Sermon for the Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-41 + John 14:23-31
Today we give thanks to God for fulfilling His promise to send the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. Now, whenever we talk about the Holy Spirit, things seem to get a little fuzzy, don’t they? It’s hard for us human beings to understand the Person of the Holy Spirit. We can picture a Father easily enough. We can picture Jesus as the Son of God. But how do you picture a spirit, much less THE Spirit of the Creator God? He appeared once in the form of a dove at Jesus Baptism, but that doesn’t really help. The Spirit isn’t a bird. He’s more like the wind, which is what the word “spirit” actually means—“wind” or “breath.” So, like the wind, we know the Holy Spirit, not by how He appears, but by what He does, by the effects He has on the things He touches. Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard Jesus talk about the Spirit, how He will convict the world when He comes. That’s one of those effects of His work. In today’s Gospel, we hear of that, and of another effect the Spirit will have, on Jesus’ disciples: He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I have said to you. We see both of those effects in today’s account from the Day of Pentecost. And so we come to know the Spirit by what He does.
What do we see the Spirit doing in the first part of the Pentecost Gospel? Well, we see three miraculous signs.
There was the sound of the loud, rushing wind. Only the sound of it, not an actual gust that toppled trees or tables; the Spirit isn’t blowing air. But that sound of a powerful wind pointed to the arrival of the powerful Spirit whose name means “wind.”
Then there were the tongues as of fire that divided and rested on the heads of Jesus’ disciples. That makes us think of the burning bush that Moses saw long ago on Mt. Sinai, the bush that didn’t burn up but that signaled the presence of the LORD God. Fire also points to the burning lamps in one of Jesus’ parables, signifying living faith. The fact that it took the shape of tongues that rested on the apostles points to the fact that the Spirit works through human language, through the preaching of those men, and would move through the earth like wildfire, wherever the Gospel would be preached.
Finally, the apostles suddenly started speaking the praises of God in foreign tongues which they had never learned, in the languages of the people who were gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks, or “Pentecost”—Jews and converts to Judaism who lived in all the countries surrounding Israel and had journeyed to Jerusalem, as the Law of Moses required. That miraculous speech was the work of the Holy Spirit, teaching us that the Spirit of God intends to call people from every nation, land, and language to hear and believe the Gospel of Christ, starting with the Jews, but then moving on to everyone else. There are no language barriers, race barriers, or ancestry barriers to the Gospel. All are included. All are invited, to be saved through Christ, and through Christ alone, as Peter would preach in his Pentecost sermon.
But first, notice another effect of the Holy Spirit’s arrival. Notice what He did, not only among Jesus’ disciples, but among the crowds in Jerusalem. He used the three miraculous signs to draw their attention to the disciples, to hear the Word of God being preached by those disciples. The Spirit works in the world, not to ramp up people’s emotions, or to whisper truth into their ears, but to draw people to the preaching of the Word of Christ.
Now let’s focus on that preaching, where, first, we see what the Holy Spirit did with Peter himself. Remember, Jesus promised His apostles that the Spirit would teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all the things He had said to them. That’s how the Evangelists were later able to write down the words, actions, and teachings of Jesus with perfect accuracy, through the inspiration of the Spirit—the same inspiration that drove the Old Testament prophets to write down the very words of God. On the Day of Pentecost, it was this work of the Spirit that enabled Peter to put together, on the spot, that perfectly worded sermon and to be able to preach it with power to a crowd of total strangers.
First, he cites the prophecy from the prophet Joel, which foretold this special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God had always been active in the world, but this was something special. In the last days, says God, I will pour out of My Spirit on My menservants and on My maidservants, and they shall prophesy. Notice that the Day of Pentecost marks the beginning of “the last days,” the last era of history which began on that day and lasts up to the coming of Christ and the end of the world, when, as Joel says, the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. Throughout this whole New Testament period, the Spirit works through the preaching of the Gospel, convincing people to call on the name of the Lord in order to be saved.
Then Peter connects the name of the Lord with that Man named Jesus. He reminds the crowds, many of whom had also been there two months earlier for the Passover, how Jesus was attested by God through all the miracles that He did, and yet was also delivered up to death—”by God’s purpose and foreknowledge,” on the one hand, but “by your lawless hands,” on the other. In other words, God had always planned for Jesus to die on the cross, but that didn’t remove the guilt from those who wickedly crucified Him for their own wicked reasons.
But He didn’t remain dead. Peter goes on to prove from the Spirit-inspired words of the Old Testament Scriptures that the Christ, the Son of David, would not only die, but would also rise from the dead. His resurrection was foretold in that Psalm that Peter quoted, You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. And now, not only has God the Father raised Jesus from the dead; He has also exalted Him and seated Him at the right hand of God, from where He has now poured out His Spirit on His believers, from where He now reigns over all things.
And then comes the climax: Know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Now, no one could see the Holy Spirit for even moment as that sermon was being preached. No one could “feel” the Holy Spirit moving through the air. Even the outward signs had stopped by that point. But you know the Spirit by what He does, and what He did through that preaching says it all. It says that those who heard Peter’s sermon were cut to the heart. That is, they took Peter’s words and Peter’s rebuke to heart. That’s contrition. That’s sorrow over sin, combined with fear. That’s conviction and the sting of a rebuke that hits home. Which is exactly the work Jesus said the Spirit would do: He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
In their Spirit-worked contrition, the people then asked, Men, brothers, what shall we do? Peter answered, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall 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. And, as you heard, some 3,000 people did repent that day, by the working of the Holy Spirit, and were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.
Now, we’re not told if any of those 3,000 spoke in tongues when they were baptized. They may have. But that wasn’t the main gift of the Spirit that Peter was referring to. The chief gifts of the Spirit are faith and love, peace and joy, patience and perseverance, and the indwelling presence of God, and the understanding of His Word, and the guidance of the New Man that has been created in the believer, to love God and His Word, and to walk in the way of His commandments. None of these gifts of the Spirit are perfected in this life. But where the Spirit is, there will certainly be a beginning of all these things, and an ongoing growth in all of them, too.
So, where you see these things, in combination with the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, know that the Spirit is present. Where the Gospel of Christ is preached, calling sinners to repentance and faith and baptism, there the Spirit is present. Where there is Christian faith and love, there the Spirit is present. Where there is Christian patience and perseverance, there the Spirit is present. Where there is boldness to confess Christ and a willingness to bear the cross for His sake, there the Spirit is present. Where Christ reigns as King in a person’s heart, there the Spirit is present. And where the Spirit is, there is hope. There is joy. And there is life. Amen.
