Today we celebrate Pentecost, that ancient Jewish festival, 50 days after Passover, when the people of God celebrate that God keeps His promises, that His covenant is true, and that He does provide all that we need. 

And, as Christians, today we celebrate one very particular Feast of Pentecost, one that followed one very particular Passover.  50 days after Jesus – the true Lamb of God, that once true, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice was slain once and for all for the sin of the world, on that Great Passover we call Easter, we then had the Great Pentecost. 

Going back to the time of Moses, Passover was about salvation and Pentecost was about God’s faithfulness. And that’s still true today for all who put their faith in Jesus Christ: God does keep His promises; His covenant is true; and yes, God really does and will provide all that we need.

And how does He show that?  By sending God the Holy Spirit, not just to a select few, not just to the chosen and anointed king or the prophets like under the Old Covenant.  No, by doing just as he promised in Jeremiah 31, pouring out His Spirit on all who are willing to be His people, and allow Him to truly be their God.

This day, Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the beginning of the spread of the Gospel to all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations, is all about God keeping His promises, as God becomes present in the every believer by the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is Essential

Belief in the Holy Spirit is essential to what it means to be a Christian.

…But, I think it’s also fair to say that, for many of us, we’re not sure who God the Holy Spirit is, or what He’s all about. 

We know there are spiritual gifts, we know sometimes there are great revivals when all the people in a place sense the Holy Spirit in their presence, we know some people pray in tongues or feel God’s special anointing as they pray to know God’s will; we also know some false teachers in the Church today try to lead people astray with clever-sounding lines like “the Spirit is doing a new thing”, as though God’s plan wasn’t established from before the foundation of the world..

…so many good sermons in there, but they are all sermons for another day.

Because the fundamental question that you and I need to be able to answer as apprentices and ambassadors of Christ is this: why did the Holy Spirit come?

So let me ask you – because you arethe witnesses that Christ Himself has called to go and bring the good news to your friends and your neighbour and that co-worker who really drives you nuts, because you’re the one with that calling on your life, right?  Amen?

So why did the Holy Spirit come? 
Do we ourselves know the story well enough that we can tell it to another?

Well, for those of us who need a refresher, the good news is that, scripture and the life of Jesus make the answers clear.

The Holy Spirit does many things in our lives, He gives gifts, He calls, He guides and directs, He strengthens, He rebukes, He comforts, He empowers, but each and every one of these can be summarized in this one simple truth: The Holy Spirit makes us truly alive in Jesus.

Not that the Holy Spirit makes us alive in the bodily sense – no, there are plenty of people who are living and breathing without the Holy Spirit, and all of us will breath our last as the wages of live in a sinful world are paid and we stand before the judgement seat.

But as we know from scripture, a person can be living and breathing, and yet they find themselves dead in their sin, powerless to earn forgiveness, powerless on their own to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. 

But, my friends, the message of Pentecost is this: the Holy Spirit makes us truly alive in Jesus.

Sometimes we need to think about “How”

Our church calendar is organized to help us recognize this fact: after all, Pentecost is an ancient Jewish feast, always on that 50^th day after Passover.  That’s on purpose, because the sending of the Holy Spirit is directly connected to the events of Holy Week. 

Why did the Holy Spirit come?  To make us truly alive.
But how?  By applying the work of Christ on Good Friday and Easter to our lives today.  That’s how!

Have you thought about that before?  How does the work of one man on a cross two thousand years ago actually make a difference in your life here and now?  How does the victory of one man over the grave at Easter get applied to you and lead you to eternal life?

It’s a thing that many life-long Christians take for granted and never pause to think about, but if you start doing your God-given work of sharing your faith with your neighbours, you’ll find that it’s only logical that people want to know how. 

And the answer, of course, is Pentecost: that, after we call on Christ as Lord, the Holy Spirit comes into each of us who are willing, and when our body and soul become infused with the Holy Spirit of God, then we become truly alive.  That’s how we share in the risen life of Jesus.  That’s how it’s no longer about “me”, but “Christ in me”.

Let’s walk through that, shall we?

Let’s pretend your neighbour comes to your house.  They’ve been watching and wondering for years.  They know there’s something different about you, that you go to church, and you have a hope and a faith that sustains you through the hardest of times.  And unbeknownst to you, the Holy Spirit has been knocking on the door of their heart, and now here they are, knocking on your door (knock, knock, knock).  They come in, you pour up a cup of tea, and here they are, out of the blue asking you “you know, your faith seems so much more real than the religion I learned back in school.  I was going to go to church, but you know, I just can’t get past the cruelty of an innocent man dying such a horrendous death.  I just don’t get it”.

