The Lutheran Pentecostal Church - Sermon for the Day of Pentecost, June 5, A+D 2022

Festival of Pentecost, June 5th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Pentecostal Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
John 14:15 - 31 and Acts 2:1-42

 Text Expositions:  Each section of our readings from John and Acts are briefly explained.  Then the Sermon follows.  

John 14:15 – 24

    “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What does Jesus mean?  Moses’ Law? The Ten Commandments?  Well, yes, but much more.  Every time John’s Gospel uses commandment or command, there is a close connection to Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection, which is the love of God poured out for us.  Jesus had said the commandment He received from His Father was to lay down His life, and take it up again, to die and rise again.   Preparing the Eleven for the Suffering and Cross they would witness the next day, Jesus tells them to hang on, to trust that this Cross, commanded by the Father, is good, and that no matter what, Jesus will come back. 

    Hang on to the Cross.  This is great advice, especially as Jesus goes on to talk about His Father and the Holy Spirit.  One goes there and the other comes here, one true God doing so many things, so hard to understand.  Hold on to the Cross, for there you see God clearly, fulfilling all His commandments, especially the Gospel commandment, eternal life. 

John 14:25 – 31

    More Trinitarian circles – I go to the Father, the Spirit comes to you, and yet I will come to you.  It’s hard to understand.  But don’t give up on following the Words of Jesus.  Because all this mysterious teaching flows through and keeps us connected to His Cross.  The devil rules this world and makes threats at you.  But you are baptized into the Cross.  God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are on your side.  And so Jesus rises to go meet His persecutors, to be arrested, in order to save His enemies, including us. 

Acts 2:1 – 13

    When the day of Pentecost arrived, they, that is the disciples of Jesus, the 120 men and women of the infant Church, were all together in one place.  Pentecost was a wheat harvest festival, one of the three pilgrimage festivals of Israel.  This is why there were Jews in Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean world; they were in town for the Pentecost wheat harvest festival. 

    The 120 disciples were all together in a house near the Temple; God had brought all the pieces together to kick start His Church.  On Pentecost the Lord makes several plays on words.  “Spirit” also means breath, and wind, and so the Holy Spirit announces His arrival with a mighty wind.  “Tongue” means both the language we speak, and also the muscle in our mouth that, along with our breath and voice box, we use for speaking.  God is a consuming fire.  So the Holy Spirit comes down and settles on the disciples in flames shaped like tongues, and gives them the miraculous ability to proclaim God’s mighty deeds in languages which, the moment before, they had not known.  

   A congregation comes running to see what’s going on, and are amazed to hear a bunch of rednecks speaking all of their native languages.  They ask the Lutheran question:  What does this mean? Some make a snide joke: “They are filled with new wine.”  But no matter, God has gathered the exact people He intended, so that Peter can preach to them.   

Acts 2:14 – 21

   What does Peter preach?  A Health and Wealth Gospel?  Seven steps to a better you?  Old fashioned fire and brimstone: you better shape up or else?  A mystic message, that if you pray hard enough, you too can experience these wondrous signs?  No, Peter doesn’t preach any of these.  The Holy Spirit inspires Peter to proclaim the Good News, about God’s Mission to pour out His Spirit on humanity, so that all who call on the Name of the Lord will be saved. 

Acts 2:22 – 36

     First Peter preached from the Old Testament Prophets to explain the wonders the people had just heard.  Now he connects the Old Testament to Jesus, crucified and resurrected.  God’s Truth revealed and fulfilled in the Word made flesh.  The Miracle Worker sent from God, known to all, who was crucified and killed, according to God’s plan.  God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, had been working toward this goal, and now it was complete.  Let all the house of Israel, indeed, let the whole world therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus, whom you crucified.”

Acts 22:37-42

    There can be no sharper Law – you rejected and killed the Holy Son of God.  The gathered crowd, some of whom had mocked the miracle of languages, now is cut to the heart.  Woe is me; I am lost.  I am guilty of the blood of Jesus.  “Brothers,” they cry out to the Twelve in desperation, “what shall we do?”  And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 

     And so the Church of Christ was off and running.  Three thousand baptized that first Pentecost, billions more since then.  The faithful have always followed the same pattern of that day, focusing on the four pillars of the life of the Church, the Apostles’ teaching, recorded for us in the New Testament, the fellowship, that is the life of mutual care and love within the Body of Believers, the Breaking of Bread, the earliest shorthand term to refer to the Lord’s Supper, and the prayers, the communal prayers of the congregation, which enliven and instruct the individual prayers of the Christian.  So they did, and so we also do, by the guiding of the Holy Spirit, until Jesus returns to take us home.   

