Sermon for the Day of Pentecost, May 13, 2010
Solemn Mass
By the Reverend Stephen Gerth
Year C: Acts 2:1-11, 104:25-37, 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, John 20:19-23

Somewhat like the Church’s celebration of Jesus’ Ascension, the Church’s celebration of Pentecost has been taken over by Luke’s second book, his Acts of the Apostles. With respect, I’m not sure this has been a really good thing.

These takeovers, it seems to me, have helped narrow the Christian community’s ordinary consciousness of the breadth of the Paschal, the Easter, mystery. The Ascension of Jesus wasn’t a one-time, on the fortieth day, event. The gift of the Holy Spirit wasn’t a one-time, on the fiftieth day – Pentecost means fifty, event.

The four gospels offer us a broader, far less organized, less schematic, view of God’s work among us in Christ and by the Holy Spirit. This broader, gospel view, is closer to what I have known and experienced and seen in others in this journey of life and faith that we share.

For the record, there is no account of a giving of the Holy Spirit in Mark’s gospel, except the account of the Spirit descending on Jesus himself like a dove when Jesus comes up out of the waters of his baptism.[1] Later in Mark, the Holy Spirit will be mentioned by Jesus when he tells his disciples they will not have to worry about what they will say when they are persecuted, because the Holy Spirit himself will speak through them.[2] The question of how this happens or why this happens just doesn’t come up for Mark.

You will remember that almost all New Testament scholars think Matthew and Luke have Mark’s text in front of them when they write their gospels. The Holy Spirit material in Mark is just one of many reasons why scholars think this.

In Matthew, as Jesus comes out of the water, Jesus alone sees “the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him.”[3] Matthew’s Jesus also tells the disciples they are not to worry about what they will say when they are brought to trial.[4]

Matthew identifies the source of the Spirit who will speak through the apostles as coming from the disciples’ heavenly Father.[5] In Matthew, from the beginning of his ministry, Jesus speaks freely to all who hear him of God being their Father. From the beginning of his ministry with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches all who hear him to call God “Father” in prayer.[6] It’s fair to say that in Matthew’s view, the relationship is already there when Jesus begins. No special or additional gift is needed to create this relationship. There is no special gift of the Holy Spirit in Matthew’s gospel to those who believe.

In Luke, at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit has descended on him “in bodily form, as a dove.”[7] After his baptism, Jesus goes into the wilderness “full of the Spirit” and “led by the Spirit.”[8] After Satan’s temptations, Jesus goes into Galilee “in the power of the Spirit”[9] and proclaims in the synagogue, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”[10]

Luke’s Jesus also tells his disciples they are not to be anxious about how to answer when persecuted because “the Holy Spirit will teach [them] in that very hour what [they] ought to say.”[11]

Luke’s Jesus also teaches his disciples to call God “Father.”[12] He shares Matthew’s view that all people are children of God.  In his second book, the Acts of the Apostles, Luke will recount a gift of the Holy Spirit,[13] but in the gospel, fundamental relationship is already there between God and men and women.

In today’s gospel lesson from John, it is “the evening of that day, the first day of the week,”[14] the first Easter Day. For the second time in John, Jesus pours out his Spirit on his disciples.[15] Jesus has already given his Spirit to his disciples as he lays down his life on the cross.[16] In John, everyone who believes in the Son of man may be born again[17] and see the kingdom of God.[18]

The lesson we hear every year on this day from the Acts of the Apostles gives us Luke’s view of the empowerment of the apostles and the Church by the Holy Spirit. It is in Acts that Luke recounts the tongues of fire and all the things that are associated with the work of the Spirit – the healings, the speaking in tongues, and the persecutions.

I’ve never been entirely comfortable with all of these things. They are just outside of my experience. I have never seen the Holy Spirit appearing as tongues of fire. I have never seen anyone healing another by the touch of their hands – except on TV. If God could let Peter[19] and Paul[20] out of their chains, why do not the chains today fall off of the innocent? – but that is a problem for another sermon, on another day. That said, I try to remain respectful, but at this point in my own journey, almost everything seems to take me back to Easter Day.

None of the gospels ties the great events of Jesus, death, resurrection, ascension and gift of the Spirit together in one story, but except for Mark, all of them try. I do think they are all reaching for this Paschal Mystery, they are trying really for the first time to talk about the life of the one who revealed God’s purposes and God’s relationship with humankind.

I do not remember where I first read or heard that the purpose of Baptism was not to give the Holy Spirit to someone, but to help reveal to the person coming to faith that the Holy Spirit was already present in his or her life. You and I come to the font because of the work of God in our lives today. It is God who called Christ to the river Jordan. We believe God calls us to the water today so his risen and eternal life may be revealed more and more in our lives and to others in this world as we journey to the world to come.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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