Now, if this were me, this is where my stomach flips and I wish I could hide away… because, you might not know this, but I’m actually incredibly shy and nervous about speaking to anyone about anything (yes, I’m the sort of guy who sits and stares at the phone for 15 minutes to get the courage to pick it up and dial a number).

But, also for me, this is when I’ve learned to feel – actually feel – the Holy Spirit.  This is when I physically feel a tingle on my neck, a tingle that tells me: ‘you have an opportunity.  Now, are you going to be faithful?’ 

It can happen to you, too, a tingle, or a feeling in your gut, where God is saying “will you be faithful”.

So, imagine with me, your friend is there, sitting at your table with a cup of tea, and they brought up faith all out of nowhere.  They’ve been thinking about Christianity, but like they said “I just don’t get it”.

Now, you have a choice, don’t you. 

Option A: You can say, yes, well, it’s all hard to understand, you should call the minister.  What do you think about that? (I wish I had a buzzer for the wrong answer sound)

Option B: You can say, “yes my dear, it’s hard to understand, but it’s all ok, just think positive and be true to yourself because all paths lead to God”.  (anyone got that buzzer?)

Or, Option C: You can, very simply, use the events of Jesus’ life, from Holy Week to Pentecost, to explain how it is that the events of long ago change lives from then until now.

It might go like this:

(and for me, this is when I feel that tingle again, a sort of ‘push in the right direction’ from the Holy Spirit within).

Start with Good Friday: The crucifixion was a terrible thing, and the world was a violent place, the Romans crucified tens of thousands of people.  But the reason Jesus had to die is so He could do what we could never do for ourselves. 

A guilty person can’t undo their guilt.  No amount of money or time or making amends can undo the guilt.  No human could make themselves right with God, it takes God coming and doing that for us.

Then look to Easter:  It’s only because Jesus was an innocent man and fully God that his death wasn’t a defeat, it was a victory!  Death wanted to hold him down, but he’s alive forevermore.  He gives us hope for life beyond the grave.  The Bible calls him the “second Adam”, meaning he gives humanity a fresh start, he shows us humanity as it was originally intended, thriving with abundant life, not weighed down by death and decay.

Then look to the Ascension: My faith is not just a spiritual thing.  Positive thinking only gets us so far, as do other religions, because we’re not just souls stuck in a body.  Our bodies are who we are, we are physical.  We can’t just escape into our minds.  I have hope because, as ridiculous as it sounds, Jesus returned to heaven with his risen body to prepare a place for me, and I don’t fully understand all of that, but I know God will restore all things and make them new, and that means there is life beyond the grave.

And then Pentecost holds it all together: But for here and now, as you know, life can be a mess.  My life hasn’t been all rosy, I’ve messed up, I’ve got struggles and habits I can’t break, and life gets me down: people are sick, and we’re tired and exhausted, and sometimes the world looks like it’s going to hell in a handbasket.  But, I just trust that God says I don’t need to fix it myself.  The whole point of Good Friday is that Jesus did what I can’t do for myself.  A little bandage or a few good deeds can’t fix what’s wrong with us, we need new life, a fresh start.  I don’t know how it all works, but what I do know is that my life changed when it stopped being about me, my trying to be strong, my hiding from things, my body dealing with sickness, my soul and mind trying to process what happened in my life, when it stopped being about me, me, me, and instead, when it started to be about “we”.  God, and me, and all the other people in my church family – what a crazy bunch, and some you’d never expect to be hanging around with in a million years! – but everything changed when it stopped being about me, and when I let God come in and make it about “we” instead.  When bad things happen, I know it’s out of my control, so I bring it to God and to my church family, and I know that if Jesus can overcome death and make all things new, then whatever the mess my life is, it’s no match for him. 

The Holy Spirit at work in you… even today!

And my friends, if this is you at your dining room table, and your friend knocked on your door and brought this up on their own, you have a choice. 

Did Jesus do on the cross what you could never do for yourself?

Have your sins been forgiven? 

Did Jesus conquer death and the grave and rise to eternal life?

Is Jesus gone to prepare a place for you?

Is the Holy Spirit at work in you, to make you fully alive,
to let you share in that new life of Jesus?

Well, my friends, the best way you can grow into that new life, and take it from me, is to take a deep breath, get over that fear or shyness, and when you have an opportunity, when you feel that tingle, when you experience that weird thing that you now know is the Holy Spirit pushing you… go for it! 

Don’t take option A and leave it to the minister.  Don’t take option B, denying your faith and following the ways of the world.  No, if God can conquer the grave and forgive your sin, and make all things new, don’t you think He can give you the words to say to your neighbour over a cup of tea?  Of course he can!  …God can, but will you let him?

Read Acts 2.

Do you remember the first time the Bible really made you think?

