God’s Spirit brings us into the heavenly harvest

Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13  +  John 14:23-31

On the day of His resurrection, which we celebrated 50 days ago, the Lord Jesus appeared to His apostles, breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” By breathing on them, He was picturing for them what would happen on the Day of Pentecost, when He fulfilled that promise that He had repeated to them many times between Maundy Thursday and the day of His ascension, that from the right hand of God He would send the Holy Spirit down upon them, to dwell with them, to dwell with the Holy Christian Church on earth, until the end of time. Today we celebrate the fulfillment of that promise!

It’s no accident that the giving of the Holy Spirit happened in connection with the Day of Pentecost, just as it was no accident that Jesus died and rose again in connection with the Passover. Both of those festivals were major Old Testament feasts. The Passover pointed to the redemption of Israel through the blood of the Lamb. Pentecost, on the other hand, also known as the Feast of Weeks, pointed to the harvest that was made possible by the Passover Lamb.

Let me explain. The Feast of Weeks was originally a sacred harvest festival, one of the mandated feasts of the Old Testament, for which all the men of Israel were to travel to Jerusalem to present their offerings to the Lord seven weeks after Passover ended, giving thanks to Him for the harvest that He enabled the Israelites to reap in the Promised Land of Canaan. Their journey to the Promised Land began with the Passover in Egypt and the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, after which they were led by the Angel of the LORD through the wilderness to the Promised Land, which they conquered by God’s power alone, and where they enjoyed the bountiful harvest—the bountiful, blessed life—that God gave them there, for as long as they remained faithful to His covenant. The Feast of Weeks, then, was a celebration of that bountiful, blessed life in the Promised Land—a life that was purchased for them with the blood of the Lamb.

Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, was slain to redeem Israel, and all people, from slavery to sin, death, and the devil. But this Passover Lamb rose from the dead and ascended to the true Promised Land of heaven. It has already been “conquered.” And there, a blessed harvest awaits all the faithful, the bountiful, blessed, eternal inheritance that God has in store for His Holy Christian Church. The guarantee of it, and also the One by whose help the Christian Church will be built, and by whose help Christians will be preserved in the true faith unto life everlasting, is the Holy Spirit of God, who was poured out on the Church on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, in connection with the Feast of Weeks.

The Feast of Weeks had brought Jews from all over the Roman Empire back to Jerusalem. Those who remained faithful to the God of Israel gathered in their synagogues every Sabbath Day, wherever they lived, but made that special journey to Jerusalem three times a year, even those Jews who lived in other countries and spoke the languages of those countries. Meanwhile, Jesus had told His apostles to stay in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so they did. They waited, not knowing exactly how or when the Spirit would come. The events of today’s Epistle reading explain how it happened. There were three signs of His coming.

The first was the sound of a mighty, rushing wind, like the sound of Jesus breathing on His disciples on Easter Sunday, but on a much grander scale. Unlike Jesus, who came as a man, whom everyone could see with their eyes and touch with their hands and hear with their ears, you can’t see the Holy Spirit or sense Him with any of your five senses. The word “Spirit,” as you may recall, means “breath” or “wind.” Jesus had once said to Nicodemus, The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Like the wind which you can’t see, but you can see its effect on the things around you, so it is with the Holy Spirit. His presence can’t be seen or felt except by the effect He has on things around you. In order to make it clear that He had indeed come upon Jesus’ disciples, as promised, the Spirit made His presence known by the sound of a mighty, rushing wind.

The second sign was the appearance of tongues as of fire, resting upon each of Jesus’ disciples. Years earlier, John the Baptist had promised that the Christ would baptize His disciples “with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” This was it. Not the kind of fire that burns or devours. But the kind of fire that purifies, the kind of fire that spreads, the kind of fire that makes a person zealous for the kingdom of God and courageous to persevere in the midst of trials.

