Pentecost Day 2017 (A)
The Gifts Delivered
Acts 2:1-11
June 4, 2017 – Redeemer
Father’s Day is approaching. It’s time to buy dad a gift. You head down to Home Depot and pick out a Dewalt Cordless Drill or to Fleet Farm to buy him some fishing lures. It’s your money, but his gift. In a way, his name is on it from the moment of purchase. It’s not for you; why would you want a new drill? You bought it and now it’s time to deliver it. If you see him on Father’s day that’s pretty easy – just put it in his hands. If you won’t be home, you’ll need to deliver it some other way. Either way, there’s always two parts to a gift – the purchase and the delivery. Gift bought and gift delivered. The gift isn’t finished until it’s delivered.
Pentecost day is gift delivery day. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. He delivers gifts. Pentecost means 50. Today is fifty days, seven weeks, after our Lord suffered and died, fifty days after He bought our salvation with His body and blood on the cross. Fifty days after He paid for our sins and redeemed us from death’s hold and the Devil’s grasp upon us. What were we doing fifty days ago? We were recalling Christ’s death and celebrating His resurrection. We were rejoicing that He paid for our sins and purchased eternal life for us. Jesus bought the gifts. Today His Holy Spirit delivers them from the cross to the congregation, from the empty tomb to a world full of dying sinners.
It was about nine in the morning when all this started. The faithful, about 120 people, gathered together for prayer. That’s not very many disciples, just 120, not much of a spark.
But put a mighty wind to a spark and what do you get? Fire. There’s fire on Pentecost, but it didn’t start there. It started on the evening that Jesus rose. Remember what happened in the upper room. Jesus breathed a little Spirit on the 11. He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld.” Notice how these two things go together from the beginning – the Spirit and the forgiveness of sins. Jesus breathes the Spirit on the 11, forgives them their sins and authorizes them to forgive and retain sins. It’s creation all over again –forgiveness breathes life into us dead sinners. Fifty days later the same Spirit would blow an even mightier wind.
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Jesus had good reason to breath His Spirit onto the spark of the church that day. Pentecost was a festival from OT times. Gathered around that little spark of the Christian church were “Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.” There was all kinds of kindling that day, men from every nation dried out by their own sins and death, dried out by the false gods who made false promises, who had left them dry and parched. Their own preachers and teachers – the Pharisees had turned God’s Old Testament into a book of demands and regulations, instead of the covenant of God’s promises. The congregation was full of those who simply were dried out by life in this fallen world – disappointment, despair, death, dry, dry, kindling.
The gifts Jesus bought by His death and resurrection were for all of them. No one in that crowd could say Jesus wasn’t for him. Not the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, or the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the part of Libya belonging to Cyrene. They were all drawn by the mighty wind and they all heard the disciples preach the death and resurrection of Jesus. You cannot say that Jesus’ gifts are not for you. Look at the people with whom Jesus sat – the children, the prostitute, the tax collector, the Pharisee, the rich man, the adulterer, the woman with seven demons, the man with a thousand. The prophet Joel proclaims, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.” Jesus bought His gifts for all and He sends His Spirit to deliver His gifts to all. You know what that means? He bought His gifts for you (no matter who you are or what you have done) and He delivers His gifts to you by His Spirit.
Jesus blew the breath of His Spirit across that spark of a church. Those 120 exploded into 3000 on Pentecost day. After Pentecost those “devout men from every nation under heaven” went home and the Spirit brought the gifts of Jesus to the ends of the world. Like a brushfire the Spirit spread the church until the flame of forgiveness and faith burned 2000 years later in a place called Saint Cloud. Many kingdoms have come and gone in those 2000 years. The Roman and Ottoman Empires are no more. The sun never used to set on the British Empire – now it does. But the Holy Christian church spans all the earth and all of modern history and is indeed eternal in the heavens.
Wouldn’t it be great if our 120 today grew to 3000? If the Spirit would blow now, like He did then? But what really happened that first Pentecost day? Was it the mighty rushing wind that brought the gifts? Was it the tongues of fire? Was it the miracle of the disciples speaking many languages? No. Those simply brought everyone together then “Peter, standing with the Eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them.” Saint Luke records how the events of Pentecost build — the rushing wind, the fire and the Spirit, it all leads up to a sermon.
Boy, isn’t that exactly what you want? We might think a sermon would douse the fire, not ignite it. If preaching were just a man rambling on or just another speech, we might disregard it or joke about it. But we believe the preaching of Jesus is Jesus breathing on you. It is the Spirit bringing you the gifts which Jesus won on the cross.
Last Sunday in our 19 minute Bible Study we asked the question “How do you know God?” You can know about God by simply thinking about Him and examining your conscience. You can know about God by enjoying nature and seeing His creative and orderly hand. But that knowledge will never save you, because you will never learn about Jesus in your mind or in the world. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. You will never receive the gifts of Jesus apart from the Word – that’s why the preaching of Jesus isn’t just another speech.
That crowd on Pentecost day did not disband when Peter preached. They were dry. They were dark and cold with sin and death. Peter’s preaching, Jesus’ breathing, the Spirit’s blowing, ignited faith in their hearts, warmed them back to life with the forgiveness of sins.
Only part of Peter’s sermon is included in the text. It ends with a quote from the Prophet Joel – And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” Peter will spend the rest of the sermon declaring Jesus of Nazareth – the man who died in Jerusalem and was raised from the dead – to be the Lord. His sermon ends, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Peter preaches “this Jesus” – this Jesus of Nazareth as the One whom God declared both Lord and Christ. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, everyone who calls on this Jesus will be saved. Saved from what? Well, what do you need to be saved from? Does your conscience bother you because of your sin? Do you fear your ever-closer death? Do you despair because there is little that is good and right and true in the world, in you? Then look to Jesus and call on His name and be saved. He paid the price for your sins at the cross. By His death for sin He redeemed you, bought you out of death and hell. Having been saved from sin you have a future. In Christ the Lord, you can say “better days are coming – for my Christ is coming back for me.” That salvation is Christ’s gift for you.
I don’t know what you’re getting your dad for Father’s day, but I know he doesn’t care about the wrapping paper or the gift bag. The wrapping doesn’t matter. It’s the gift that counts – a thoughtful card thanking him for being your dad will do. The Holy Spirit delivers the gifts of Jesus in simple wrapping – the water of baptism, the word preached and taught, the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. In these simple wrappings are the gifts Jesus bought for you and the Spirit delivers to you –life instead of death, forgiveness instead of judgment, God’s favor instead of His anger. On Pentecost Day and every Sunday these gifts are for you, delivered by the Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
3 June 2017 anno Domini