05/31 – Acts 2:1-21 – Always Outpouring
May 31, 2020
Grace, mercy, and peace to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has kept His word and promise to send another Helper to be with us always.1 A Helper to teach us, and keep us in, who Jesus really is. This Helper is the Spirit of the Lord Himself; the third person of the Holy Trinity. The Spirit active at creation,2 the Spirit that worked through Moses and the elders,3 the Spirit that descended on Jesus in His Baptism,4 is now given to all of God’s people, just as Moses had wished.5 He is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and might, of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.6 He who shed His blood for us now gives us this gift also. Today His Spirit is out poured. Come Holy Spirit!
We heard of this outpouring in the first reading for today. Many things happened that day, signs that the Spirit had come, but we do need to be careful not to confuse the signs of the Spirit’s coming with the work of the Spirit who has come. The signs were great, but they were not the greatest miracle that day.
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There was a mighty rushing wind, but God had used such wind before, for example, to part the Red Sea.7
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There were tongues as of fire, but God had appeared to Moses in a burning bush.8
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There was speaking in other languages, but that too God had done before, at the Tower of Babel.9
The signs were evidence that the Spirit had come, but focusing on the signs may cause us to miss the point of why the Spirit has come. Focusing on the signs is like focusing on the name-tag on a present without opening the present. It is to misunderstand the whole point of the signs, which is to point to something even greater.
With the Spirit of the Lord poured out on the disciples, they are no longer timid, frightened and confused. They stand and preach, and through their preaching the words of the prophet Joel are fulfilled:
The Spirit of the Lord is poured out: on men and women, sons and daughters, people of all ages and races.10
so that at the end of Peter’s sermon, there is the great miracle of Pentecost! Three thousand souls believe and are baptized from nations all over the world.11
We celebrate the Day of Pentecost today not just as an historical event, and not hoping to repeat the wind and fire, and tongues, that happened at the first Pentecost. We celebrate Pentecost because the outpouring of the Spirit that began that day continues among us today. The promise of the prophet Joel is for us too. Through the preaching of the Gospel and through the water of Holy Baptism, we are given the Spirit of the Lord, and we are joined to the Church. The Church is not our work but the Spirit’s work. The Church is not something we join, but that to which the Spirit calls us and connects us. The Church is the gathering and miracle of the Holy Spirit, which is still happening today, which is why we are here today.
That is why we call the preaching of the Word and the giving of the Sacraments the signs, or marks, of the Church. They are the visible signs. Through Word and Sacrament we have the promise of the Holy Spirit.
It’s not that we know where the Church is because the Church does the signs. We know where the Church is because the signs do the Church. The signs are the means through which the Spirit is poured out on us. Whether it is through the preaching and baptizing of Peter and the eleven, or the preaching and baptizing today. It is through Word and Sacrament that our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord is still working among us today, sending His Spirit, forgiving sins, giving faith, and giving life; life eternal. We have His promise, and so we can be sure. So we witnessed Pentecost today as Thomas was baptized. Our Lord fulfilled His Word and made Thomas His own, His son, through water and the Word.
Now some of you may be wondering why Thomas needed to be baptized at all. After all, through the preaching of the Gospel the Spirit came to him, and he has been coming to our church where he hears the Word, so why Baptize him? Why is this necessary? The answer is not just because Jesus commanded Baptism. That would be changing Holy Baptism into Law not Gospel. This Baptism was for Thomas’ benefit. Will he continue to believe? Yes. I know this family, and I know he will be brought up in the way and Word of the Lord. The question is how could he be sure he believed enough? Or believed strong enough? Or believed good enough? He would be constantly looking at himself and his heart, and trying to measure his faith, basing the certainty of his salvation in himself.
But today, Thomas was Baptized! Baptism is not something Thomas did, but something done to him. Today, Thomas did not come to Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ came to him, sent His Spirit, and said you are mine.
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I join you to my death and resurrection.
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I forgive you all your sins.
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I make you my child.
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I give you a place in my Heavenly home.
This is Jesus word’ and when Jesus speaks there is no doubt. Thomas’ faith is not in his faith. Your faith is not your faith. Faith is the Baptismal work of God for him. So when he sins, when he falls into doubt, when he is anxious or worried, when Satan attacks and assails him, he is able to say, “I am baptized! I am a child of God! My Savior does not lie!” What wonderful confidence that gives all who have been Baptized.
That is the “living water” Jesus spoke of in the Gospel reading. When we live by the Law, or in other words when we live by looking at ourselves, and what we do, our own faith and our own efforts, we dry up. All our work and struggle to do and believe enough drives us to thirst. What is worse, all of our work fails to satisfy, do not give us what we’re looking for, but makes us more thirsty. The more we work the more we thirst. A vicious, unending, unsatisfying, demonic cycle.
Yet to those who are oppressed and dying of thirst, we have a promise:
All who drink of this water will never thirst again.12 The Spirit will satisfy our greatest need. The Spirit gives us what we cannot do or find for ourselves. He gives us Jesus, and in giving us Jesus He gives us: faith, life, forgiveness, and joy, so that the life we now live is not a dry chasing after what we cannot achieve. It is now life in Christ. The life in Christ that flows over us and then out from us.
Jesus came to make a trade. He traded lives with us. He came and took our death and gave us His life. He came and took the heat for us. the heat of the Law and its demands, the heat of our sin and its punishment, the heat of our sin and guilt, Jesus took it all on Himself on the cross, and thirsted,13 so that by taking our place under the Law and into death, He could overwhelm them with His flood of life.
Now we are invited to eat the Body and drink the Blood of the crucified One, who came to serve us with His death, and now comes to serve us with Himself. That as He lives we too may live. That we who hunger and thirst for righteousness14 may be filled. That we who sin will be forgiven. That the Holy Spirit will continue His work in us and join us to Jesus. That we be absolutely sure, that we live in Christ and that Christ lives in us. The work is His, not ours. The Holy Spirit given and working in the hearts of those on that first Pentecost is the same Spirit given and working in us. The outpouring of the Spirit continues still today. Still building His Church. Still gathering, washing and feeding the children of God.
Come, Holy Spirit, let the fire fall. Fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love. Alleluia!
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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NOTES
1John 14:16
2Genesis 1:2
3Exodus 24:9-11
4Matthew 3:16
5Numbers 11:29
6Isaiah 11:2
7Exodus 14:13ff
8Exodus 3:2
9Genesis 11:7
10Joel 2:28
11Acts 2:41
12John 4:14
13John 19:29
14Matthew 5:6
Mary Clasby says
Thank you… Pastor James outstanding teaching. I don’t know if we have a new video system or not but was great today. No problem with audio or system trying to catch up. God bless you and Kerri and your family. I .do miss all.