Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The text for this meditation is written in the 2nd Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: Verses 1 - 21
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like ga mighty rushing wind, and hit filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues las the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And mat this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 " ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
what I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Today is the Feast of Pentecost – the Sunday when we focus on the revelation of the Holy Spirit fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead and ten days after He ascended into heaven. The three readings that the church has chosen for this day all point to some aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament reading tells us that the Word of God is powerful enough to bring dry bones back to life. The Epistle is the account of Pentecost itself. The Gospel is Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit and His description of the benefits that the disciples will receive from the Holy Spirit.
A search through the Holy Scriptures reveal to us that the Pentecost described in the above text was not the First Pentecost. Pentecost is the Greek term for the Feast of Weeks and God established the Feast of Weeks when He gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. It was one of the three festivals that required the Men of Israel to gather together at the place of the Lord. The other two feasts were the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Booths. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a week-long celebration that begins the day after Passover. The Feast of Booths was a time for remembering the forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Moses summarised this when he gave his farewell sermon in Deuteronomy: [Deuteronomy 16:16] “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths.”
The reason I mention this, is that I just marvel at how God prepared Israel for the coming of the Messiah even as God was giving the Law to Moses on Sinai. Jerusalem would have been full of pilgrims when Jesus died on the cross because it was Passover – right at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In a similar way, Jerusalem would be full of pilgrims on Pentecost – right at the beginning of the Feast of Weeks. The Sound of the mighty wind and the appearance of the tongues of fire were a call to gather the faithful men of Israel – the faithful men who had gathered according to the Law given to Moses so many centuries ago.
The Holy Spirit called the faithful men of Israel together as the beginning of the New Testament church. Up until now, these pilgrims had been faithfully waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah. Now the Holy Spirit called them together to inform them that the long awaited Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Now their faith was not to be in the promise of a Messiah who would one day save them. Instead, it was to be in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah who had come and kept God’s promise.
Importantly, for all who were present and those who were to come the Holy Spirit let His presence be known in a rare and spectacular way on that day; but, the ultimate goal of this spectacular display of sound and light was to draw the faithful Pentecost pilgrims together so that they could hear about the mighty works of God. The proclamation of the mighty works of God was so important that the Holy Spirit even gave the disciples the ability to proclaim those mighty works in the native languages of all the faithful pilgrims who arrived on the scene.
The mighty works of God focus on the person of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that He earned for the entire world. Seven weeks earlier, the Romans crucified this man. They mocked Him, spit on Him, beat Him with rods, scourged Him with whips, and then nailed Him to a cross. Jesus Christ died on that cross, but it was not possible for death to hold Him and He rose from the dead. Now the disciples were telling the faithful that they were witnesses of all these things. These are the mighty works of God that the disciples were telling to the faithful in their own native languages.
The true work of the Holy Spirit is not in the tongues of fire or the sound of the mighty rushing wind. The true work of the Holy Spirit is in the proclamation of the mighty works of God. As Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” The sound was impressive and it drew a crowd. Never the less, the main work of the Holy Spirit witnesses about Jesus.
What does the Holy Spirit’s message sound like then? In the Holy Gospel, Jesus said, “When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”
Our own nature is inclined to think that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. The difficulty comes when we try to determine who is good enough to go to heaven and who is so bad that they are definitely going to hell. The Holy Spirit steps in and settles the argument. He convicts the world of sin. He tells me that I am not good enough to go to heaven and that I deserve to go to hell.
He comes to me and tells me that I have lost many opportunities. He says, “As a husband, you have not loved your wife as Christ loved the church. As a father, you have not brought up your children in the fear of the Lord. As a son, you have not honoured your parents. As a pastor, you have not cared for my sheep. Do not even begin to think that there is anything you can do to earn your way into heaven.” He convicts me of my sin and shows me that I am indeed totally helpless before God.
If the Holy Spirit left me in that state, I would be most wretched – but He doesn’t. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of righteousness. The Holy Spirit beholds me in my helpless state before God and says, “There is a righteousness that belongs to you. This is the righteousness of the Son of God – Jesus Christ. The righteousness of His perfect life is yours. The price that He paid is dearer than you can possibly imagine. He bought you with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. With this dreadful price He exchanged His righteousness for your sin. Now He offers salvation to you for free.” There is sweet comfort in the Holy Spirit’s conviction of righteousness for it is the righteousness of Christ unto salvation. It is the Holy Spirit who makes the righteousness of Christ available to us through faith.
In addition to this, there is the Holy Spirit’s conviction of judgment. The world wants to stand in judgment over us, and Satan thinks he is God Himself. They take it upon themselves to judge between right and wrong – between that which must be condemned and that which must be accepted. Even though the message of salvation through Jesus Christ is for the entire world, Satan and the World insist that this message is divisive, narrow-minded, intolerant, and bigoted. The world brings this thinking against God and His Christians in an effort to exterminate the message of the Gospel.
The Holy Spirit fights the judgment of this world with his own conviction of judgment. He draws our attention to the fate of the ruler of this world – Satan. Satan’s judgment is already sealed. He is the one who brought God’s beloved creation into the state of sin and for that he will suffer forever. As the Holy Spirit reveals the fate of Satan to us, He assures us that judgment and condemnation by the world is not the judgment of God, but that it is the judgment of the devil who is already condemned by God.
God carried out His judgment against sin when He punished His son in our place on the cross. Now the Holy Spirit reveals God’s judgment. God looks at all believers in Christ and says, “I see only the righteousness of my beloved Son, Jesus Christ. There is no condemnation.”
The Holy Spirit could probably introduce us to Christ in an infinite number of ways, but He has chosen to introduce us through the Word of God. He works and sustains faith in us through the Word of God that we hear with our ears and read with our eyes. He works faith in us with the wet Word of Holy Baptism as we combine the Word of God with water according to Christ’s command. He sustains our baptismal faith as we confess our sins to God our Father and hear Christ’s Word of forgiveness on the lips of our pastor. He strengthens our faith as Christ Himself comes to us as the living Word in His body and blood. In these ways, the Holy Spirit has chosen to connect us to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Now we might well ask, “How powerful can words really be? Are words really that important?” The answer to that question comes to us from the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel. God actually commanded Ezekiel to preach a sermon to a congregation of dry bones. Ezekiel preached according to the word of the Lord and the dry bones became an exceedingly great army.
The Word of God is powerful – not because we say it or use it – but because God stands behind it with His promises. God has promised: [Isaiah 55:10-11] “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
The Holy Spirit works through the Word to put the finishing touch of faith on our salvation. God the Father sent His Son into the world [John 3:17] in order that the world might be saved through him. The Son has purchased our salvation with His holy, precious blood, and His innocent suffering and death. The Holy Spirit brings this salvation to us as He calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, and sanctifies us in the one, true faith. So the work of justification is complete. We do nothing. God does it all. Because God does it all, our salvation is secure and we shall live forever with Him. Amen
The peace and grace of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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