Pentecost Sermon 2020
The Day of Pentecost – John 14:23-31
St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY
31 May A+D 2020
In Leviticus 25 we hear about God declaring a year of Jubilee every 50 years. God says through Moses (Lev. 25:9-10),
[O]n the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.
All debts were forgiven. If anyone was a slave, he was freed. If anyone had sold his inheritance or property, it was restored. The freedom and possessions that Israel had lost were restored in the 50th year on the Day of Atonement, when the blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies.
This is a picture of Pentecost, which is 50 days after Easter. Jesus promised the coming of the Holy Spirit, and with Him He said these words from today’s Gospel,
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
50 years and liberty was declared. 50 days and peace is declared. The peace which Jesus gives is the liberty and freedom the world cannot give. It is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Jubilee was declared on the Day of Atonement, so the Atonement, Christ’s sacrifice to take away our sins is what the Holy Spirit declares to us through the teaching of the apostles, whom He filled on the day of Pentecost.
Today we celebrate the day of grace, the year of jubilee, freedom from slavery to sin, the restoration of all we lost in Adam and in ourselves. We celebrate the pouring out of the Holy Spirit onto Christ’s Church so that the Gospel might be preached and the sacraments administered, and consciences bound by fear and sins from which we cannot free ourselves, are freed and given the peace that surpasses our understanding.
Freedom is a common topic in America. Our country was founded on basic principles of liberty, the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Battles are being fought in our courts to decide the freedom to open businesses, to worship in Church, and many other issues regarding our liberties. The freedom is uncertain. The peace we desire is not guaranteed.
The cry of freedom is heralded when people want to do whatever they want. People cry freedom when they want to get away from their parents’ oversight. People cry freedom when they leave the church because “religion got shoved down my throat.” People cry freedom when they shed their blood for their country. People cry freedom when they refuse to obey unjust decrees of the government. There are noble and ignoble reasons for shouting out “freedom!” in our earthly lives. But the freedom the Holy Spirit declares is not like these freedoms.
Paul tells the Corinthians (2 Cor. 3:17), “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” But the freedom of which Paul speaks is the only freedom that lasts. It is the freedom that is peace with God, the peace the world cannot give.
It is the freedom that we experience only when we love Christ and keep His word. The sign that you love Christ is that you keep His Word. When Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to His disciples, He was promising His pure Word. This is why He said to them (John 14:26),
But the Comforter, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
The peace is in the teaching, in Jesus’ words. The liberty is in the sound of the trumpet sounded on the Day of Atonement. The Holy Spirit flows from Jesus and into our hearts through the Gospel and sacraments that Jesus gave to His Church to forgive sinners and give them the peace won on the only real Day of Atonement, as it is written (Colossians 1:19-20),
For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
And this is what Isaiah prophesied (61:1),
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
It is this same Spirit who was poured out on the apostles and the Church on that first day of Pentecost. Jesus has given His Church the authority to preach the Gospel, to heal broken hearts, to free those captive to sin from the prison in which they were bound by the Law. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty! There is freedom! There is peace!
Many get confused by the events of Pentecost. God poured out His Holy Spirit as Jesus had promised, and tongues of fire rested on His disciples’ heads, and they spoke in many different languages. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire of which John the Baptist prophesied. It is the testimony of the Spirit that the apostles’ doctrine and teaching is true. But many try to recreate the events of Pentecost to create their own testimony. The miracles the apostles and the disciples did which you can read in the Acts of the Apostles were only to confirm the testimony of the apostles as the same testimony of the Holy Spirit.
This is what Peter preaches on Pentecost, as Joel prophesied, “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.” The visons and prophesying and dreams and miracles were there not as permanent testimonies, but as testimonies to the fact that the Church has the authority of the Holy Spirit to free captives from the prison of death and hell. When people get obsessed about speaking in tongues and prophesying, as many in American do, it is like a kid getting a present and being too distracted by the wrapping paper to pay any attention to the present. The tongues of fire and speaking in tongues were the wrapping paper. The Holy Spirit, His doctrine and the authority to set sinners free from their sins by the Gospel and sacraments, that is the gift. That is the present. And it is ours today! Alleluia! It is ours forever!
But it is so hard to believe. Our hearts are distracted by so many cares and fears. We are Adam’s children, and Adam lost it all, and we lose it all with Him. We are by nature children of wrath, and so we feel no peace. We have sinned and lost the good God has given us, and so we are in debt so great that we could never pay it. And the darkness of our own hearts, and the blindness of the world, lead us too easily astray. We look for peace in many a thing, but the world doesn’t give us the peace we actually need.
Look at the gifts God has given you? Do you have a pious and faithful spouse who trusts in Christ? That is a very precious gift. Do you have pious children who fear God and love you? That is a great gift. Do you have a body that is healthy and works like it should? That is a gift very precious in these times. Do you have enough money, a house to live in, a good job that pays the bills and leaves some left over? Do you have a good reputation, or a good friend who is loyal to you? Good gifts. You find these in the world. But none of these gifts can set you free, because the freedom you need isn’t the peace the world gives.
The peace the world gives depends on our own hearts having what we think we need. When we have these gifts, our hearts feel at rest, but when they are threatened, then we are not at peace. When our family or our health or our money or our reputation are in danger of being disturbed or taken away, where is the peace that our hearts relied on? We were looking to the gift, and not the Giver.
