Pentecost Eve
Joel
3:1-5
5/18/13
As you listened to the Old Testament
reading for Pentecost Eve, it is understandable if you felt a little
confused. You may have found yourself
wondering, “Aren’t we getting ready for the Feast of Pentecost? Why then are we hearing about the Last
Day? Wouldn’t this be more appropriate
for the end of the Church year?”
After all, we hear in our reading, “For
behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah
and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley
of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my
people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations
and have divided up my land.” If you
read a little further in Joel chapter 3, it would only confirm your questions
because we hear there, “Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the
Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding
nations.”
Now to be sure, this is language
describing the judgment of the Last Day.
Yet the reason that we have this as our reading for Pentecost Eve is
because it provides the setting for the words of the prophet Joel that are
quoted by Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost. And in this fact we are reminded about how
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost announces that the
last days have arrived.
In the verses just before our text,
the prophet Joel begins a new section.
He says, “And it shall come to pass afterward,
that
I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see
visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my
Spirit.”
God speaks of how he will pour out
his Spirit “afterward.” And this rolls
right into our text where God says, “For behold, in those days and at that
time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the
nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into
judgment with them there.” In the text
of Joel it becomes clear that these events are related to one another. Like other prophetic books, Joel leads us to
expect that the outpouring of the Spirit is an end-time event. It is an event that is tied to the final
judgment that God will bring upon all nations when he vindicates his people.
Tomorrow we will celebrate the Day
of Pentecost. On that day, as you know
well, there was a sound like a mighty, rushing wind. Tongues as of flame were distributed on the
heads of the disciples and they were filled with the Holy Spirit in a new and
dramatic way. As a result of this, they
began to proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ in the languages of the many
different peoples who were present in Jerusalem.
Peter began his sermon by responding
to the accusation that what was happening was simply a result of too much
alcohol. He pointed to the true reason,
and in order to do this he used the words of the prophet Joel. He 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.’”
Peter left no doubt about what was
happening and what it indicated. The
events of Pentecost were caused by the Holy Spirit. And they were occurring
because the last days had arrived – the end-times were here. Peter went on to proclaim a message that
focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus fifty days earlier. Jesus had been crucified according to God’s
plan. But Peter went on to say, “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.’”
Joel’s prophecy and the events of
Pentecost prompt us to recognize what God has done and what it means for
us. God has entered our world in the
incarnation as Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the
virgin Mary. The Son of God has borne our sins upon the cross and died for them
– he has received the wrath and judgment of God against sin that we deserved.
And then on the third day, God raised him from the dead.
More specifically, Paul tells us
that through the work of the Spirit, Jesus’ body was raised from the dead. He didn’t simply come back to life, but
rather he rose as the second Adam in whom mortality and corruption have
ceased. In the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, the resurrection of the Last Day has already started.
The Spirit carried out this end-time event. And on the Day of Pentecost God poured out
the Spirit upon his church. Because of
Pentecost the Spirit who will raise you from the dead is now active in the
world. Paul tells us, “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.” Or as Paul told the
Ephesians about Christ, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised
Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire
possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
The presence of the Spirit within you is the guarantee that you will
share in Christ’s resurrection on the Last Day.
The question then is whether we realize what time it is. It is the last days – it is the time of the
Spirit who has caused us to be born again in Holy Baptism. Because of this we now live as people who are
in Christ – we have been joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. This means that through the work
of the Spirit, the resurrection power of Jesus is at work in us.
True, the old Adam is still present too as we live in this time of
the now and the not yet. There are times
when we live like “not yet” people instead of the “now” people the Spirit has
made us to be. And when we do, we return
in faith to the forgiveness that we have in Christ. We return to the source of our life in Christ
- we return to our baptism. Washed clean
of our sins, we then arise once again to walk by the Spirit and not the sinful
flesh. We arise to live as the “now” people
that God has made us through the work of the Spirit poured out on Pentecost.
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