"Celebrate Your Pentecost Gift"
May 11, 2008

Acts 2:1-12
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"


    How many of you woke up this morning and said, "I'm just so excited; it's Pentecost today!"  I bet some of you woke up excited on Christmas Day - and probably on Easter too.  But the church has always celebrated Pentecost as one of the three great festivals of the church, together with Christmas and Easter.  But we just don't get that excited about it.
    Maybe it's because we don't expect to get anything on Pentecost.  On Christmas and Easter, we get stuff: presents and candy.  Even from a more spiritual perspective, on Christmas we receive God's gift of the savior, laid in a manger.  On Easter, Jesus' resurrection gives us the promise of eternal life, the promise that one day our graves will be empty too.  But what do we get for Pentecost?
    You might be surprised to learn that Pentecost is all about getting a gift.  Now, I'm sorry, I don't have a basket of candy or a present all wrapped up for you.  Just like Christmas and Easter, the most important gift given on Pentecost is the gift given by God.  In fact, the disciples in Jerusalem were waiting eagerly for this gift, just like a kid waiting for Christmas.  Jesus had told them, "Wait for the gift my Father promised."  What gift?  The Holy Spirit!
    You might think that's not very exciting.  After all, we can't even see this gift, or even feel it!  But this is a gift we need.  We can't live (spiritually) without it.  As we remember Pentecost today, remember to celebrate your Pentecost gift - the Holy Spirit.  He brings God's message to our ears, he brings God's message to our hearts, and he brings God's message to our lips.

    Without this Pentecost gift, God's Christmas and Easter gifts to the world would just sit unopened.  Imagine that a rich and generous friend bought you a new car as a gift.  There is just one thing, he couldn't have it delivered, so it just had to wait at the dealership until you picked it up.  What would happen if your friend took care of everything but forgot to tell you about the gift?  It would just be sitting on the  lot, not doing you any good, because he simply didn't know about it.  I'm sure your friend wouldn't want to do that to you.  He wouldn't want to let his gift sit unused.
    We have a rich and generous friend who has given us a gift much better than a new car.  God has given us new life and a new heart.  Maybe you would say, "What's wrong with my old heart?  I don't need a new one."  But Jesus tells us what's wrong with our hearts: "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander."  The sin in our hearts and the evil thoughts that lurk within us make us filthy and corrupt in God sight.  They make us unworthy to be called God's child.  They make us worthy to be cast out of his presence forever.
    So God has done what is necessary to cleanse our hearts and make them new.  We hear of this gift on Christmas, that God sent his one and only Son into the world to save us from our sin.  We hear about it on Good Friday, that God's Son suffered and died to cleanse our hearts from sin.  We hear about it on Easter, that Jesus won the victory, and proved that sin and even death have been defeated for us.
    God did not want this gift to sit unused, like that car in the dealer's lot.  That's where the Holy Spirit comes in.  He is the one gets the message out.  On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit used each believer to share the good news about Jesus.  On that first Pentecost day, thousands of people heard about God's gift.  And they heard it in their own languages, in a way that they could understand.  And thousands received God's precious gift through faith in Jesus.
    Without Pentecost, we wouldn't be here this morning.  Without Pentecost, there would be no church, no steeple, no congregation.  That's because on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit started a chain reaction in Jerusalem, spreading the message, creating new believers starting in Jerusalem, and then the holy land, then throughout the Middle East, and spreading out to Europe and to Germany.  And from there, the message came here.   Through the years, pastors have proclaimed ideas that were not out of their own heads, but messages given by the Holy Spirit through his Holy Scriptures.  The result is that God's message of salvation is still proclaimed today by the Holy Spirit's power.  And it can be traced back, person to person, generation to generation, to the people who heard that sound of the rushing wind and had what looked like flames of fire rest on them - those people who spoke the Holy Spirit's message boldly on that first Pentecost day.  So let us celebrate God's Pentecost gift, because the Holy Spirit has brought God's message to our ears.

    What's more, he has brought God's message to our hearts by leading us to believe the message.  In many ways, it's like planting a seed.  Planting a seed isn't the beginning of new life.  That happens under the earth where we can't see it.  The seed germinates, sends down roots, and eventually pops out of the dirt, a living plant.
    So it is when God's message comes to our ears.  It's like a seed being planted.  That's not the beginning of new life; that happens deep within our hearts, where you can't see it.  New life happens when the Holy Spirit comes deep within our hearts with that message of God's gift, which comes to us through the spoken word or through Holy Baptism, and there in our hearts, the Holy Spirit creates faith and new life.
    All of this just brings it home that salvation is not something you do yourself.  Christmas tells us that God sent his son because we could never attain or even start our salvation on our own.  Easter tells us that God's Son Jesus did all the work that needed to be done to give us new life.  And Pentecost tells us that even the active believing in Jesus is not something that we do or a decision that we make.  It is purely a gift and work of the Holy Spirit within us.  We celebrate God's Pentecost gift, because without the Holy Spirit, we would never have believed in Jesus.

    You might be thinking to yourself, "That's all wonderful, but these are all things that have happened long ago.  I already know all this."  But the reason we celebrate these things that happened in the past is that they have such an impact now.
    Long before our family moved into our house, people planted a lot of things in the yard.  And we're very happy that they did, because we still enjoy the fruit of their labor many years later.  Still today, we enjoy the shade of trees planted long ago.  We enjoy the beauty of flowers planted long ago.
    So it is with the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples 2000 years ago.  Years ago (for most of us), he planted the seed of God's word in your heart in mind that made it grow into faith.
    And even though those things happened long ago, we still enjoy today the fruit of what the Holy Spirit planted so long ago.  We enjoy the peace with God that comes through forgiveness.  We enjoy the hope of eternal life, which gets us through all the troubled times in our lives.  We have the joy of knowing that we have a home in heaven.

    And God wants what he planted here to keep on growing and bearing fruit.  That's why the Holy Spirit puts God's message on our lips.  You might say, "I can't speak God's Word.  I'm not brave enough; I don't know enough."
    But God's word is already on your lips.  You sang and spoke his words in the service today.  And the Holy Spirit will also help you tell the message about Jesus as he keeps God's word on your lips every day.  Just as he moved those scared, ignorant disciples to share his message, he can do the same for you, so that you share the message with your family everyday, so that you share the message with those who need to hear.  No, we can't do it.  Not by ourselves. 
    That's why you need God's Pentecost gift: the Holy Spirit.  It's not something you can see, but God's Pentecost gift is the gift we need.  May the Lord continue to pour out his Holy Spirit on us that we may bear fruit for him.