Acts 2: 1-21 Sermon May 31, 2020 Pentecost Rev.
Peter Hofstra
As
surely as we preach from Luke 2 at Christmas, so we have preached from Acts 2
on the Sunday of Pentecost. It is the
climax of the Easter story. I missed
something from the very first verse that has been nagging at me this week. “Suddenly from heaven there came the sound
like the rush of a violent wind…” This
sound filled the house they were in.
You
know how there are different kinds of learners?
Visual, audio, and so on? I am
something of a cinemagraphic learner. I
read something and, when pausing on it, there is usually a scene from a screen
that creates a scene for me. This verse,
starting the Pentecost story, always had a rather specific opening. The violent wind came up, filling the house
with noise, and all the candles (there are always a ton of candles) are blown
out. Something big is on its way.
But it
is not a wind. It is the SOUND like the
rush of a violent wind. But even more
powerful, it comes from heaven above.
Now it might be argued that “from heaven” is from the skies, or from
somewhere ‘up’, but they are not outside, they are gathered in a house, in
Jerusalem. And from here, everything
starts.
Why is
this so important? Well, for a couple of
reasons. First of all, this is a repeat
of what happened at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Remember that? He was down at the Jordan to be baptized by
his cousin, John the Baptist. And the
gospels are together on this, that the heavens opened and the Spirit of the
Lord came to rest upon Jesus in the form of a dove. The heavens opened and the spirit came down
to begin the ministry of Jesus Christ.
The heavens have opened once more, but this time it is the sound and the
flame that are coming down.
Secondly,
this process also fulfills the promises Jesus has made. We have gone through these in the Gospel of
John. Jesus is going up but the Spirit
of Truth, another advocate, is coming to be with them forever. And a week ago Thursday, forty days after
Easter, we celebrated Ascension Day, the day Jesus was carried up to
heaven. Now, suddenly, from heaven,
there is the return of God to be upon the disciples.
This is
an entry, from the supernatural into the natural world, crossing from the realm
of the Creator into the creation. God
has come across for us.
So one
of the most important things that Easter accomplishes is that it corrects what
happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and
Eve screwed it up and got tossed into the cold, sinful world. Jesus came, carried out God’s plan, and we
were renewed in our acquaintance with the most high. But it struck me that Pentecost carries us
further forward than just a renewal of the Garden.
Consider
the gift of tongues. This is not
‘speaking in tongues’ as spoken of elsewhere in the New Testament, some kind of
angel-speak that is still the rage in some corners of Christendom. This was far more useful. There were people from every corner of the kingdom. All of a sudden, they are hearing about the
deeds of God’s power in their own languages.
The disciples were given the gift of foreign languages. The accents were still there as the crowd
comments about them being Galileans.
So the
book of Genesis is basically in two parts.
The first eleven chapters are something of a supernatural introduction
to the rest. It is the story of the
Garden of Eden, it is the story of the Flood, it is the story of people living
for centuries, it is the story of the Nephilim, some kind of divine beings,
coming to earth and intermingling with human women, it is a lot bigger and more
grand than the second part, which starts in Chapter 12 with the call of
Abraham. Even he lived till a hundred
and twenty, but that is manageable compared to nine hundred years. That is Yoda old.
But the
end of the primeval introduction is the tower of Babel. All humanity spoke the same language, they
were going to build a tower up to God.
Because God, for them, was up.
God threw a wrench into the works with the introduction of
languages. The people were divided into
different tongues and, being people, they could not get along with those
foreigners, so they scattered to the corners of the globe.
Now see
what happens here. What is the first
gift of the Spirit? It is the gift of
language so that the One Message of God can be heard by the disparate peoples
of the earth, in their own languages, and they can come back together as one
people under the power of Jesus Christ.
This work is something we continue.
So here
are a few statistics. There are about
6500 languages spoken in the world, but like 2000 have less than a thousand
speakers. The Bible, as a whole, has
been translated into 698 languages, roughly a tenth. But the New Testament is translated into over
1500 more languages, and portions of the bible into over eleven hundred other
languages. So, round up, 2800
languages. About 3800 languages actually
use some kind of writing system. That is
about 75% of the world languages that use some kind of writing system having
the Word of God in that system. I use
written languages, knowing full well that the number of languages the gospel
has been shared in verbally is far higher.
There are just no impressive statistics to include in a sermon. So this is the ongoing work of Pentecost, the
message of God penetrating into every language, so that all may know the deeds
of God’s power. So, yes, these are
internet statistics, but all are from at least one other source than
Wikipedia.
What is
the wonder? The crowd extolled the
disciples because they were each hearing the message in their own language, and
in that crowd, by my count, they identify fifteen distinct geographic regions
whose languages were being shared.
So
something amazing is going on at Pentecost, works that reflect God’s
magnificent power. How quickly can we
torpedo that miracle? Just tell the
world they are drunk. I do not know
about you, but I have been around drunks who have spoken in languages I cannot
recognize. But the consensus is the
language of drunkenness is a language no one can recognize. Besides, it was only 9am according to Peter.
