Festival of Pentecost
Ezekiel 37:1-14 Psalm 104:24-35 Acts 2:1-21 John 15:26-27, 16:4-15 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who sets loose the spirit. Amen The spirit is on the loose. That’s what Pentecost is about, the unleashing of the spirit in the world we have three readings today that help us understand what this means who the spirit is, and in each of these readings we find that the spirit is the gift of God, it is unleashed by testimony and brings life where it is heard and received. In Ezekiel we have the story of the dry bones, because we hear it in English we miss some of the nuances of the story, Hebrew is a language where a lot of words have double meanings and authors often play with those double meanings, in this story that word is ruach which means both breath and spirit pointing to the intimate connection between the two there cannot be life without breath and when we think about it can there really be life without spirit? God takes the prophet Ezekiel and sets him in a valley of dry bones, then asks the prophet if the bones can live? all indicators say that these bones are dead with a capital D but the prophet defers to the power of God saying “O Lord God, you know” and God instructs the prophet to speak to the bones, to tell them of the promise of God, that God will bring them back together into bodies and will cause breath to enter them so that they will live. Instead of speaking to these bones directly God gives the words to Ezekiel to tell to the bones, and Ezekiel using his own breath prophesies to the bones and they come together and form bodies but they are not alive until the prophet speaks to the breath, to the spirit to come into these bodies that they come to life. Then God explains the object lesson to the prophet, the people of Israel feel like these dry bones, dead with a capital D, but through the words and breath of the prophet God promises to breathe life back into the people who thought there was no life left. That is the power of the spirit Perhaps you’ve experienced something like this, you were in a dry valley of faith or life and it seemed like there was no climbing out of it and then someone spoke a few words to you and things didn’t seem so hopeless anymore. That is the work of the spirit set loose in the world, the spirit that is as close to us as our own breath. In our Gospel we hear Jesus promise to send the disciples an advocate, the spirit of truth and this advocate will testify, will speak on behalf of Jesus so that the disciples may also testify, tell others of Jesus and his love. As he is saying good bye to his disciples Jesus acknowledges that there’s a lot that’s been left unsaid “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” the spirit is truth, that comes to advocate when the time is right. We are abundantly aware of the things left unsaid, there are a multitude of issues in life that Jesus in the Bible does not directly address that we struggle with, we have trouble bearing them we disagree about what to do when we are faced with them, they divide communities, and yet in the midst of it all is the spirit of truth showing us the way, speaking through a prophet or two or three the words of Jesus, “love one another as I have loved you” the message spreads, slowly sometimes and as it spreads Jesus is glorified in the love of the community that is growing and expanding through those who tell what they have heard from the spirit of truth The spirit is on the loose spreading the truth. Finally we have our reading from Acts, the account of the first Pentecost. The risen Jesus has appeared to the disciples and they have witnessed Jesus’ ascension into heaven. They know they are on their own so to speak and they are preparing to continue on as a community, on the morning of Pentecost, a festival observed fifty days after the Passover the community is gathered they hear a sound like the rush of a violent wind, this sound fills the house where they are and the holy spirit appears like tongues of fire above their heads and fills the disciples who begin to speak in different languages, all of this causes such a racket that people are drawn to the house and as a crowd forms and the disciples spill out of the house still speaking in their given languages the crowd is amazed because they can understand the disciples, they are hearing the message of Jesus in their own languages, of course there are some naysayers who think the disciples are drunk, but Peter interprets what is happening through the prophesy of the prophet Joel, the prophesy that says in the last days the spirit will be poured out on all people young, old, slave, free, male, female, everyone all the distinctions that normally divide will fall as the spirit is given out equally and all shall share the words of the spirit with the world and these words will spread like wild fire. The spirit is fire, by nature it spreads often unpredictably, and even we humans who have harnessed the power of fire appreciate that it is a wild thing that we manage and contain but really have no control over and we get into trouble when we forget that fact. The spirit set loose in the world, through the gift of God and the testimony of the disciples is out of the disciples’ control just like that the people who come from all corners of the earth who hear the spirit filled message of the disciples will take it home with them, and they will tell others and Jesus’ word will have spread to the far corners of the earth far away from the original disciples. It’s quite a contrast to the first part of Acts, the measured preparation that the disciples take, casting lots to choose the most worthy follower of Jesus to join the in crowd the spirit busts that all open because it’s not about worthiness it’s a gift of God to all people regardless of how they are defined and divided by the world the spirit, breath, truth, fire shows up especially when people are defined and divided and interrupts those divisions, that attempt at controlling who is in and who is out, who claims to have the truth there the spirit interrupts breathing new life into places we have caused death, spreading the love of Jesus like a fire that cannot be contained showing the truth found in love all while working through us, the words we speak the love we share. Life, truth, fire Watch out, the spirit is on the loose. And I say, come Holy Spirit. Amen
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
February 2021
Categories
All
|