Pentecost
Acts 2:1-11
Pentecost is one of the greatest stories in all of Scripture. It’s the stuff of a Hollywood thriller with the violent rushing winds, divided tongues of fire, the superhero abilities of spontaneously hearing and speaking in foreign languages; fire and smoky mist; young men having visions; old men having dreams; the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood. The disciples are transformed from men hiding in fear of their lives to throwing caution into the wind and walking out into the streets of Jerusalem to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ. Imagine with me today, what it would be like if Pentecost would happen all over again today…here, right now? The problem with Pentecost is that it doesn’t fit into our rational, realistic adult outlook on things. And it certainly doesn’t fit into our experience of God. We can get so caught up on the special effects of Pentecost that we miss the real point of Pentecost entirely. Pentecost requires us to make a fundamental decision about two things: what is reality or our worldview and how am I going to live in the light of Pentecost?
To answer that question, let’s look at the movie, “The Matrix.” In it, Neo, the main character played by Keanu Reeves, is busy living the life of a well-adjusted realist in the real world. But he can’t get away from one nagging thought: that something isn’t right, that there is more to the world than what he sees and hears all around him each and every day. Neo who is brought by a woman named Trinity to meet Morpheus who begins to explain it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDadfh0ZdBM start at 38 second in…
Morpheus offers Neo the chance of a lifetime: to discover the truth about what’s real. What happens to Neo is what happens to us. We’re busy living the life of well-adjusted realists caught up in our over committed lives in a materialistic world, but deep down we have this nagging sense that there is more to this world and more to life than what we see and hear around us each day. Philip Yancey in his book, “Rumors of Another World, writes of this when he says we live in a world and a culture which has reduced the world only to matter, that is, the physical. And yet, all around us there are rumors or hints of another world beyond the materialistic world around us. “Rumors of another world sneak in even among those who restrict their view to the world of matter. Environmentalists still grope for some transcendent authority or Higher Power to sanction our reverence for creation. They have borrowed the metaphor “sacred” and draw upon the Biblical concept of stewardship….Scientists who dare not mention God or a Designer speak instead of an anthropic principle evident in creation….Rumors of another world seep into art as well as artists feel stirrings…even they cannot detect its source. And then there are the longings within us,” like Neo, that there is something more. Pentecost gives a glimmer and insight into a world beyond matter and the material.
There is a physical and spiritual world. Like Neo, we’re faced with a choice, here and now. Having heard the story of Pentecost this morning, we too have an opportunity to choose. We can simply walk out this morning the way we walked in, as well-adjusted realists living in a material world confined to matter and keep living our limited lives as we have been. In the words of Morpheus, we will wake up in the morning and believe whatever it is we want to believe or more accurately, whatever the world wants us to believe. Or you can choose to believe there is more, a spirit world all around us in which you can participate and live in and by and through the Spirit. Yes, It would be a whole lot easier if tongues of fire to rip through the ceiling and the Spirit rushed in here this morning, settling it once and for all. Then we would know that there is more to reality. But that’s not the way it happens. You have to take a leap of faith.
When you do, you not only begin to see the world as it really is and you learn that you are really not free, but slaves. We think we are free and in control of our lives, when in reality we too are slaves…slaves to a picture of reality that lacks one decisive thing, the key, the clue that unlocks it all, that makes sense out of it all: we are slaves to sin and in need of a Savior. We live in a world that is constantly streaming reality into our consciousness, the internet and cable TV, and the reality that they present to us has one great aim, to keep us afraid, to keep us living in fear, and so we do. We live lives of well-adjusted, quiet suburban fear. We safeguard ourselves against risk. We buy insurance and extended warranties. We hoard our resources. We add security systems to our homes. We live in gated communities. And above all, we keep our eye on people because it’s the people we are worried about, right? Deep down we believe we have to look after ourselves because no one else is going to do it for us. We must secure our own future. We seek to be in control. We want to live bold lives, courageous lives and take risks, but in the end the risk becomes too great and fear takes over as we settle for safe and secure lives.
