Day of Pentecost – C
Pastor Peter Lisinski
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(Texts: Acts 2:1-13; John 7:37-39)
You have taken a great risk by coming to church today! God’s Holy Spirit may blow through this sanctuary at any moment, just as Luke described in today’s reading from the book of Acts. On the first Day of Pentecost in Christian history, when all the members of the first and only Christian congregation yet in the world gathered for worship, God’s wind of change swirled among Jesus’ weary, confused and discouraged followers, sweeping them out from the refuge of their sanctuary into the public eye as rejuvenated, enlightened, and inspired witnesses to the promised reign of God – contained in the divine humanity; expressed in the public ministry; fulfilled in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The
same thing not only could happen, but will happen, and is already happening –
today, on this Day of Pentecost, in this, and in all, congregations within our
Teachers much wiser about the ways of God than I sometimes put it this way: “Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it”! The life of the Christian church; the life of our congregation, as well as our own personal lives, may not remain as convenient or comfortable in the days after Pentecost as they may have been in the days before God’s Holy Spirit arrived. Yes, by gathering in the worship sanctuary today, we have all taken the risk that our lives may never be the same!
And, indeed, our lives have changed; and they will continue to change for as long as we live, because the Spirit of God has been constantly and consistently doing his faith and mission-renewing work ever since the death and resurrection of Jesus, which – as John explains in today’s Gospel – is the source of Pentecost’s outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in the world: “As yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.”
The Holy spirit of god is the divine power of Jesus’ death and the glory of Jesus’ resurrection, blowing freely through all creation – sometimes like a gentle summer breeze, gradually spreading seeds of new life; sometimes like a sudden gale-force blast, ushering out the old and bringing in the new, ready or not! And ever since the first Day of Pentecost, the Christian church has been called to channel God’s wind of change – first within and among us; then in the world around us.
The story of the first Christian Pentecost, introduces the story of how Jesus’ followers went out into the streets of their lost and broken community to publicly challenge every human obstacle to God’s will for the peace and unity of the whole world. Beginning with religious intolerance, still a huge bone of contention in the world today, the church – non-violently – confronted the social sins of economic oppression, racial discrimination, gender inequality, military aggression, and political corruption, calling people of every culture, creed and colour into the new creation of God’s universal, unconditional, and unlimited love for all human beings.
The Pentecost story continues to be written. Inspired by God’s Holy Spirit, you and I – together with all Christians of this and every generation – are its authors, and central to the yet-unfolding Pentecost story is the Christian church’s own need for renewal in faith and mission. Yes, it’s true that God loves and accepts us all by grace, just as we are. But it is also true that God’s grace refuses to leave us just as we are.
Sometimes in dramatic, life-changing moments – like fiery flames that may singe our hair – but mostly through the daily wind and water of baptism, the Holy Spirit calls us, and leads us – sometimes drags us kicking and screaming – into the new creation God intends – and, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the new creation God has already established – not only for God’s chosen people in Israel or the Church, but for all God’s chosen people in the all the world.
Amen! Come, Holy Spirit!