 Sermon

 Welcome to Our Savior’s/Redeemer Pentecostal Church!  The Spirit has gathered us from the four winds, to hear Him continue the miracle of tongues in our midst, and to receive His charismatic gifts. 

 What?  You gotta problem with that?  Did you not leave the house this morning expecting to come to a Pentecostal church?  Does talking about miracles of tongues make you nervous?  Do you prefer your preachers to lack charisma? 

    Word meaning always get corrupted, especially good Biblical Words that Satan wants to confuse and rob from us.  This certainly applies to the events of the first Christian Pentecost, where the disciples received the gift of speaking in other languages.  “Pentecostal” now is usually understood quite differently.  And yet I assure you that rightly understood, we are, as a Lutheran congregation, truly the Pentecostal church.  Truly we benefit from the gift of tongues.  Indeed, we have all the charismatic gifts, Spirit-delivered to us week after week, that they might renew us, and also be manifest in us in our daily lives.

    To say “charismatic gifts” is a bit redundant.  Charismatic means gifted, because charisma means, biblically, a gift.  To say “charismatic gifts” is to repeat oneself: “gifted gifts.”  Regardless, we are certainly a charismatic church, because we come together to receive God’s gifts.  Gathering to receive good gifts from God defines who we are as Church. 

    Sometimes the Holy Spirit gives miraculous gifts, amazing occurrences that attract attention, like the rushing wind, the tongues of fire and the gift of languages, which enabled the disciples to proclaim the mighty works of God in many languages, all at once.  Like Jesus with His miracles, the Spirit used these amazing signs to get people to listen to the saving Word of the crucified and resurrected Christ.  The Spirit always gives gifts to connect us to Jesus.  Like forgiveness, adoption by God, peace, joy, and zeal.  Yes indeed, we are a charismatic church, for we daily and richly receive tremendous gifts from God the Holy Spirit. 

   And we benefit from tongues, or languages.  The gift of languages serves the purpose of expanding the Mission of God to reach more and more people groups, in their own language.  God wants all people to hear the Good News of Jesus in the language of their heart.  What began as an instantaneous miracle at Pentecost has continued through less spectacular means, as the Church has translated the Bible and gone out doing missions in an ever-increasing list of different languages.  English didn’t exist in 30 A.+D., but no worries, the Lord has been working through the centuries to ensure that you can gather to hear of Him in your own language.   

    Our Lutheran shorthand for what God does when we gather is “Word and Sacrament Ministry.”    Which is the same thing as a “Biblical Pentecostal Ministry.”  For the Holy Spirit, after attracting a crowd with the wind, flames and languages, quickly moved on to the main events:  St. Peter was moved to preach the cross and resurrection of Jesus for salvation, cutting sinners to the heart, and making them cry out:  Brothers, what must we do?  Cross centered preaching, forgiveness, Baptism: what began on Pentecost continues today.  The Pentecost Church was and is the Church of proclaiming Law and Gospel, human sin and God’s grace, the Cross, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.  Preaching Jesus leads to Baptism, to the public declaration by God that this one, this sinner, is mine, forgiven, restored, gifted by me, for eternal life in my kingdom. 

      The true Pentecost Church is centered around the Apostles’ teaching, the proclamation by the church founders chosen by Christ, who constantly preached from the Old Testament to prove the Good News of Jesus and His forgiveness.  The Pentecost Church walks in fellowship, caring for one another, correcting one another, loving one another.  The Pentecost Church breaks bread together, not just at potluck meals, but also and most importantly the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, bodily present, another miracle, in the Supper of Our Lord.  The Pentecost Church prays, first together, and also individually, always calling on the Name of the Lord, for our protection in the faith, for the expansion of Christ’s Church, for the relief of sickness and suffering, and for the return of Jesus. 

    This is who we are.  This is who you are.  Not because of anything you have done, not because of some impressive gift you bring to the table.  No, we are the Pentecost Church because Jesus has come to us, and is still coming to us, with Gospel gifts.  Jesus is always sending His Spirit to give us breath and life, today, and forever and ever, Amen.