Sermon
on texts from Acts 2:1-21 and John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
Creator Spirit,
heavenly dove, descend upon us from above;
With graces manifold restore your
creatures as they were before.
To you, the Comforter,
we cry; to you, the gift of God most high,
True fount of life, the fire of
love, the soul’s anointing from above.
(Evangelical Lutheran
Worship hymnal, #577, verses 1&2)
Beautiful words, yes? Inspiring words. Comforting words.
With its evocative melody, this chant, Creator Spirit,
Heavenly Dove is frequently sung during ordinations,
consecrations and commissionings of individuals set apart to serve in specific
ministries in the church.
This chant is selected in part, I am sure, as a means to inspire
the newly commissioned, consecrated, or ordained, as well as to remind us all
of what God is doing in our midst- calling us together, equipping us for
ministry, teaching us the ways of God, feeding us, and then sending us out in
mission and service to the gospel.
I clearly remember hearing this hymn chanted at my own
ordination – some of you were even there. Referred to as the Hymn of
Invocation, the entire assembly sang that day as many pastors surrounded me and
prepared to lay their hands upon me.
Hearing these words and then feeling those hands upon my
head, my shoulders, my back, my arms - was a powerful experience, and not only
for me personally, but for all present; each hand, each voice presenting the
Church at large, united by the Holy Spirit.
In you, with graces
sevenfold, we God’s almighty hand behold;
While you with tongues of fire
proclaim to all the world
God’s holy name.
(Evangelical Lutheran
Worship hymnal, #577, verse 3)
Perhaps these words are meant to comfort and inspire, since these
are part of the work of the Holy Spirit. But I know that on that day, I felt
the weight of those hands, too.
For while the
ministry of God is an important and life-giving ministry in which we all have a
share, the truth is that there are also forces in the world which oppose God’s
purpose and will. As Jesus points out in our gospel lesson, these forces do not
believe in Jesus, or in his message of grace and love. They – those forces –
those voices – can sometimes weigh us down, calling us to hate when we know
we should love. They can create confusion, beseeching us to doubt, when we want
so badly to believe. They can tear at our fabric of our faith, attempting to
drown out the message of God’s grace and mercy.
They can cause despair to creep in. They can discourage. They
can sometime lead us down the path of least resistance – the path of denial not
only of God’s existence, but of
God’s supremacy in our lives.
Come Holy Spirit!
Perhaps, we are all in need of a little soothing, inspiring and
comforting from time to time, as we come up against those forces, and feel or
witness their impact in the world. At those times it is good to know that God’s Holy Spirit is
walking beside us each day in all ways encouraging us, inspiring us, and yes,
comforting us. But these are not the only things that the Holy Spirit of God does.
If we look at the reading that we have from the book of Acts
this morning, we see some words that do not evoke the sweet scenes of a gently
descending dove sent to lull us back to peaceful reverie when we become disturbed
by the cacophony of worldly sound and voice. Instead, in this reading, we get images of confusion and are
reminded that in the beginning, God’s spirit hovered over the waters and did
what? – Stirred them up.
Those in attendance on that Pentecost day are described as being
perplexed. The Holy Spirit is a rushing wind, stirring things up, filling
the place where they were staying–
The text describes it as a violent wind – powerful, perhaps even
relentless. Fire appeared among the people gathered there; divided tongues of
fire rested on each one of them.
After checking for singed hair, the disciples start babbling
to one another, even more startled and confused, because low and behold, suddenly,
these friends who formerly spoke only Aramaic or maybe, a little Greek, were speaking
in many other tongues!
Imagine this scene with me, if you will:
Look! There is our friend, John, is that Persian coming out
of his mouth?
And what about James – he has never been to Babylonia, how
can he be speaking their language, and so clearly, too!
Bartholomew? Is that you? But it sounds like Elamite coming
from your lips!
And is that really Nathaniel – speaking Egyptian, of all
things? How? How can this be?
And people from throughout Jerusalem gather in the street outside the place they are staying,
drawn by all the noise and captivated by what they see – by what they hear.
I’ll bet comfort isn’t a feeling that was much felt in that
moment. Bewilderment, yes; maybe, fear; and amazement, surely. I’ll bet there
was astonishment, excitement - and confusion.
And then, there were those other voices too,
the
ones speaking in opposition to God’s powerful,
miraculous
work on that Pentecost Day.
“They
are filled with new wine,” they sneered.
As I reflected on these scriptures this week, I began to
wonder how this reading of the text might affect the way we understand the Holy
Spirit’s work in our lives, beginning at our Baptism. Most of us present today were baptized as infants, as were
our confirmands, who will each affirm her baptism in a few moments during the
Rite of Confirmation. As babies, we might have missed the rushing wind and astonishing
feeling of the Holy Spirit descending upon us – or perhaps we didn’t miss it –
we just didn’t know what it was. We were babies, after all.
Others of us came to faith, or at least to the font of
living waters, at an age of discretion – either as teens or adults. But, distracted
by the human words that surrounded us that day, the music, perhaps even our own
nervousness, we, too, may have missed the immediate feeling of God’s Spirit covering
us and filling us up – although I have to tell you that the adults I have
baptized describe an experience of amazing and powerful clarity and the power
of the Holy Spirit palpably present on that day.
At our Baptism, the pastor said these or similar words,
while tracing the sign of the cross, perhaps in oil, on their forehead: “(Your
name, Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the
cross of Christ forever.”
My friends, rather than words of comfort and consolation, these
are words of invocation.
They are a declaration not of who you are but whose you are:
They claim us, Child
of God, and they challenge us, Child
of God!; they charge us – You are
a Child of God and they send us out – Go
forth, Child of God!
It occurs to me that at the moment of our Baptism, these
words do anything but comfort us.
The good news however, is that while they do all of those
things – claim, challenge, charge, and send, those words – “child of God” - come
with the promise that in faith God’s Holy Spirit goes with us. God’s Holy
Spirit walks with, in, and beside us. God’s Spirit is there to inspire us when
we soar and to brush us off, heal our
wounds, and send us back out when we fail.
Jesus makes the promise that he will send his Spirit upon
us. A Spirit who will guide us in all we do and say, that in the vast
experience of our lives, we might glorify God.
On this Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, we
stand with all the faithful to proclaim that the powers of evil have been
vanquished through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
We proclaim that through his victory over sin and death,
Jesus has claimed the victory and that as he promised, Jesus sends the
Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to ensure that God’s vision and determination for
the world will come to fruition.
As our young people are confirmed today, we celebrate with
them and with all those in other places similarly being confirmed, together
with the whole church, the power of God’s Holy Spirit to be present in every
circumstance, providing exactly what we need to be God’s people.
We accept the Spirit’s challenge to be the church which
acclaims the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit as alive, present and
active, constantly inspiring, leading, challenging, teaching, feeding, and
sending us forth to be the hands and feet and heart of God in the world. We
invite the Spirit’s stirring us up and renewing us to live the Way of Christ.
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