This morning in the story of Pentecost, taking the red pill means coming to see the truth about reality: we are sinners in need of a Savior and that Savior is Jesus who died upon the cross for our sins and was raised from the dead. Amen? That is the point of Pentecost. It’s a story about what is really real, what is ultimately real, namely that Jesus is raised from the dead and new life and forgiveness is found in him and him alone. But that’s not all. It’s not about just hearing the truth about reality. If you believe it and accept it for yourself, it changes everything. Once you take it there is no going back. Once you have the truth that about the Good News of Jesus Christ, it changes everything because now we have to figure out how we ought to live in light of what we know to be really true. We have to figure out where we go from here and how we are to live into this truth.
What’s your plan? In The Matrix after Neo learns the truth about reality, he devises a plan. It’s an audacious, ridiculous, ludicrous plan. Trinity says to Neo, “No one has ever done anything like this before.” At Pentecost, something similar happens to those first Christians. Having come to see the truth about reality, that Jesus is raised, the church devises and implements an audacious, ridiculous, ludicrous plan…something that no one there had ever seen or done before. Instead of living in fear, fear of death or fear of each other or even the Roman government, they begin to live bold and daring lives. They begin to dream new dreams, have new visions, and live into them. In Acts 2, we see the early church freely sharing their resources with one another. They live together and they help one another. They welcome and help the poor. They embrace people from every tribe and nation. And they remain steadfast and faithful to God, even when the Roman government hunts them down and kills them.
My question for us this morning is, if we have learned the truth about reality, that Jesus is raised, how has that truth changed the way you live? And more pointedly, do you live in such a way in the light of the truth and empower by God’s spirit, that people around us say, no one has ever done anything like this before? We need to ask ourselves what it would mean to live our lives each and every day without fear because we’ve discovered the truth about the future. How should we live differently if we really believe that Christ is raised and if we really believed in eternal life? What should we do with our resources? How big of a house do we really need? How should we relate to our neighbors and even our enemies?
The power of Pentecost is available to you! If you’re like me, you want to choose the red pill each and every day and live into that new reality. But if we’re honest, some days are harder than others to believe that Jesus is raised from the dead and living life accordingly. But if the point of Pentecost is that Jesus is raised and that this is the decisive clue to reality, then the power of Pentecost is this, we are not alone. We have not been left without help. Believing in the resurrection and following Jesus is not something we have to do by the sheer force of our own strength. The power of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all people who believe in Jesus and that the Spirit’s work above all is to assist us to discover and to embrace the truth about reality that Jesus is raised and to help us live like no one else has ever lived before. This, friends, is the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is the gift and the power of Pentecost, that we have someone in the Holy Spirit who is ever ready and willing to help us. Whether it’s to help us to believe in our moments of unbelief, when we’re just not so sure that Jesus is raised, or whether it’s to help us in those moments where we believe in Jesus but we struggle to take risks. We struggle with fear because we know we might lose everything.
My hunch this morning is that there are some of us here who struggle some days with believing there is another world, that we are sinners in need of a Savior, that Jesus is raised from the dead and the power that raised Jesus from the grave is available to us. So every now and then we sort of ask, “Really?” about the resurrection. And then I think there are probably some of us who some days do a good job living in the power of the resurrection. Sometimes we do a good job sharing our resources. Some days we do a good job of relying on the Spirit’s guidance and power in doing the will of God. Then other days we get a little worried about our retirement portfolio, and we start to live a little bit in fear again and we hoard our resources instead of giving them away freely. We try to control our lives and our destiny. And we try to live life on our own rather than submit to the Holy Spirit. If we’re honest, we have good days and bad days, and most days we are somewhere in between. The good news this: for those of us who believe, the Holy Spirit is here and you can listen to the Spirit and obey the Spirit and the will of God, if you so choose. But you have to take the red pill and believe that there is much more than this material world. There is a spirit world and it is filled with the Spirit of God.
Philip Yancey writes, “You need eyes to see and ears to hear, Jesus said…It takes the mystery of faith, always to believe….because rumors of another world are just that, rumors, and not proofs, a thin membrane of belief separates the natural from the supernatural…and we must learn to pay attention to notice the difference. Amen. Close with prayer
