Acts 2:1-21 [Pentecost CWS A]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ
May 31, 2020
A Perfect Pentecost Dear Friends in Christ, Remember parties? Remember big get-togethers with other people? Remember celebrating special days like Easter with a crowd? Yeah, it’s been tough for many of us not to have had those kinds of events (including Easter!) for a couple months now. God’s people have always cherished opportunities for fellowship, for joining in worship, for special celebrations. The Bible shares the details of some of those times. One of those was Pentecost. Let’s clear up one thing that can be kind of confusing. If you’re looking for “Pentecost” in the Old Testament so you can learn more about what all these people were doing in Jerusalem, you won’t find it. That’s because Pentecost is a Greek word. When we read about this festival in the New Testament, it is called Pentecost because the New Testament was written in Greek and that is the Greek name for this annual festival. In the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew, you actually find a couple names for it: The Feast of Weeks or the Feast of the Harvest—Feast of Weeks because it was held 7 weeks after Passover (a “week” of weeks, so to speak), and Feast of the Harvest because that’s what it was about. It was a celebration of the spring wheat harvest and it went back all the way to the time of Moses. This was a holiday commanded by God to be observed in a particular way. It was a day off of work for everyone. Nothing was going on except God’s people joining together. Each person or family would bake some bread with the new grain, pack it in their bags and baskets, along with whatever else they needed, and make their way to the festival. This first and best of the crops baked into loaves was used as a wave offering to God. The priests offered some of the grain along with drink offerings and animals sacrificed in thanksgiving to God—an aroma pleasing to him. There was also a specific sacrifice of atonement for their sins that was made that day. Everyone one was together, the smell of roasted grain and meat filled the air, and they worshiped God who provided for them both spiritually and physically. This was a happy time, a time to give thanks to God and enjoy his blessings. It was worship and it sounds like kind of a party too! Now fast-forward about 1500 years from the time it was first celebrated to the account before us from the book of Acts. Does it make sense then that there were Jewish people gathered for this festival from all those cities and countries mentioned? Just as we have three major festivals—Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost—this was one of three major holidays for them, along with Passover and the Festival of Tabernacles. Everyone celebrated them and travelled for them. So this annual event was really important! Just as we wish for a perfect Christmas celebration or a perfect Easter Day, people then looked forward to this great festival.
You might say that this particular Pentecost was truly made perfect by the power of the Holy Spirit! How else could you feel about what happened that day?! A powerful windlike sound was heard emanating from heaven and it filled the place the disciples had gathered. They saw a visible sign of the Spirit’s power as what looked like tongues of fire were on top of their heads, kind of like that reddish-orange wisp that sits on top of an otherwise green ocotillo plant—at least that’s how I picture it! The disciples were actually filled with the Holy Spirit and could speak in languages they had not learned. They were fluently and beautifully speaking about wonders of God! This was a powerful pouring out of the Holy Spirit! The people who normally spoke all these languages realized that this was not normal for these men, yet they understood them perfectly. All the while, the people—other than those who chose to mock the disciples—were trying to figure out what exactly was going on! And so the Holy Spirit went to work providing Peter with courage and a powerful proclamation of prophecy fulfilled. Those people knew their Scriptures, so they could understand when Peter revealed that everything they were experiencing was what the prophet Joel wrote. Through him God said that he would pour out his Spirit upon his people and that they would proclaim the things of God, and that all who called on the name of the Lord would be saved. They were blessed to see that day arrive and be part of the Pentecost made perfect by the Spirit’s work in the disciples and in them! In order to fully realize what made that day so special, so perfect, you do have to look at what happened after Peter explained Joel’s writing. He gave them the rest of the story. Go home and read that today! Peter explained that some of them even had played a role in causing the death of Jesus, God’s appointed Savior of all people. He proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus on Easter, even using words they knew from the Psalms which spoke about that. He explained that he and the other disciples were witnesses of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension. He told them that the victorious and ascended Jesus sent the Holy Spirit that God had promised long ago. In no uncertain terms, he declared the gospel message that Jesus is the Messiah. Maybe you remember what the Holy Spirit did with that powerful law and gospel message that day. People were devastated by their sin and begged the apostles for an answer to their anguish. “Repent and be baptized,” Peter said, “for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And then the Holy Spirit worked repentance in the hearts of 3,000 people. They were baptized and they devoted themselves to the message of salvation in Jesus. That must have been awesome to see and be part of! This was Pentecost perfected! As you can see, this festival has a long history—3500 years or so. But what happened at that particular Pentecost changed the celebration of the festival forever. Unless I missed it, you didn’t bring any freshly baked bread to stand up and wave before the Lord in worship today. I prepared exactly zero animals for a burnt offering this morning. I’m guessing that none of us had friends and relatives schedule a special trip or a vacation in order to be here in God’s house with us for our Festival of Pentecost.
No, now we celebrate the amazing work of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We celebrate the dramatic fulfillment of God’s promise to send the Spirit in special ways that day. We celebrate the power that the Holy Spirit has and how he unleashes that power so that sinful people find forgiveness in Jesus and the promise of salvation. Can you have a perfect Pentecost today? Can a church made up of sinful people like us who are meeting in the midst of pandemic—and so are missing some of our friends and family this morning—can we have a perfect Pentecost? I think, in a way, we can. Pentecost perfection happens all the time if you are considering the Holy Spirit’s work. We witness a perpetual outpouring of the Spirit’s power. The Bible tells us that the Spirit works through the Word of God that is proclaimed as people are cut to the heart when their sins are pointed out. And he works in those same hearts so that they understand and trust that Jesus paid for their sins. He is the one who prompts faith in a person and perfects their prayers and their imperfect lives so that they become a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God. The Holy Spirit is the one who works through that Word and is the difference-maker in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper where faith, forgiveness, and salvation are given and assured. How blessed are we to witness and benefit from the Holy Spirit’s perfect work?! We have it again today—A Perfect Pentecost (in my eyes anyway) as we get to have the Spirit work on our hearts through the reading, the preaching, the singing of God’s Word. He confronts us with our sin and heals our hearts with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is even a baptism today where the Spirit works faith in a baby’s heart and washes away his sins and makes him a child of God! Last week we were able to experience the Spirit’s power in the Lord’s Supper. And this goes on and on, day after day, week after week, as we read God’s Word at home, as we worship online, as we gather to receive these gifts. How blessed are we to have this privilege, to have the Holy Spirit bless us?! Did you know that the only time during the year when yeast was used in the loaves baked for offering to the Lord was on this festival? Just as the bread grew because of the yeast, so the Church grew as the Spirit filled the people on Pentecost and began a harvest of souls that spread across the world. In the same way you and I are filled with the Spirit as he comes to us. He causes us to grow in faith and trust and Christian living as he works perfectly through Word and sacrament. Though things are not perfect in this world, and definitely not perfect at this time when we can’t get all of us together to celebrate even this Festival of Pentecost, there will come a day when we will all gather and celebrate around the throne of Jesus our Savior—a crowd much bigger than that gathered in Jerusalem on Pentecost. And it will happen because the Holy Spirit came to each of us with perfect power, giving us faith—and because he kept us in that faith until the very end. It will be an absolutely perfect day of worship and thanksgiving and celebration in the presence of our God. And it will never end. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.