The first time you were sitting in church, following along, and then something in the reading really catches you off-guard, makes you say “huh, what’s that about?”, and you go home thinking about it, or looking it up, or texting your priest to say “what’s up with that reading today?” (and, seriously, I don’t know any priest who doesn’t get excited by that kind of call or text!).

I remember the first time that happened to me.

I was 10.  Me and my best friend from school, Adam, were the servers at communion, sitting up at the front of the church in our white robes, doing our best to sit still and look like we were paying attention so that our moms wouldn’t give us a hard time after church. 

And it was Pentecost, like it is today.  And the reading, like today, was from Acts 2.  I remember it so clearly: we were sitting there, following along with the lesson printed in the bulletin, since one of us had to get the cross ready for the procession at the Gospel before the lesson was over.  And then we got to those most remarkable Bible verses: Acts 2, verse 13: “And some people made fun of them and said, “they have had too much wine”. 

For us 10-year-old boys, that verse caught our attention.  Eyes open wide, glancing at each other like “did you hear that?”.  They’re talking about having too much wine – in church!  With that wonderfully immature humour that little boys have, it struck us as pretty funny.  Sure, you know, our parents drink wine on Friday night when they’re playing cards and we’re watching Star Wars and playing Lego downstairs… but that’s not something they talk about on Sunday morning! 

And then, with all of that racing through our minds, it was followed with that amazing (but rarely quoted) verse of scripture, Acts 2:15: St. Peter stands up and says, “these people aren’t drunk, it’s only nine in the morning!”.

That one struck Adam as funny as he let out a little “ha!” and the woman reading – one of the, let’s say, more experienced and more stern Sunday School teachers – swivelled around to look at him; and let’s just say that I was the sort of 10-year-old who might be described as giggly, as her spinning around like an owl made me burst out in laughter.

Needless to say, we both got a good talking-to from our moms that morning.

But those verses stuck with me, nearly two and a half decades later.

The story of Pentecost is the day when God does something in the lives of the followers of Jesus that causes the rest of the world to look at them and say “you’re drunk!”, there’s no other explanation.  To which Peter, always one who had a certain way with words, responds, “we’re not drunk… it’s only 9am!”.

Now of course, while scripture affirms that wine and beer are gifts from God to make the heart glad, we’ll also agree with scripture that drunkenness – putting aside wisdom and sober-mindedness and making yourself powerless to worldly passions – is a problem, particularly when it becomes a tool used by pain and hurt and shame to wear in an easy path to destruction.  That’s certainly another topic, one we’ll talk about another day.

But today, I want to think about that reaction: when the whole world looks at the followers of Jesus and simply can’t figure it out; they look at what God is doing in the lives of his people and say, “what’s going on here?  This makes no sense.  Who would live like this?  Who would act like this?  They must be drunk!”.

Just imagine a church where the way of life that God inspired in us was so remarkably different than the ways of the world that people looked at us, at the way we live, and at the way we love and serve one another and are simply astonished, scratching their heads, and saying “what’s going on here!?”, “why are these people acting this way?”.

The Work of the Spirit.

As we read in today’s Gospel, before Jesus’ crucifixion, he explains to them that, just as He and the Father are one and the Father sent the Son, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Son sends the Spirit to enlighten and guide those who follow Jesus on the path of life.[1]

The Spirit, translated in English as our Advocate and our Helper, is called a word in New Testament Greek that essentially means “lawyer”, one who stands alongside the person making a defense.  Our Lord sent the Holy Spirit to be our legal counsel – to encourage us when the right course of action is to admit our faults and ask for mercy, and to strengthen us to stand firm when we are being faithful.  As Jesus says, “it’s to our advantage” – we’re better off – to have the Spirit with us, making us aware of sin, righteousness, and judgment”; it wasn’t God’s plan to leave us with and the endless and perfect counsels of God to figure out on our own, no, it’s far better, Jesus says, that God gives us the Spirit of truth to guide us into the truth, glorifying our Lord as that truth comes to light.[2]

But what’s the result?  What does that look like, to have the Spirit of God guiding us?

Well, frankly, straight from the pages of scripture, a Spirit-filled life is one that catches the world off-guard, one which defies all worldly logic or explanation, to the point that the world looked at the disciples and said “you’re speaking nonsense, you’re drunk!”.

And really, if we lived the way God intended, I think we’d get the same reaction:

When the Holy Spirit comes into your life, when the Holy Spirit becomes your defense attorney, standing beside you through life, telling you in each situation whether you need to plead guilty and ask for mercy or whether you need to stand firm and do what is right, I can guarantee – I know from experience – that your life will not make sense by worldly standards.

The Holy Spirit will guide you to love God and neighbour, and convict you that loving your own life – putting yourself first – will cause you to lose what little life you have.  Living for God and others rather than yourself?  “What foolishness”, the world says, “listen to yourself, what’s wrong with you?”.

