JUNE 8th, 2025 PASTOR DON PIEPER
Pentecost Sunday John 15:26-7;16:5-15/Acts 2:1-21
“GETTING DRAWN IN”
A blessed Pentecost Sunday to all of you! May the Holy Spirit fill you and empower you!
So if I or someone say or pray that over you, your respone is: “Amen! Come Holy Spirit!”
That response is one of the oldest prayers of the church. And speaking of old, if you can imagine, this is the 30th anniversary of my being installed here as pastor of LCR! In celebration of that, I pulled out the sermon I preached that day and thought it would be fun and meaningful to revisit that today. So with a few slight modifications, here's what was said on June 4th, 1995....
I opened with a question: 'What or who is the Holy Spirit and what happens when he or she comes?' I wrote he or she because the word for Spirit in Greek is feminine. Ever see the movie, The Shack? They cast a woman in the role of the Holy Spirit because of that but God transcends as well as embodies the characteristics of both men and women so let's not get distracted.
So “what can we expect to happen if and when we're filled with the Holy Spirit?” When I saw that I couldn't believe I asked that question! It was a year to the day of our first Alpha retreat! I won-dered aloud, can one expect to have a John Phillip Sousa moment with music and bells and things?
Or perhaps we can expect a celestrial visit from a supernatural being commonly known as a ghost. So is the Holy Spirit like Casper the friendly ghost? Does he speak in a squeeky voice too? I hope he's a friendly ghost! On the other hand, even though I was taught to believe in God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost I was also taught not to believe in ghosts. It was a confusing childhood...
So what is God up to here? Why is this event so significant that we interupted our series on the Kingdom of Heaven to explore it today, and that the church global pauses to observe it as well? In Germany it is still celebrated as a holiday...!
In our gospel readings we heard how Jesus promised to send another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, as he identified him/her, and how fifty days after his resurrection he made good on that promise, how as his followers were praying in the upper room they were lit up with the fire of the Spirit! It's interesting that Luke doesn't provide any more detail about what the disciples personally experienced but instead turns our attention to the reaction of those visiting the city that day. The real action takes place out in the streets apparently where people of numerous nationalities and backgrounds hear about the great things God has done being spoken of in their own language.
There are a number of things here that I find striking – a wind blowing through a house, flicker-ing flames lighting up the disciples, who suddenly start speaking in tongues – but for today I'd like to focus your attention on just two of the dynamics present here: Who and Why!
Luke writes: “Now there were staying in Jerusalem devout Jews drawn from every nation under heaven. At the sound of this mighty Wind, a crowd gathered and were bewildered because each one heard his own language being spoken.” (Acts 2:5-6) “A crowd gathered....”
How many of you like to read? For me, there's nothing like curling up to a good book. Authors and movie directors have a way of drawing you into the story. A classic example is the opening frame to the film, The Sound of Music. The panorama shots draw us in to the beauty of the mountains and our curiosity about this twirling woman singing: 'The world is alive with the sound of music!'
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There's something about a good story that draws us in and before long you find yourself caring about one or more of the main characters. After a while, you find it hard to put the book down. You find yourself emotionally invested in their well being. I remember crying at the close of the Lord of the Rings, as the Fellowship disbands, and the days of Middle Earth wane. Tolkien drew me in!
In much the same way, the Holy Spirit draws us in. We see this in our text. The sound of the wind captured their interest but it was the story the disciples told “about the wonderful things God has done” (2:11), that drew them in, that captured their imagination and prompted their questions, and before they knew it they were emotionally invested in this Nazarene who laid down his life for his friends, friends they discovered, included each one of them, just as it includes each one of you! They were drawn in by the Spirit and in hearing it, they just couldn't put that heart pounding story down!
I've been blessed to worship with folks from a number of different places, from Illinois to Kansas, from New Jersey to California, from Washington to Frankfurt, to Odessa, to London, and I have come to the conclusion, based on the great variety of perspectives, histories and livelihoods, that either God is a very poor judge of character, or God has a great sense of humor. Scripture reveals that God is the ultimate judge of character so I concluded that the latter must be the case.
Animals are a fun reminder of this. Facebook is full of photos of some unusual friendships that have formed in the animal kingdom. Here's a few fun examples.... 'You can learn a lot from animals!'
