Pentecost Sunday
John 14:25-27
One of the summer jobs that I had as I was going to school was being a stadium usher at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, MN. I’d work some concerts, and at the end of the summer I might work a preseason football game or two, but for the most part I was there during Twins baseball games. And we had to be there 2 hours before the game started, and we were there well after the last fan had left the stadium. And after a game was over, I guess I used to think that that’s it: they closed down the place and the fans, players, vendors, and other workers all went home. But that wasn’t quite true. As soon as the game ended, another army of people began their work of cleanup. There were dozens and dozens of custodial workers who would sweep up all the spilled nachos and sunflower seed shells, mop up the spilled beverages, and clean up the ketchup and mustard that had squirted out of hot dogs. Of course, right when these people were starting their work, I was leaving. And yet I knew when I came back the next day the entire stadium would swept, mopped, and looking clean once again. Not a whole lot of people really notice the work of these people, but I guarantee that if they weren’t there for a week, people would miss the work that they do.
That’s kind of how the God the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit didn’t send his only Son to die, the Holy Spirit didn’t carry our sins to the cross and suffer and die for them. And at first glance, it doesn’t seem as though the work of the Holy Spirit is all that spectacular. The Holy Spirit goes about his work in a silent way, behind the scenes. And yet, the work that he does is of utmost importance. Today on Pentecost Sunday, we will see that the Holy Spirit is the Strong, Silent Type. He is sent by Jesus and God the Father, he is sent here to teach us, and he is sent to proclaim the Lord’s peace.
Part I
Did you ever wonder why the Apostles’ Creed begins with the words “I believe…” while the Nicene Creed starts with “We believe…”? Why is one singular and one plural? The Apostles’ Creed developed as a confession that new converts to Christianity would recite at their baptism. It was an individual’s statement of their faith, and so it has the singular “I believe...” The Nicene Creed was formulated about 300 years after Christ. And the Nicene Creed was written as a confession against many false teachings of the day. You know, when we look at Christianity today, we see it splintered into so many groups: Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and so forth. And then we see it splintered even further into subgroups: these many different types of Baptists, there at least 20 different Lutheran Synods in the U.S. alone. Of course nothing is new in the Christian Church. Even the apostles had to deal with individuals and groups who would accept much of the Bible, but also would add their own ideas to it. And early on in the Christian Church, there were quite a number of denominations: groups called the Donatists, the Nestorians, the Apollinarians, the Monophysites, the Arians. Now we won’t discuss every single point of doctrine this morning, but in a general way these groups had false ideas about Jesus Christ. Some groups would deny Christ’s divinity, saying that he wasn’t God, or if he was, he wasn’t as much of God as God the Father was. Then other groups went overboard in reacting and said Jesus is God, in fact, he is just God, and wasn’t ever really a human being. The Nicene Creed was written by the True Church to combat these false teachings about Jesus. That’s why we confess every communion Sunday, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ… of one being with the Father.” In other words, Jesus is on the exact same plane as God the Father. And yet we also confess that Jesus “became fully human.” The mystery of the incarnation is that this God, who is so high above us, not only came to our earth, but became a human being, like one of us.
But the other key phrase in the Nicene Creed that we really want to hone in on this morning has to do with the Holy Spirit, whom we confess “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Once again, there were people, in their efforts to make Jesus something less than God the Father, who would say that only God the Father has the power and authority to send out the Holy Spirit, and since Jesus doesn’t do that, he isn’t really God. That false teaching is dealt with head-on not just by the Nicene Creed, but more importantly, by the Word of God itself. In Verse 25, listen to how Jesus states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both him and the Father, “All this I have spoke while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
Whenever you heard the story of all the odd and miraculous things that happened on that first Pentecost Sunday, do you ever think, “this is such a neat story, all the things happening when Jesus sent the Spirit, but too bad we don’t witness miracles of the Holy Spirit like those early Christians did.” My friends, we do witness miracles of the Holy Spirit. Do you know why he has the name “Holy Spirit”? I mean, if you consider the righteous angels, there are literally thousands of beings that could be called holy spirits. But the third person of the Trinity is not called the Holy Spirit to stress what HE IS, rather it stresses what HE DOES. True, he is holy, but we call him holy because he makes us holy. At your baptism, Jesus and God the Father sent the Spirit into your heart to make you holy, to make you God’s child. When you hear the Word like you are this morning or read it at home, Jesus and the Father send that Spirit into your heart to remind you that you are a forgiven sinner, holy in God’s sight. When a worthy communicant comes to the Lord’s table, not only do they receive the real body and blood that Jesus sacrificed for sin, but Jesus and the Father also send the Spirit into the heart of the Christian. Oh, we don’t have to envy the early church, because we also see, we know, we experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
Part II
We mentioned this last week when we talked about Judas and Matthias. When Jesus ascended into heaven, from an earthly point of view, it looked like he had left his church a mess. Even after Jesus died on the cross, after he rose from the dead, and after he appeared to his followers and explained things to them, they still didn’t get it. Remember right before Jesus ascends into heaven, what’s the question his disciples ask him, “Jesus, are you now going to set up that earthly kingdom that we’ve been waiting for?” They still didn’t get it! Here Jesus had been teaching them for 3 years, preparing them to be his ambassadors to the world, and they didn’t yet understand why he had come to earth. But all was not lost. Because the Holy Spirit would be a teacher who would help those disciples understand what they needed to know. Jesus said about this Spirit, “[he] will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
There is something that I tell many prospective members as we are beginning our first Bible Information Class. I explain that we are going to be using the Bible; we will look up a bunch of passages during the course of our study. We will be looking at a lot of different doctrines that the Bible teaches us. Some doctrines are easy to understand, some are more difficult because they don’t seem to make sense to us. But I say that’s why we use the Bible. Because I can’t convince someone of a doctrine, I can’t convince someone that they really ought to be a Christian so that they go to heaven. But the Holy Spirit can do those things. As a person reads the Word, the Spirit still teaches.
