The Day of Pentecost

Today is Pentecost. The Coming of the Holy Spirit. The Birthday of the Church. The second oldest church festival behind Easter. It’s a big day, as big as Easter or Christmas, though not often celebrated like they are, unfortunately.

It’s a day of fire and wind, many tongues proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. The Spirit is poured out on all flesh, on sons and daughters, young men, old men, young women and old. Slaves, free, Gentiles, Jews. Upper class, working class, rich and poor. The Spirit is today poured out upon the whole Church of God, with great rejoicing.

In the Middle Ages, unlike today, Pentecost was celebrated with great detail and festival. Many churches had what were called “Holy Spirit holes” in the ceiling, supposedly to let the Spirit in. On Pentecost, the acolytes would rush through the church making wind sounds, and doves would be released out of these holes. Then, fragrant flower petals would be dropped down through the holes to fall on the worshippers below, to visually illustrate to all the senses the coming of the Holy Spirit.

We don’t have any doves today—they’d probably make a mess. Property committee would be very unhappy if I tried to cut holes in anything, let alone the ceiling. I doubt I could persuade the acolytes to run up and down the aisles making whooshing noises.  Today is a far cry from the very full church on Easter morning or Christmas Eve, as we look around for the people who are doing something else or gone to the lake, or just gone. And then there’s the readings for today.  They are difficult to apply to our lives because they seem so fantastical and far from us.          

Take the first reading from Acts. It's a little awkward as we overhear Peter assuring the people of Jerusalem that the disciples are not drunk at nine in the morning, and of course we are amazed when people began to talk the Gospel truth in languages they did not speak.  But there is the matter of the distracting imagery employed for the Holy Spirit-- a great rushing wind grabs our attention because we know all about a tornado's capacity for destruction. And the flames on the heads of people just seems like we should be calling 911. Clearly, something is really going on here, but what does it have to do with us?                                                                             

In the second reading, St. Paul's letter to the conflicted congregation in Corinth leads immediately to an open discussion of how best to use our gifts for the various ministries of the congregation, but it also might lead us to silently look around and wonder about who really does the work of the church and who merely talks about doing the work of the church. We might also wonder whether we have any gifts at all, especially if nothing in the list Paul gives seems to apply to us.    

And in the Gospel from St. John, Jesus does something so strange--he breathes on his disciples and calls it the Holy Spirit. If that happened today, we’d be worried about bad breath or catching the flu or something. And is this spirit some type of gas? What sort of "spirit" is this?                                                                              

Despite the odd details that appear to have little to do with us, and the fact that Pentecost is kind of a forgotten church holiday, especially when it falls on the weekend of the more well-known cultural Memorial Day—despite that, God is telling us something important.  Those weird details are actually part of the background of the whole story.

Allow me to explain: when the wind tears through the upper room and the tongues of fire appear on the disciples’ heads, it calls to mind the Book of Genesis and the account of the very beginning of creation.  There, it was the wind that moved over the waters of the formless void right before God said "Let there be light!" Then,  God blew life into Adam by breathing into his nostrils. Later, God spoke to Moses through the bush that burned yet was not consumed, commissioning and consecrating him to his task to redeem Israel from slavery in Egypt. Later, God appears to the prophet Elijah with the rush of a mighty wind, and Elijah is later taken up into heaven on the wheels of a fiery chariot.

What happens in Acts on Pentecost is just a continuation of God using wind and fire to fulfill his purposes and create new life and new beginnings. At Pentecost, God is connecting both old and, now, new testaments.                                       

And in the Gospel reading, Jesus appears suddenly and without benefit of door in the midst of the disciples on the very night of his resurrection from the dead. He wishes them shalom, peace, and then, after breathing on them says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Like the wind in Acts, Jesus' breath is the power to create and give life. The word for "breath " or "wind" in Hebrew is "ruah." In Greek,  it is "pneuma." In Latin, "spiritus." From pneumatic tires, to respiratory therapists, to the inspiration of an artist--they all come from the word for air, wind, breath. But in this case,  the breath is God's breath, and it is creating the Church, which is the new Body of Christ in the already-created world.                                                                                      

As the Spirit once separated the waters to provide the space and the light to bring to birth creation itself, now it initiates the new creation redeemed through Jesus Christ.

As once the Spirit blew the breath of life into lifeless clay, now it breathes new life into once-terrified and lost disciples.

As once the Spirit used fire to mold people into God's servants, now it purifies them of their sin like fire refines gold.  

Only God can create where there was previously nothing. Only God can breathe life into an inanimate object. Only God can forgive sin, which is nothing more in the end than an offense against God's power and lordship. And it is only with the help of the Spirit of God that any human being can call Jesus, "Lord".

The Holy Spirit is not merely the servant of God but he IS God, the third person of the Trinity, one with the Father and Son in love and will.                                      

As the Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son, so the Holy Spirit creates unity in the body of Christ. The communion the Holy Spirit shares with the Son and the Father is shared in turn with you in the gift of faith at your baptism, indeed at any time God gives you faith.

God speaks creation into being and redeems it through the Incarnate Word, his Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Church, the body of Christ, the Christian community which persists across time and space, confesses with one tongue in many languages, "Jesus is Lord," and is sustained in his Word that it might proclaim Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sin.

It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord might be saved. We are bound to Christ and one another by the unifying power of the Holy Spirit for the reconciliation of the world to God the Father through Christ Jesus his Son.

You and I are members of the human tribe, made blood brothers and sisters in Christ through the unifying power of the Holy Spirit. We are the Body of Christ, the Church. We have a mission like no other: to feed on Christ in his Word and his Sacraments, and then to be Christ in the world.

We are not alone in this: the Lord is present with us, the Holy Spirit who is God himself, is in us. He shows us the way. He leads us. He gives us amazing and wonderful gifts. And in 2026 in Belview, Minnesota, he is poured out upon us again, for life: life for us, life for this town, life for the world. Amen.