Pentecost - The Beginning of the Church
A sermon on Act 2:1-21, Ps 104:24-35b John 20:19-23 by Jill Friebel 11 May 2008
© LaughingBird.net

Pentecost was the day the church was born.  It was fragile and new, messy and very noisy, like all birth. It came after a long and painful labour.   But there was no question, something was present and something was happening, just like there is no question when a baby appears.  

People didn’t ask if something had happened – they just got caught in it and responded to or reacted against it.  This baby wasn’t still born – God breathed life into a group of believers, such as they had never known or experienced before.  They felt something surge through them, God breathed into them and they burst into a deeper newer life.  They heard a sound that was so loud it was like a cyclone and they were inside a house.  There was a visible presence that could be described like tongues of fire dancing on their heads.  What a picture of incredible energy. Life surging swirling energy filled this group of ordinary people who were gathered together waiting and praying.  And they began speaking in different languages.

The way it happened could never have been predicted but the fact that it was going to happen had been promised many times before.    When Peter gets up to preach and give an explanation he quotes from a prophet – “Remember Joel, what he said would happen, well this is it happening right here and now.”  

The gift of the Spirit they received that day from God was enabling and equipping this infant community to carry an inspired Word about God’s risen Messiah – Jesus.  It had a specific purpose, it wasn’t to make them feel good, or more fulfilled.  It wasn’t something that was for them, which they could own and be proud of and feel a bit superior and be identified as the group that “had it”.  It was a gift to enable them to share an intelligible and intelligent word about God and his faithfulness in languages unknown to them but known to the visitors gathered in Jerusalem at the time.  

It caused an uproar.  There were thousands of extra Jews in the city who had travelled from all over to celebrate “The Festival of Pentecost”.  And at 9am in the morning this handful of “backwater unsophisticated Galileans” were speaking intelligibly in foreign languages.  They must be drunk, some mocked.  Others listened, and the Spirit breathed life into more and more and the infant church grew that day from about 120 to over 3000.  

Neither was it an accident that Pentecost happened when Jerusalem was full of religious pilgrims from around the world or that Pentecost is called just that - because that’s when it happened.  What’s even more interesting is that the Jewish Festival marks the end of the celebration of the spring harvest.  It was and is their liturgical cycle that began at Passover and it was a time when devout Israelite families praised God for gave thanks for God’s grace and bounty.  And it was the beginning of the period lasting until the autumnal Festival of Booths in which the first fruits of the field were sacrificed to Yahweh.  And for at least some of the Jews it was a time of covenant renewal.  

These people had travelled long distances because of their devotion to Yahweh and were expressing their praise and gratitude for Yahweh’s faithfulness in providing food and bounty.   There are refrains of this in the Psalm tonight.  

O LORD, what a wildly fabulous world!
........Working hand in hand with wisdom
........you have made
........an earthful of wonderful creatures.

Like seagulls at a picnic,
........every creature looks to you for food.
They gather around in eager expectation,
........and gorge themselves when you open your hand.

If you turned your back, they’d be panic stricken;
........if you withdrew your Spirit
........they would have nothing to breathe,
........their bodies would quickly crumble.
But when you breathe your spirit into them,
........life sprouts up fresh and fragrant again
........and the earth itself is revived.

Glorious is all you do, LORD,
........may you be honoured forever.
........May everything created be a joy to the LORD.

With every breath I will sing to the LORD;
........as long as there is life in me,
................I will give honour to my God in song.

Even my unspoken thoughts I offer to the LORD,
........for the LORD is a delight to me.

Their grateful hearts predisposed many to hear more about God keeping his divine promises.  They recognized more of God’s faithfulness in Jesus.  Gratitude does something to you.  It humbles you, changes you, softens you, makes you realize that God is much much bigger and more than you can comprehend and that you are totally and utterly dependant on him just as Psalmist says.  It makes you more generous and hospitable and trusting and invites you to submit to a faithful God and offer yourself to Him.    But some mocked.  

Do you find yourself naturally grateful for the endless supply of abundance that comes from the earth and heavens or do you find yourself wondering who to be grateful too like the atheist once said?  Does it come to the surface often, do you find yourself expressing gratitude both to God and to others.  Or is it hard to connect with?  Are you scared there isn’t enough to go round and keep your keep your hands down by your side with a wary look at others?        It is so isolating, and fearful and makes us fiercely independent.  It is really hard to live with someone or be friends with someone who isn’t grateful.  It is hard to live with yourself when you aren’t grateful.  It will be hard to receive even more from others and God when you aren’t grateful.  

The Spirit is described with analogies to wind, breath and fire are they are used  liberally through the Biblical accounts.  In the beginning God created, the “ruach” – wind hovered over the face of the watery darkness.  Out of the chaos comes life, in its myriad of forms, a fertile earth that keeps renewing and replenishing all life that exists.  Now the Spirit is released again – the “ruach” at Pentecost to bring more life, restoring what has been died, renewing lost hope.  Adam and Eve were breathed into by God and lived, now the Spirit breathes into humans again to receive resurrection life that has no end date with death.  The valley of dry bones in the vision of Ezekiel were lifeless, a whole army of dead bones, until the Spirit breathed into them and brought them back from the dead.  

The wind blows where it will and it is uncontrollable and unmanageable.  It is powerful, and can create chaos and bring order and new life according to what is needed.  Life itself cannot exist without wind.  Life itself cannot exist without Spirit.  Fire is also essential to life.  We cannot live without it.  It sustains, warms and nourishes us, the nomadic and primitive people’s guarded their coals, it was a sacred task to protect and keep them alive in order to survive.  It also purifies and burns away impurities, and renews the bush for more species to spring forth.  The fire of the Spirit nourishes us, purifies us, creates fire and energy and life, even when we think we are as good as dead.

Pentecost wasn’t a once off experience.  It was gift of God for the beginning of the church, and the on going enabling and equipping of God’s people to think about God in new and fresh ways, and to express it both in words and deeds. 

Jesus spoke to his disciples about his death but comforted them by assuring them they would not be left alone.  He promised to send his Spirit to comfort them and teach them and guide them into new truth, new insights.  We heard John’s Pentecost account of that happening when the resurrected Christ burst into the locked room of frightened disciples.  His presence meant forgiveness, and he spoke peace to them and breathed the Spirit into them.  Fears keep us locked up and fear resists the Spirit.  

All God asks of us is faithfulness and fidelity to be open handed and grateful.  To wait and prayer and keep turning up.  We can’t make the Spirit happen, that is beyond our control, but we can struggle with our fears, and listen to the voice of Jesus offering peace and forgiveness for everything, there is nothing he won’t and can’t forgive and there is no hurt too deep that he doesn’t understand and know about and want to heal.  He longs for you to be open so His Spirit can fill you.  There will be no mistake when we feel his energy surging through us, when the wind blows us around and his fire falls upon us.  This Spirit keeps re-birthing, renewing, restoring.  The Spirit keeps enabling and equipping to bring intelligent and intelligible words and new ways of telling others about Jesus.