That’s a very comforting fact for a preacher, knowing that the power lies in the message, and not in the delivery. That’s a very comforting fact for anyone of us when we talk to someone about our Savior. Because let’s face it: for many of us, it’s kind of scary talking to an unbeliever about Jesus. “Maybe I’ll say something wrong. Maybe I won’t be able to convince them.” Those don’t need to worry you, because the Holy Spirit teaches people, convinces people, not you. Even when a 4-year old says, “Jesus died for me,” the Holy Spirit works in those words.
Part III
I read an email the other week from one of our missionaries in Taiwan. He was explaining how with the SARS scare, everyone was washing their hands more in church, some people even wear masks over their nose and mouth. But then the missionary said, “but we’re not really scared. The worst that can happen to us is that we contract this illness, die, and go to heaven. That’s the worst-case scenario. But we feel that it’s necessary for us to take every precaution to stay alive, because there’s a whole lot of people in this country who could get SARS, die, and not know their Savior. We live for those people, that one day they will hear from us about Jesus their Savior.” That missionary was describing something else that the Spirit gives us: peace. We don’t have to worry about this life or the next, because the Spirit relays to us God’s peace.
I didn’t have time to catch much of the news this past week, but I did see that Pres. Bush was in Egypt, because of peace. He’s working to get the Arabs and Israelis if not together, at least so they stop killing each other. That would be peace. Let’s just say those talks would bring peace in that region for 50 years. Or let’s even say that for 20 years, no bullets flew in that part of the world. If Pres. Bush were able to broker a peace that lasted 20 years, he would be known as one of the best diplomats ever. And yet that would be only a temporary peace.
Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives.” Once again, the Holy Spirit gives us a precious gift from Jesus: his peace. It’s not a whole lot of fun walking around all day with a load of guilt over some troubling sin you committed. It’s not a joy wondering and worrying what the future is going to hold not just for the country, but what’s going to happen to me, next week, next year? Guilt, frustration, worry, apprehension, and anxiety all flee when the Holy Spirit imparts God’s lasting, assuring peace.
In our text, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, “the Counselor.” That’s the way the NIV translated the Greek word “Paraclete.” Other translations use the word, “Comforter,” others use “Encourager,” and some just transliterate the Greek into English letters and call him “The Paraclete,” a word that we actually have in some of our hymns about the Holy Spirit. What makes this such a difficult word to translate is that there isn’t just one English word that fully catches the meaning of what the Holy Spirit does. He is your Comforter when you are down in the dumps because of your sin. He is your Encourager when you go through the dark, depressing valleys of this life. He is your Counselor when you need direction in how to live your Christian life. We call him the Holy Spirit because he makes us holy. We could even call him the Peace Spirit because he gives us peace.
A kind of peace and tranquility and balance in your life that isn’t found anywhere else. Some people think that by learning yoga, by applying the right breathing techniques, they can melt away the stress in their lives and have peace. And while that might work in the short term, isn’t it nice to know that you have peacefulness of mind that you will find no where else. All sins are forgiven! Heaven is waiting for you! The all-powerful Lord still directs this world and your life. Life is good for the Christian.
Conclusion
A younger professor at old Northwestern College once had the idea that for his monthly chapel talk, he was going to focus on the Holy Spirit. An older prof took him aside and said, “you have chosen a frustrating task.” He was puzzled at first, but about halfway through the year the young professor understood what those words meant. You can’t focus on the Holy Spirit, without talking about Christ. And all those devotions that he wanted to be centered on the Holy Spirit ended up talking about Jesus.
We rightly worship the Holy Spirit as God, but we appreciate his work as the Comforter, as the one sent from the Father and Son to teach us about Jesus. It is impossible for us to talk about the Holy Spirit without focusing on what Jesus did to save us. And you know what? The Holy Spirit wouldn’t have it any other way. Amen.
sdg
