The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away...

Pentecost – June 8, 2014 - Year A

Texts: Acts 2:1-21

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace be with you, from God our Father, from his beloved Son, and from the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Have you ever been bewildered by the power of the wind? I have, many times – I’ll share one time with you. My mom and stepdad and I went camping together in the mountains of New Hampshire one summer. We had a beautiful campsite, right along a small brook, complete with babbling water. The campsite was surrounded by towering trees, which formed a sort of outdoor cathedral over our heads.

We set up our tent under the towering trees, next to the babbling brook, and, after we finished setting up the rest of our camp, we enjoyed a lovely dinner by the campfire. This was  before smart phones and Kindles – I don’t think I even had a book light – so, when the night reached a point of deep darkness, and the campfire had died down, we went to bed. The babbling brook sang us a lullaby as we drifted off to sleep.

And then…

We were awakened in the middle of the night by a storm, picking up steam. Our tent was rainproof, we discovered. But what struck us was the wind. The wind, blowing a gale (as my mother-in-law would say) – picking up items we’d left out and blowing them around. We wondered to ourselves if the tent might blow away. Our beautiful cathedral of towering trees was transformed into a seemingly living and breathing space – and all three of us were in the tent, wondering if the ceiling of the cathedral might come crashing down on top of us.

It didn’t. The next morning, as we left camp, Mom talked with the park ranger, who had asked how our night was. “Noisy,” she responded, and he agreed, telling us that the winds on the mountain that night had clocked in at 50mph with gusts even higher. No wonder we felt so bewildered by that wind.

I’m thinking that the disciples gathered for Pentecost must’ve felt somewhat the same – bewildered. There they are, gathered together, celebrating Pentecost – which was the Jewish feast during which they remembered God giving the Law to Moses and the Israelites so very long ago. These disciples who are gathered have been witnesses of Jesus – to Jesus’ life and death, to his resurrection and ascension.

And then…

“…suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

And this is how the promised Holy Spirit arrives into their lives – through the rush of wind and the glow of tongues of fire. Beyond that, the disciples are given the ability, through the Spirit, to speak in languages that are not their own so that they may proclaim God’s deeds of power in the life and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ in the languages of the gathered community.

And there are some there who are bewildered by it all, and others who think they’re all drunk, which gives Peter the perfect opportunity to stand up and bear witness to work of God in their very midst. We don’t hear the end of Peter’s sermon today, but when he finishes, the crowd is “cut to the heart” and they begin asking, “What should we do?”

And Peter simply responds: “’Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.'”

We then hear that three thousand of them are baptized that day, and so the work of the Holy Spirit continues to expand. Out of that first group of Christians, God is birthing the Christian church, and empowering it with the Holy Spirit to get out there and spread the word that God freed Jesus from death and, in doing so, he frees us from the power of death, also.

“Repent and be baptized,” Peter says to those first Christians, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” – and that is the promise that we still have from God to this day – that when we are baptized, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is the gift which Brooklyn will receive today – because the promise is for everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

We are not called by God only for our own sakes. Similar to what I said last week – I wonder where on earth we’d all be if those first Christians who received the Holy Spirit had kept their mouths shut - if when they received the Spirit, they’d gone home, shut their doors, and gone to bed!

Thank God they didn’t. Thank God that the Spirit drove them into their homes and marketplaces, to the synagogues and the wells where they drew water – so that they could speak about God’s deeds of power to others, so that others would also be called by God to believe.

We are not called by God only for our own sakes. We don’t receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for it to be hidden away. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and we are empowered by that Spirit to proclaim the great love of God. It’s bewildering sometimes – God is calling me? Yes, my brothers and sisters – God is calling us. “For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”

Amen.

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