account in Acts 2. While the Spirit comes to the disciples via Jesus’ breath in John, a very intimate manifestation of the Spirit, the form that the Spirit takes in Acts is starkly different – a sound like the rush of a violent wind filling the house and then tongues as of flame that rested on each of the apostles (cf. Acts 2:2-3).

And here, the Spirit comes on a different mission, but again one that complements the purpose of the Spirit coming in John. In Acts, the Spirit gives the apostles the ability to speak in other languages, the languages of the nations of the world.

This is not glossolalia or speaking in tongues, but the ability immediately to be fluent in languages previously unknown to them. It’s as if I would appear in the pulpit at our 11:00 am service and suddenly, without training or instruction, I could preach a fluent sermon in Spanish!

Which is to say, preaching was the point of the apostles speaking in the languages of the nations to proclaim the one message given by the one Spirit in many different languages God’s deeds of power in raising Jesus from the dead. One message, but many languages in the power of the Spirit.

And the effects of the Spirit’s coming are similar in both John and Acts. In John, the disciples are locked in a room out of fear that they will meet the same fate as Jesus in tragic endings. The Spirit of Jesus brings them peace and rejoicing. It’s freedom and release from fear.

In Acts, the apostles were also in a room, but they were waiting patiently and prayerfully for what would happen next. And what happened is that their tongues were freed to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. They went from sitting around waiting to acting and speaking out.

In both John and Acts, the Spirit’s arrival brought the energy of activity, of movement: from fear to peace and rejoicing; from prayerful silence to boisterous proclamation; in short, from passivity to activity.

Moreover, the Spirit’s coming in John and Acts brought the gift of faith, belief in the risen Lord. Or as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.’” (1 Cor. 12:3b)

The long and the short of it is this: on this Day of Pentecost, we celebrate the varieties of ways the Spirit comes to us on different occasions and for different purposes.

The Spirit comes in the proclamation of the word. The Spirit comes at baptism working her grace in word and water. The Spirit’s energies active in word and bread and wine convey to us Jesus’ real presence in Holy Communion. The Spirit of Jesus’ presence is here when two or three of us gather in Jesus’ name to share with each other good news.

Sometimes the Spirit is that still small voice. Sometimes the Spirit comes quite dramatically. How the Spirit comes to you may be quite different from how the Spirit comes to me and to others. The Spirit manifests herself among Lutherans in ways different from Baptists and Pentecostals and others.

The Spirit is made manifest in particular ways at our 9:00 am service in English and still differently at the 11:00 am service in Spanish.

But it’s the same Spirit and the same message and the same energy to empower us to proclaim in word and deed God’s love and mercy and forgiveness and abundance in raising Jesus from the dead.

Thanks be to God. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Alleluia. Amen.