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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Today is the fiftieth and last day of the Easter Season, and so today is also the last day of the festival half of the Church Year, and yet Pentecost to some extent also is a festival in its own right, so much so that the Sundays following it are counted as “after Pentecost” for the entire non‑festival half of the Church Year. Today’s liturgy, both its propers and ordinaries, and the paraments, red for the fire of the Holy Spirit, in various ways reflect Pentecost’s being in two seasons, two halves of the Church Year. Of course, all that is not even yet to mention that Pentecost had a place on the Jewish calendar of the Old Testament as a harvest festival, long before that festival was used by the Holy Spirit to reap, in some sense, the first-fruits of the Apostolic Church. Today’s Gospel Reading includes some of our Lord’s teaching about the work of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus is said to have bid “farewell” to His disciples on the night when He was betrayed. As we heard, the Lord told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all things that Jesus Himself had said to them, no doubt including His speaking about His leaving His peace with them. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, this morning by the power of the Holy Spirit we remember “Jesus’s comforting peace”.
With today’s Pentecost pairing of the Old Testament Reading about God’s confusing the people’s language at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) and the Second Reading about the Holy Spirit’s enabling the apostles to speak in other languages (Acts 2:1-21), much is often made of Pentecost as “undoing” or “reversing” Babel. Of course, if Babel’s confusion of language was really undone by the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, arguably the apostles would not have needed to have spoken other languages then, and we would not have different languages spoken still now. One may wonder if the apostles really did “need” to speak other languages then, that is, whether or not Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Latin would have served as a sort of “bridge language”, a lingua franca, if you will, that would have enabled the devout Jews from every nation under heaven in Jerusalem at that time to understand what the apostles might have said. To be sure, a miraculous gift of the apostles’ speaking in languages that they had never learned was never explicitly promised by our Lord in any of His teaching about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the Lord promised such things as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, that the Holy Spirit would teach the apostles all things and bring to their remembrance all things that Jesus Himself had said to them.
Do Jesus’s words keep us from expecting other things from the Holy Spirit? Do we want speaking in languages never learned? Miraculous healings? Arms uplifted and waving? Dancing in the aisle? Being slain in a spirit of laughter? Do teaching and reminding sound too boring? Are we not content with faithful preaching of the Gospel and administration of the Sacraments and the results that God sees fit to give them in this place and time? Too often we want to measure success the way the world does, when Jesus does not work the way that the world works. For example, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus says that the way that the world gives peace is not the way that He gives peace. We do not really need the peace or anything else that the world gives, but we do really need the peace and everything else that Jesus gives. By nature, we are sinful and so unable to have true fear and love of God; we are hostile to God and deserve His punishment now and forever. But, out of His great love, mercy, and grace for the sake of Jesus, God calls and enables us to repent and be forgiven, in other words, to receive “Jesus’s comforting peace”.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus gave His apostles that peace as a gift. Then Jesus died on the cross in order to earn that peace for them and for the whole world, including us. Jesus rose from the dead and repeatedly appeared to His disciples, greeting them with that peace (for example, John 20:19, 26). After the Father sent, in Jesus’s Name, the Holy Spirit, the apostles told the devout men from every nation in their own languages the mighty works of God. As we heard in today’s Second Reading, St. Peter preached that God fulfilled His promise through the prophet Joel that the Spirit would be poured out on all and that everyone who called upon the Name of the Lord would be saved. And, as we will hear in the continuation of that sermon in next‑Sunday’s Second Reading, St. Peter went on to detail how Jesus was crucified and raised and the Holy Spirit poured out. His hearers repented and were baptized, and the Lord added their souls to the Church (Acts 2:14a, 22-36). Contrary to what some wrongly believe, there are not different dispensations, but essentially the Holy Spirit is always available to all, and salvation is always by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
As Jesus said in today’s Gospel Reading, the Holy Spirit taught the apostles all things and brought to their remembrance all things that Jesus Himself had said to them. The Holy Spirit not only stands behind the inspired and therefore inerrant Holy Scripture, but the Holy Spirit also is given through the faithful preaching of Holy Scripture and administration of the Sacraments. In the Second Reading, St. Peter faithfully preached Holy Scripture, and later his hearers were baptized. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus “left” His peace with His apostles, and we, who privately confess to our pastors the sins that particularly trouble us, are forgiven in Holy Absolution and likewise left with peace (Lutheran Service Book 292-293). And, in the Holy Supper, in remembrance of Jesus, we eat bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and drink wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, and we depart in peace—from this communion rail this morning, and also from this life some day.
Jesus gives us His peace as a gift. Our hearts need not be troubled, He says, nor afraid. We can be content with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the faithful preaching of the Gospel and administration of the Sacraments and the results that God sees fit to give them in this place and time. We can be content when there is what seems to be trouble at work or school, at church, in our homes, or with a loved one’s or our own health. Later in His so‑called “farewell discourse”, Jesus told His apostles that, in the world, they would have tribulation, but that they should take heart, for He had overcome the world, and, in Him, they had peace (John 16:33). As we prayed in the Collect of the Day, we rejoice in the Holy Spirit’s consoling us with “Jesus’s comforting peace”, and, even if speaking and singing in different languages, we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven lauding and magnifying God’s glorious name (confer Revelation 7:9).
Pentecost is the end of the Easter Season and the festival half of the Church Year, but every Sunday after Pentecost in the non-festival half of the Church Year, until Advent starts a new Church Year with another festival half, is still a little celebration of Easter, if not also of Pentecost. We hear of Jesus’s death on the cross for us and His resurrection from the grave. We confess our sin and are freely forgiven His sake. The Holy Spirit continuously comes through His Word and Sacraments to fill the hearts of us faithful and to kindle in us the fire of His love and to grant us “Jesus’s comforting peace”.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +