Year B

John 15:26-27; 4b-15

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Today we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Spirit; a mystery because nothing troubles the church more than trying to understand or define the Spirit. Ideas about the Spirit range from it being a Ghost to crazy claims that there are those of faith who have the Spirit and those who don’t. No matter how we conceive the Spirit, theologically, when we speak of the presence of the Holy Spirit we mean the presence of God and the presence of Christ together shaping the plans God has for the world and for the church. The Spirit lives in the baptized believers of Jesus and works through them and helps them to proclaim the gospel and witness to the Christ “to the ends of the earth.”

The Spirit basically is our guide on this journey of faith; the presence of Jesus in the church to continue his mission of forgiveness and salvation to all people. Thank goodness God decided we needed God’s Spirit to reassure us, give us advice and provide support so we can become Christ’s presence in the world. We especially see this continued mission of Jesus after he ascended to God. This is when the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost, to fill the disciples and “devout Jews from every nation” who were assembled in Jerusalem.

But before the Day of Pentecost and before Jesus ascended back to God, on the night before he died, to prepare his disciples for what was ahead and for his departure, he promises in the gospel today to send the Spirit of truth to them to strengthen them when he is gone. He tells them his departure is necessary. If he were to remain physically present, it would not be possible for the Holy Spirit to come to them and because the Spirit, sent by Jesus, will come from the Father, the Spirit will continue the work of both the Father and Son, to strengthen the community of believers to continue Christ’s work and to testify to God’s truth.

The Spirit will guide them into the truth of Christ and enable disciples then and now to more fully understand what Jesus has given them, and in so doing, give glory to God. The events on that day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts certainly give glory to God as they present the dramatic beginning of the work of the Spirit promised by Jesus. Pentecost, or the Feast of First Fruits in the OT tradition, was a spring agricultural celebration when the Jewish community would offer thanksgiving for God’s bounty of the harvest. The celebration required all Israelites to assemble at the temple in Jerusalem bringing with them the first grain stalks from their fields.

At the temple these stalks were waved before the Lord as an offering. By devoting the first of the new produce to God, the people were acknowledging that everything came from God and belonged to God. By the time of Jesus, the festival was also increasingly being observed as the day on which God gave birth to the Hebrew nation by giving them the Torah and the law at Mount Sinai. Pentecost is Greek for fiftieth, as the first spring crops were harvested fifty days after planting. Tradition has it that fifty days passed between the first Passover in Egypt and when Moses received the Law from God on Mount Sinai. It was and is now one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish community.

For the Christian community, as the Book of Acts makes clear, Pentecost was the day on which the church was born. Just as God spoke through Moses to bring the nation of Israel into being, so God spoke through Peter and those first disciples to create the beginning of the new faith community. God claimed the first fruits of a worldwide faith harvest on Pentecost. It would become and is now a celebration of thanksgiving for the life of the church through God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. This Christian story is unleased with wind and fire, a rushing, mighty wind, and tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples.

Ordinary people become transformed by the extraordinary power of God’s Spirit who suddenly have more than just their previous human abilities. They became an extraordinary community of faith that would carry the news of the Gospel to the far corners of the known world.  All we know for sure is…. the experience that day was unusual. God poured out God’s Spirit “upon all flesh” sons and daughters, young and old, male and female-all received the Spirit “and they prophesy” Luke tells us.

But there were some in the crowd who disbelieved and accused those filled with the Spirit of being drunk. Peter, in his first sermon to the people, reminds them of what the prophet Joel had said: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.” These words had now become a reality, and those who then and now have but their trust in God, through the Son and by the Holy Spirit are assured of salvation and given Christ’s truth to declare his works. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, likens this work of the Spirit to the pangs of childbirth. By the time Paul wrote to the Romans it was evident that an immediate return of Christ had been unrealistic.

The church in Rome was suffering and some were beginning to fall away. Paul sends a word of hope that is rooted in the gift of Pentecost. He is assuring them that the same Spirit that brought about the birth of the Church is still with them and will be with them no matter how intense the persecutions are. Out of the suffering will come a new joy such as that at the long awaited birth of a child. Paul suggests that our hope lies in what is not actually seen but is anticipated. We have a foot in two worlds—a hope that is still in process with a world waiting to be redeemed, yet, with God’s love and the Spirit actively working among us and within us.

We may live in or experience difficult times nevertheless God is guiding creation through the pains to a future fulfillment of promise. In short, God is working in the church through the Spirit that lives in us. We are called to live within the power of Pentecost, in hope that one day there will be a restoration of the whole creation in which the Spirit is at work. This is good news for the world; one day God will set the broken, wicked, sin-infected world right again. The present pains matter, but not as much as the future hope. 

American author, minister and theologian Peter Leithart writes: What do we have when we have the Spirit? We have everything. The Spirit is the gift from the Father and the Son, the Gift above all gifts, the gift containing all other gifts. All the treasures of God from before the foundation of the world….become ours through the Spirit of Pentecost. At Pentecost, God gives us God himself: What more can we ask? Follow the Spirit. Walk in the rhythm of the Spirit. Sing in the Spirit. Pray in the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. So: in all your getting, get the Spirit. Keep the Spirit and trust the Spirit of God to keep you. Through the Spirit God is with us and we the church are to follow the Spirit that brings truth and life to the world, so we can glorify God.