The Holy Spirit will guide you to carry the burdens of those who sit beside you here, and then go out and extend a hand to lift the burden from those you don’t even know.  The world says “nobody’s got time or energy for that, you gotta look out for #1”.  We ask for a yoke to be put around our neck, knowing that, in the long run, it’s better to share a load than to haul it yourself.

The Holy Spirit, standing beside us, will teach us not to cling to things, but to share what we have since everything, including the health and strength we have to work and the family and country we were born into are not our own doing.  The world tells us to store up for tomorrow, the Holy Spirit tells us to trust God and open our storehouses, barns, and bank accounts, for whatever we store up today is going to lose value tomorrow, and wealth is a harsh master.  The Holy Spirit says, “if someone takes your coat, let them take your shirt too” – don’t get worked up, don’t worry about it, don’t get your heart set on revenge; “no”, the Holy Spirit says, “pray for your enemy”. 

The World says “you’re nuts.  Listen to yourself!  Are you drunk?”

The Holy Spirit says “all my hope is in Christ alone”, I will not trust in gifts or strength or wisdom or power or might.  The Holy Spirit says, if you think you’ve got your faith and the future figured out, that’s not faith: faithfulness is putting your trust in God, not because you can chart out the pros and cons of why it makes sense, but simply because He’s God and we’re not.

The world says, “we don’t need God.  Religion served a purpose before we knew how everything works.  Look at all the bad that hypocrites have done in God’s name; trust in yourself, find your identity in yourself, be proud of who you are, rest easy, eat, drink, and be merry, for you only live once.”

The Holy Spirit says, “trust in God, for you were created by one greater for yourself for a purpose bigger than yourself; there’s more to life than what we see, there’s more to love or grief than a chemical in the brain, there’s more to pain and shame than social expectations and bad memories, there’s more to the pain passed from generation to generation than social work and a helping hand can fix”.  The Holy Spirit says, “you’re longing for more because you were created for more, but you can never spread yourself thin enough or stare at the emptiness within long enough to fill that void; the piece that fills that God-given hole is outside of yourself, just waiting to be invited in”.

The world says, “no, shoot for the stars, make a name for yourself; work harder, put your best foot forward, pull yourself up from your bootstraps, do what makes you happy, take your time off, live your best life, you deserve better, just keep going, ignore the pain, post the happy moments to your timeline, take that extra loan, cut those people loose, be the person you want to be, life is passing you by”. 

But the Spirit cries out “your young people will have visions of God’s faithfulness even though the world is set on exhaustion and decay; the old will dream dreams, trusting in God to do what they now know they can never do for themselves.  There is a way that leads to life and wholeness, all you have to do is look up and live, follow rather than stubbornly trying to lead, admit your weakness, admit your failures, and instead of wearing yourself out, plug yourself in to a source of unending power.”

…And the world says, “that’s insane.  These people must be drunk.”.

You are my witnesses.

And Jesus said, “The Spirit… will bear witness about me.  And you also will bear witness.”.

You see, the world will notice.

The wisdom of God is foolishness to those who are perishing.  The wise of the world have become futile in the darkness of their minds.

If we allow the Spirit to guide us in this absolutely ridiculous way of life, yes, the world might think we’re nuts.  But they will notice what God has done.

Friday night, Kristina and I went to the legion for a burger.  Someone who works for the Town was there, someone very involved with the evacuees from Fort Simpson.  This person mentioned how all of the staff were worn out from the work, how there’s so much overtime to get sorted out.  Then they paused.  “You must be wiped out”, this person said, “it seemed like you were coming and going all week”.  “Yeah, it was a long week, but I’m glad we had the opportunity to help”.  “Yes, but the staff were being paid, this is their job.”  “It’s my job too, we’re supposed to carry each others burdens and help those in need”.  On the way back to the table, she said, “I’ve never thought about it like that.  Thanks for all the church is doing in the community”. 

Always be ready to give an answer.

My friends, this is all foolishness in the world’s eyes.  And it will stay that way until they see for themselves what it is for ordinary people like you and me to choose not to live for ourselves, not to collect up flowery thank-you posts on Facebook, but to simply, quietly, constantly, and faithfully live for God’s glory. 

And then, like good old St. Peter, when they say we’re nuts, we too have the opportunity to say, “no, we’re not drunk”, we’re not crazy, God is faithful – and I’m putting my trust in him. 

Let’s be a church that’s so faithful, so out there, that people stop and stare, and then, by grace alone, when they realize that doing the same thing will only produce the same result, that trusting in themselves to somehow do better than they did yesterday will only end in stubborn frustration, we’ll be here with open arms, living as the Spirit leads us on.

To God be the glory, now and forevermore.  Amen.

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[1] John 15:26-27

[2] Acts 2: 4b-15