But the Giver has become the Gift. God is the Giver, and the Holy Spirit is the Lord God of Sabaoth, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, whom we worship and glorify with them. And the Father is sending the Spirit of His Son into our hearts today, just as He was poured out on the apostles on Pentecost, and they were bold and fearless and taught us to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christs for the forgiveness of our sins, and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)
The Father sends the Comforter in Jesus’ name. This means on the Day of Atonement. In Jesus’ name mean by His authority, by what He has said and done. What has Jesus done? He has sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat and God has mercy on you. He gives you a peace that doesn’t come from your own heart, but from the heart of God Himself. This peace doesn’t depend on you making peace with God, because God is reconciled to you through the death of His Son! That’s what the Holy Spirit preaches. This liberty doesn’t rely on you setting yourself free, but on the Atonement, the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin, the name of Jesus that declares to sinners who are afraid, who have lost the peace the world gave them, and who feel trapped by their fears and anxieties and troubles and sins – you are freed! You are freedom from guilt that weighs you down. You are freed from the world that hems you into being afraid you don’t have peace. Here is the peace. It is not found in your works or in your thinking or in your understanding or in your decision or in your making things better or making up for what you have done wrong. It is the Jubilee, the joyous celebration that God wants you to celebrate today.
It is good to mourn over your sins, but not so that you cannot celebrate this Holy Feast of Pentecost. Because “you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “‘Abba, Father.’” (Rom. 8:15) You have received the Spirit who speaks in words that meet the humble, those who are broken-hearted over their sins and their own weakness, but He speaks of a strength that is made perfect in weakness, of the Power and Wisdom of God, of Christ Jesus, who died, but behold He lives for you and pleads for you, and all the righteousness you see you lack that you lost is restored to you again. All your property is yours again. Your freedom cannot be taken away as long as you hear the trumpet sounding the Jubilee, as long as you hear the voice of Your Shepherd, whose words are Spirit and life, telling you, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be the propitiation – the Atonement! – for our sins.” (1 John 4:9)
And that is why we love Christ. We cling to His words. We hold on to them and keep them. Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, He will keep My words.” How do you love Jesus? You keep His words. You know you have the Holy Spirit when You cling to His words of eternal life. And if you have the Holy Spirit, you have love and joy and peace too. If you feel remorse for your sins, then know that the Holy Spirit is convincing you of your sin, not to browbeat you or send you away in shame, but to prepare your heart for the peace the world cannot give. And when you hear the precious Gospel that the trumpet has sounded, that God has decreed on the basis of the blood of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ His Son, that you are free from your debt, that you are not a slave to sin, but a son of God through the new birth of water and the Spirit; when you believe that the righteousness and life you lost, Jesus has restored by His suffering and dying and resurrection, then you know that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, has given you life that will never end. Then you know that God dwells within you, that God has poured His love into your heart through His Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), that He has supplied His Spirit to you through the hearing of faith, (Galatians 3:5) and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, there is liberty, and as Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is in you,” because “the kingdom of God is…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14:17)
So you love Jesus and you keep His Word. Come, Holy Spirit! Fill the hearts of Your faithful people, and kindle in them the fire of Your love! The Father and the Son come and make their dwelling with you. You are made into the temple of the living God. You are not your own. You were bought with a price that fulfills every debt you owe to God. So now, as Paul says, “Owe no one anything except to love one another.” (Rom. 13:8) You know what this love is. It is based on forgiveness. It is founded on the doctrine of the apostles and prophets, who point to Christ and show you your sin not on you, but on Christ the Crucified, the Lamb of God, whose body you eat today, and whose blood you drink for the forgiveness of your sins. It is love that casts out fear and believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things because it is the love of God that He pours into your heart when you believe that your debt is paid, you are free, and no one and nothing can bind your soul. You are bound to Christ your Lord, who loves you, and teaches you to love.
If anyone has done you wrong, forgive him, as God in Christ forgave you. Be the child of God you are. Act as one who is free, because you are. Do not be bound by anger and hatred and resentment. These are the old things that are passing away, and they belong to the spirit of bondage and fear that kept Israel from believing Moses. But Christ is making all things new in you. He does so by teaching you the truth about yourself and God. The world doesn’t teach this. Your heart doesn’t teach this. The Spirit of truth teaches this, and He comforts your heart and tells you, “Dear child of God, if someone has taken something from you, or done you wrong, he has not taken away your liberty and your freedom and your peace. Don’t worry about the peace the world gives, that can be taken away. Turn your heart to where I point you, to Christ, who died with all regret inside of Him and the wrath of God upon Him, and rose with only joy and peace and freedom to give to you. It is all yours. It is love that you can rely on when you see that you have not loved. It is peace you can know is yours even when your heart condemns you, but I am the Spirit, and I am the Lord, and I am greater than your heart, and I tell you the truth, that whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus shall be saved, shall be rescued from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation. Hear me and be free. Hear the trumpet’s peal, and join the songs of great jubilation! Israel, the Church is singing! She says, ‘The debts are paid and forgiven! All that you thought you lost is restored! And everyone around you is full of joy in the Spirit because we are the Church, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Lord and Giver of life in our hearts, and where He is, there is freedom that no government or disease or fear of the world can take from us! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
~Pr. Mark Preus