This
spreading of the Holy Spirit has been prophesied. In consideration of those disciples, now
apostles, who are currently spreading the Word, Peter adds this from the
Prophet Joel:
17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out
my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and
your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men
and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall
prophesy.
Which means, if I read this right, we are in the last
days. Which, in turn, means we have been
in the last days for two thousand years.
And we are still seeing the outpouring of the Spirit upon the church.
The
fulfillment begins in the multiple languages shared on the streets of Jerusalem
on that day. The work of that prophecy
continues, we can see it in the statistics quoted above. Such is the movement of the Spirit, to carry
the gospel message to the ends of the earth.
That is the centerpiece of the message of Pentecost, the coming of the
Spirit, the unleashing of the followers of Jesus to become witnesses to a world
in need. One voice became a dozen,
becomes three thousand by verse 41, becomes billions today.
But
this Spirit-filled endeavor is contained within the realm of heavenly
power. Returning to where it opens, from
the sound of a violent wind being released from heaven, we move through the
gift of the Spirit, we move through the gift of language, we move to the first
sermon of Peter.
Peter,
in turn, picks up on the gift of language, as the Spirit will give this gift of
vision and prophesy to everyone, regardless of gender, age, or economic
status. But he does not end his passage
from Joel with the gift of the Spirit spreading the word.
He picks up on the theme of
heavenly signs being unleashed upon the world.
We begin this passage with the heavenly power of a sound like a violent
wind unleashed into the house, and we conclude with the “end times” language
from Joel:
And I will show portents
in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky
mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before
the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
We are
talking Day of Judgment in this moment.
For a far deeper development of this theme, I refer to the book of
Revelation. But I do so with my one
caveat. Read it, be entranced by the
imagery, be confused as you try to sort out the story, but always remember
this. THE GOOD GUYS WIN.
But the wind
up is simple. The last verse of our
passage:
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
And
therein is the purpose of Pentecost, the purpose of the Spirit, the purpose of
the noise as of a violent wind down from heaven, the purpose of the visual of
flames on the heads of the disciples, the purpose of the gift of language to
speak to the gathered communities of Jews represented in Jerusalem, the purpose
of what Jesus laid down for the disciples back in John, that He would always be
with them-in the form of the Spirit of Truth, the purpose of the plan of God
fulfilled in Jesus Christ, that through His death and resurrection, salvation
can come to the whole world, it is so that everyone will know the Lord and the
gifts offered through our Lord Jesus Christ, to understand their magnificent
implication in a world of sin, to realize what salvation means in this world
and the next, is to lay down for all humanity this simple truth, that to call
on the name of the Lord is to be saved.
This would be the moment in a
Public Service Announcement where the narrator would say something brilliant
like “Now the rest is up to you.” Which,
to be honest, kind of fits here. This is
the conclusion to the Season of Easter.
It began that morning when Mary went to the tomb and was the first to
meet the Risen Lord. It has extended
through all the times that Jesus appeared to his disciples, showing them his
wounds, teaching them what comes next, opening the Word of God (our Old
Testament) and revealing to them where Jesus shows up, it feels like on every
page. We have gone back through the high
points of the John, the promises that are made for the loved one who has passed
on (and we will all be that loved one someday), through the promise of the Spirit
of Truth, who is with us now. Who is
Jesus, with us now.
I am
assuming that you are one of those who has called on the Name of the Lord, one
who shall be saved when we get through all this blood and fire and smokey mist
(as Joel sees it). If not, we open that
possibility every Sunday, the invitation to come to the Lord.
So what
is it that the disciples shared on this day of Pentecost? Gifted with language, filled with the Spirit,
immersed in the power that came down from heaven? They spoke of God’s deeds of power. Never even started on what those are. Some are obvious, like Jesus’
resurrection. Others are far more
personal, like Jesus’ healing Peter’s mother-in-law. Like Jesus healing the man blind from
birth. Like Jesus raising Lazarus. Like Jesus bringing words of comfort to both
Martha and Mary in the time of Lazarus’ death before his resurrection. Like Jesus describing to the disciples what
it will be like to live forever. By
promising to be there with them when they come to the dwelling places in God’s
house. Those are the stories from the
gospel. We have our own deeds of power
to share.
When
has prayer been answered? When has Jesus
walked with you through a horrible crisis in life, only to bring you to a place
where you have the credibility to tell someone else in that crisis that things
will be ‘ok’? When have you had moments
of fun and gladness in the company of God’s house? When has the Spirit moved you through Word
and Song into a worship peak that transcends?
When
was the last time you took inventory of the deeds of power that God has done in
life? What are the amazing gifts we have
received? What are the hurdles we have
overcome? What are the dark nights of
the soul for which the morning did, in fact, come? When did we make it, even though we thought
we would not?
Recognizing
what God has done, praising God for what has been done, sharing what God has
done in that moment in the life of another when that is what is needed, that is
the power of the Spirit. That is the Holy
Spirit within us. That is the gift of
Pentecost. That is our call, from this
day forth and throughout the journey of our lives.
Amen.
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