Pentecost
Acts
2:1-21
5/24/26
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water,
but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I
am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and fire.” John the Baptist was on the divide between the old and the new.
He dressed like a prophet and spoke like a prophet of the Old Testament. And
yet he was also the fulfillment of prophecies made in the Old Testament
by Isaiah and Malachi. He was not announcing something that God would do in the
distant future, but instead something that was about to happen in the present.
Like the prophets sent by God in the Old Testament, everything John
says about the future is true. But since John speaks like a prophet of the Old
Testament, everything is not true exactly in the way he expects. John announced
that the coming One would bring God’s end time judgment. He said of this One,
“His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and
to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn
with unquenchable fire.”
John didn’t understand that the coming One, came first to suffer
and die. When John sat in prison because he had spoken God’s truth to King
Herod Antipas, and he heard about the miracles Jesus was doing, he was
confused. This wasn’t what it was supposed to look like. So he sent two
disciples to Jesus with this question: “Are you the one who is to come,
or shall we look for another?”
Jesus
replied, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to
them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” Our Lord’s answer used the language of Isaiah
to say that, yes, he was the coming One. But he also acknowledged that it
didn’t look exactly as John expected when he said: “And blessed is the one who
is not offended by me.”
Today, on the
Feast of Pentecost, we see another example of how what John the Baptist said
was true – just not in the way he expected. John had said about the coming One,
“He will baptize
you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” On Pentecost the crucified,
risen, and ascended Lord did this not in the fire of destroying judgment, but
instead in tongues like fire as the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Feast of Pentecost brings the season of Easter to a close. The
Lord Jesus who had risen on Easter was no longer visibly present with the
disciples as he had been for forty days. But Pentecost is still part of the
season Easter because it brings some unfinished Easter business to conclusion.
On the evening of Easter, Jesus appeared in the midst of the locked
room were the disciples were present. As they were talking, Jesus himself
stood among them, and said “Peace to you!” He demonstrated that he was the same
Jesus who had died by crucifixion on Good Friday and had been buried as he
said, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands
and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not
have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
He even took some broiled fish and ate it in front of them to prove the
point.
Jesus announced that he was the fulfillment of everything that had
been written about him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said, “Thus it
is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise
from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be
proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.”
These words summarize what Christ has done for us. He suffered and
died on the cross in fulfillment of God’s saving will. He did it in order to
give the forgiveness of sins. At the Last Supper Christ had applied the words
of Isaiah chapter 53 to himself as he said, “For I tell you that this
Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the
transgressors.’” Though he was the sinless Son of God, Jesus chose to be
identified not just as a sinner, but instead as The Sinner. He received
the judgment of God against the sin of every person – against your sin.
Sin brings death. It did for Adam. And it did for Jesus the second
Adam. But in Christ God was working to defeat death, and so on Easter God the
Father raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus is the first fruits of the
resurrection. He is the beginning of the resurrection of the Last Day.
Christ had won this salvation, and for forty days he was with the
disciples. He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise
of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with
water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many
days from now.” When the disciples questioned about his saving work for Israel
he told them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father
has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Ten days ago we celebrated the ascension of Jesus as he withdrew
his visible presence. For ten days the disciples waited as the risen and
ascended Lord’s promise remained unfulfilled. Then on the Day of Pentecost when
they were all together in one place there suddenly came from heaven a sound
like a mighty rushing wind. It filled the entire house where they were,
and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each
one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability.
In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for “spirit” can also mean wind.
The sound like a mighty wind announced what was happening – the Holy Spirit was
being poured out. And as John the Baptist had declared – there was fire. But it
was not the fire of judgment. Instead, what appeared as tongues of flame were
distributed on the heads of the believers.
Pentecost was one of the major feasts of the Old Testament.
Faithful Jews from all over the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world who lived
in the city were celebrating it. When they heard the sound they were drawn to
where the disciples were located. They were bewildered because the disciples
were obviously Galileans. They were not educated and sophisticated people. And
yet they were speaking in all of these foreign languages as they proclaimed the
mighty works of God.
We learn in our text that all were amazed and asked one another,
“What does this mean?” Some mocked as they said, “They are filled with new
wine.” They accused the disciples of being drunk. Peter stood up and called for
their attention. He began by pointing out that this explanation was just dumb.