The third sign of Pentecost was the sudden ability of the disciples to say things in other tongues, not the gibberish that Pentecostals brag about, but the very languages of the Jews and Jewish converts who were born in other countries, but who were present in Jerusalem at that time. As we learn later, from Paul’s epistles, this wasn’t an ability to actually communicate in those languages, like when you learn a new language. It was, instead, the outpouring of God’s praises in someone else’s language. The speakers didn’t even understand what they were saying. And the point of this sign is obvious. The Gospel is intended for everyone, for every nation, tribe, language, and people. Long ago, at the Tower of Babel, God confused the languages of men to divide them, to separate them into nations, that they might each go their own way, because, when they had worked together, they had only defied God and increased in wickedness. So He separated them and focused only on one nation, on the nation of Israel, to have mercy on them, to reveal Himself to them, to send the Christ to them.

But that focus is done now. Now that Christ has come and given His life as a ransom for many, now, as of the Day of Pentecost, God will turn His attention to all nations and have His Gospel proclaimed to them in every language. No longer would there be a dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. Now God would call everyone, everywhere, to repentance before the Day of Judgment, during this New Testament period, during this time of grace that is swiftly coming to its close.

And so, with the fire of Spirit-worked courage, with the fire of the Spirit’s enlightenment, with speech that was given to him by the Holy Spirit, the apostle Peter stood up and began to preach to the crowds of Jerusalem that had gathered around the disciples, attracted by the strange noises they were hearing and the strange sights they were seeing. The signs were not the purpose of Pentecost. The preaching was.

Peter went on to explain to the people what the signs meant, that they were the fulfillment of God’s promise to pour out His Spirit upon His sons and daughters in the last days. But it was Jesus Himself, Peter said, who had poured out the Spirit, from the right hand of God—the same Jesus who had lived and walked among them in the land of Israel, the same Jesus who had tirelessly taught the people, doing good and performing miraculous signs, the same Jesus whom they, through their leaders, had crucified and put to death, but whom God the Father had now raised from the dead and exalted to His right hand, declaring Him to be both Lord and Christ.

Now, Peter’s words, all by themselves, had no possibility of convincing those crowds in Jerusalem of anything. His words, by themselves, had no power to reach down into the hearts of the hearers, so that they were cut to the heart, believed what Peter said, and were made sorrowful and afraid. But the Holy Spirit was present there, working through His preaching, entering into the hearts of the hearers and working there repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. Men, brothers, what shall we do? Repent, Peter said, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And about 3,000 of them did repent and believe and were baptized on that same day. Their sins were forgiven, and they entered Christ’s Holy Christian Church.

But Peter promised more than that. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. The call to repent, the invitation to be baptized, the promise of the forgiveness of sins and of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, goes out to all nations, to all people everywhere. It isn’t a promise that the visible signs of the Holy Spirit will accompany everyone who is called. It’s a promise that the Spirit will dwell in the heart of every believer, that He will comfort, guide, encourage, strengthen, and embolden every believer, that He will testify with our spirit that we who believe in Christ Jesus are, indeed, children of God, and that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, will surely return for us, because even now He’s placed His Spirit within us.

Like the wind, you can’t see the Spirit dwelling in and among us. But you can see the effects of the Spirit, as you can see the effects of the wind! Where the Word of God is purely taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered, there is the Holy Spirit. Where there is genuine repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, where there is a desire to hear and submit to His word, there is the Holy Spirit. Where there is boldness to confess the Lord Jesus, where there is love for God and works of love for one’s neighbor, there is the Holy Spirit, working invisibly, but powerfully, to gather the harvest into the Christian Church and to guard the harvest there until Christ comes to claim it, and to bring us in the great heavenly harvest that awaits—that truly bountiful, blessed, eternal life.

So rejoice today in this harvest festival, in the gift of the Holy Spirit, who still dwells among us after all this time. Rejoice in the Holy Spirit, and the faith and love that He has worked in each believer here. And pray in the Spirit that the Lord will bless the work of His Spirit among us, as His word is preached, as His Sacraments are administered, and as each Spirit-filled believer walks with the Spirit throughout this life, in unity around the Word of God, with zeal to live each day for the glory of God, and with joy in knowing that God Himself dwells with us, because He has given us of His Holy Spirit, who has made His home with us, just as Jesus promised. Amen.