“So at first, we were all like......; but then, we were like....”
I heard of a guy who's car broke down on a country road. Soon a brown dog trotted by, pausing to comment, “You might want to check the carburator.” Amazed, the man raced to the nearest farm house and explained what had happened. The farmer replied, “Oh that's just Carl. Don't you pay no attention to him. He doesn't know the first thing about cars.” But he may about loving the other!
From the birth of the church in Jerusalem to this very day, God has gathered together in his church a rather odd, unusual collection of 'different' folk. Some are more different than others! So it was on the first Pentecost. Some sixteen different nationalities and religious backgrounds are listed there in Acts 2 and we know that Jesus himself was a drawing force to Jews and Gentiles alike, calling fishermen, political zealots, traitors and cheats, widows and orphans, slaves and Romans together...!
How could Jesus possibly expect that kind of gathering of “different” folk to get along? I recall attending family gatherings where everyone was related, looked similar, but had a hard time getting along. How can Jesus expect us to be any different? My friends, only by the power of the Holy Spirit!
As Jesus promised: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses...” (Acts 1:8) “So it is to your advantage that I go away, for if don't, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7)
Or as Paul so eloquently put it: “(Jesus) brought the Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.” (Ephesians 2:17-18)
Some are inclined to celebrate that while others resist it. In Acts 2 we're told that some in the crowd were filled with contempt towards the disciples, accusing them of being drunk, filled with liquid spirits rather than the Holy Spirit. It sounds funny..., but by it, they distance themselves.
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There is also the human tendency and pressure to associate solely with like-minded folk. That certainly is the easy, most comfortable thing to do. It's part of what is weakening the church today is the shuffling of the chairs in churches, the inclination to worship with only those who agree with you.
Yet in spite of social resistance to associating with outsiders and those who are not one of us, or like us, God continues to draw us in, gathering us together with all of our differences intact. It would seem that God loves diversity, and gathers us to embody the unity of the Spirit in contrast to the world!
It's what Jesus prayed for, after all, most of all!
So the who is you! You're here because somehow, somewhere along the way, His Spirit drew you in! He is drawing you into his story so that your story will be set ablaze with His love for you and those around you. That's how much He loves you and being filled is all about being changed by it!
That's the who – it's you! And the why is all about that change he's bringing, a change that helps one shift from, what can I get out if it, to how can I partner with the Spirit to bless others? Why does the Holy Spirit draw us in? Because the world desperately needs us to show them Jesus!
It's been such a rich and wonderful thirty years watching Jesus, by his Spirit, do just that, over and over again. One such case, was how God drew Marsi Hope in. Marsi was reluctant at first. When Claudia invited her, Marsi was friendly, but her reaction was as if her arms were crossed... Yet Marsi wound up at Alpha eventually and while attending the retreat was filled with the Holy Spirit. Even though she came from Christian Scientist background she opened her heart to what God was doing.
To our surprise, she wound up befriending a former convict and struggling addict, by the name of Pete Fullwood. Marsi even opened her home to Pete and nursed him back to health after surgery. She and Pete came from completely different worlds and yet as the Spirit was working on each of them they found, through their love for Jesus, a selfless love for one another. Marsi's big heart and growing faith had a huge impact on Pete. 'The world' desperately needs us to show them Jesus.
What's more, I love how on that first Pentecost, we see how the Spirit drew them in but then also translated the gospel of grace in way that they could each understand. The Spirit loves to do that – to convey Jesus' heart to us in a way that relates to you as you are, where you are. The Advocate transforms our babel and confusion into clarity and understanding so we, too, may truly belong....
As Martin Luther wrote in his explanation of the third article of the Apostle's Creed: “I cannot by my own effort or understanding believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him; but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts and sanctified me in the true faith.”
(Martin Luther)
Jesus fills us with His Spirit so that we may hear the Good News in our own language and in so doing, understand as well as we might the great things God has done for you/us, giving us the motiva-tion and courage to be drawn in to his gospel work – loving others into the Kingdom!
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God draws us in, as one family, with all of our diversity and differences intact, so that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”!
(Acts 2:21)
“In those days,' God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all people....!” (Acts 2:17)
May the Holy Spirit fill you and empower you! “Amen! Come Holy Spirit!”