After all, it was only 9:00 a.m. and no one was drunk at that time of day.
Instead, this was an event of God’s end time salvation. It was a
fulfillment of God’s Word. Peter said, “But this is what was uttered through
the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I
will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old
men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in
those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.’”
In his sermon Peter went on to declare that although God had
attested Jesus to them by his mighty works, they had delivered him up and
killed him by the hands of lawless men.
Jesus had died and had been buried. But in fulfillment of David’s words
in the Psalm 16, God had not allowed his holy One to see corruption.
Peter announced, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that
we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God,
and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy
Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The
Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,
until
I make your enemies your footstool.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know
for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this
Jesus whom you crucified.”
On Pentecost the risen Lord
fulfilled his word. Ascended and exalted to the right hand of God, he poured
forth the Spirit. Christ had described the Spirit as the power that would
enable witness in the world. In the Gospel lessons during Easter from John we
have learned about how the job of the Spirit is to bear witness to Christ. It
is to take what belongs to Jesus and make it known to us.
The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ,
and so the work of the Spirit is to deliver what Christ has won for us. The
Spirit is the presence of Christ with his Church. During his earthly ministry
Christ’s presence and work was tied to one place. But now as the ascended Lord
he has poured forth the Spirit so that he is present and at work wherever the
Gospel is proclaimed. The Spirit is the presence of Christ at work all over the
world at once.
The risen Lord had said, “Thus it is written, that the
Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and
that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in
his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Jesus has
accomplished salvation by his death and resurrection. But this Good News – this
Gospel – must now be proclaimed and believed. This is the work of the Spirit.
When he preached on this text Martin Luther commented, “God gives the Holy
Spirit to push that preaching into the heart so that it remains and lives
there.”
Christ has done everything to give sinners forgiveness and eternal
life. As Luther went on to say: “The treasure lies there in a heap, not yet
distributed or applied everywhere. Therefore, if we are to have that treasure,
the Holy Spirit must come and put it into our hearts, so that we believe and
say, ‘I also am one of those who are to have this treasure.’”
The Holy Spirit has done this for you. He did it through the word of the Gospel. And
he did it through the water and the Word of Holy Baptism. John the Baptist had
come baptizing with water. He said the coming One would baptize with the Holy
Spirit. We learn in our text that this word “baptize” was a metaphor for how
Christ would pour out the Spirit on the disciples in the dramatic event of
Pentecost.
But the risen Lord took up John’s water baptism and transformed it
into his own as he commanded the disciple to make disciples by baptizing in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had already
said that in order for a person to enter the kingdom of God he must be born
again of water and the Spirit.
And on Pentecost Peter pointed his hears to the water of baptism. Those hearing him were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the
rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter responded,
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your
children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God
calls to himself.” Peter tied the gift
of the Spirit to baptism, and promised that this was true for them and for
their children.
Pentecost was the fulfillment of God’s promise through Joel to pour out his Spirit. Now, God has done this for you through baptism. The apostle Paul said that in baptism we have received but “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” God poured out his Spirit on you in baptism as he gave you new life and made you a child of God who has shared in Christ’s saving death.
In his quotation from Joel, Peter
emphasizes that it is in the last days that God has poured forth the Holy
Spirit. It is the last days because in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the
resurrection of the Last Day has started. He is the beginning of the resurrection
for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
And the Spirit who has given you new
life in Christ is the guarantee that you too will share in Christ’s
resurrection. The apostle Paul told the Romans that we who have the firstfruits
of the Spirit wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. He describes the Spirit as the first fruits
because it is through the Spirit of God present in you now that God will raise
you from the dead. Paul said, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from
the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also
give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
On Pentecost the risen and exalted
Lord Jesus poured forth the Holy Spirit on his Church. Through his Spirit
Christ is at work everywhere the Gospel is proclaimed. The Forgiveness of sins
and salvation won by Christ are given out through the Spirit as he works and
sustains faith. You know that you have received the Spirit because you have
been baptized - the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Spirit. And as
you live in the last days that began in the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, the presence of the Spirit within you is the guarantee that God will
raise your body to be like Christ’s when he returns in glory on the Last Day.
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