“Come Holy Spirit, Come” (Pentecost Sunday)

May 20, 2012

Acts 2: 1-21, John 15: 26-27, 16: 4b-15

Jesus is talking to his disciples. He is going to leave and they are anxious about what is going to happen then. So, Jesus lets them to know everything is going to be okay. He says, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.” In other words, things are going to be fine—when the Advocate comes...’ That is the comforting part.

 Yet he doesn’t leave it entirely up to the Spirit, he goes on to say, “You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:26-27) This is the challenging part for them to hear. His words and God’s truths will be made known by the testimony of the Holy Spirit AND his disciples. But what exactly does ‘testifying’ mean? How do we testify and what do we testify about?

Let me suggest it is about the gift of new life, the beginning of a new era in which God fulfills his promises and the hopes and dreams of the people that we are to testify. It is about ‘giving evidence’ to and about ‘showing’ others the new life that we know to be possible in Jesus Christ. And it is about our truly ‘living’ the life and way of Christ—of loving God with all our heart and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. And, I think, that testimony is given by our requesting and allowing the Holy Spirit to work through us.

 In John 16:12, Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” I once read that the definition of a good sermon is: It should have a good beginning and a good ending—and the two should be as close together as possible. I’m sure Jesus didn’t write that definition, but I suspect—especially from what he says here—he never ‘overburdened’ his listeners with more than they needed to hear at any one time. This is not all they need to know; there will be more, later.

In verses 13-15, Jesus tells his disciples: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” What the Spirit says is from Jesus, that in turn is from God, the Father. When we clearly hear the Spirit speak we are assured it is from God.

That reminds me of a story about a preacher who was greeting folks at the door after the Sunday service. When it was the matriarch-of-the-church’s turn, she shakes his hand and says, "Pastor, that was a wonderful sermon this morning." The preacher humbly replied, "Thank you sister Maude but, I have to give the credit to the Holy Spirit." To which the woman quickly responded, "Well, it wasn't THAT good!" We do know, though, that often times the words we need to hear on a Sunday morning could only have come from God. Such words comfort, teach, and empower us to imagine and do things that, as a church or as individuals, seemed impossible.

Jesus promises his disciples an advocate (the Holy Spirit) to guide them to the truth.

The same Spirit that drew the little band of disciples out into the world also shaped them into a community. What is the balance between our reaching out as a church and the nurturing of our faith community? Marcus Borg suggests that these two impulses relate to each other. In his book, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, he writes, "The coming of the Spirit is the reversal of Babel, the beginning of the reunion of the human community." In many ways, we may be in need of the very reunion he suggests. Come, Holy Spirit, come!

Jesus promises his disciples an advocate (the Holy Spirit) to reveal his teachings.

There are a lot of things that have the power to divide people. We ARE all different. Yet the Spirit of God can empower many different kinds of people to do astounding things. Bridges can be built between us so that instead of our differences dividing us, we become more ‘connected’ by our diversity in the unity of the Spirit that opens us to a new day and life. Come, Holy Spirit, come!

Jesus promises his disciples an advocate (the Holy Spirit) to help with the things they can’t possibly do on their own.

In today’s lesson, and from that point on, the apostles would have the guidance of the Holy Spirit in everything they did. The church would grow, and though its message remains the same, its audience would become very different. The Spirit's guidance would provide both continuity and creativity that links it with the ministry of Jesus and yet leaves it open to adaptation to "the evolving mission field” of the day to whom the church was to testify.

Today’s gospel story is something we all need to hear. It may even be the beginning or "foundational” story of a new life for us, a New Age of which we are to be a part. For this Jesus promises an advocate to help us. You can almost feel the wind pulling us.

Think of the things ‘we do’ all the time in this church. And now think of all the things ‘we ask the Holy Spirit’ to do (because it is beyond our doing). What would it take to astonish us, or to get our attention? What might the movement of the Holy Spirit look like here, in this place? Some of us might prefer a church that's a safe refuge to a community or place where we are astonished and our secure beliefs up-ended. And yet some things need to be up-ended and seen in a whole new light if we are going to truly ‘testify’ as Christ would have us. Come, Holy Spirit, come!

We believe Jesus’ promise, or do we?

We believe the Holy Spirit is present and at work in our lives today, especially in the sacraments of Communion and Baptism. We believe there is yet more of God’s truth to be revealed. And we believe we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do things we could not have ever done our own. We believe those things, right?

Writer, actor, and filmmaker Woody Allen once said, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." Some have suggested the opposite is also true: "If God wants to make you laugh he will tell you what he plans for you." I imagine we would all have a good laugh if God were here this morning telling us what he has planned for this church—it would no doubt be a nervous laugh—but a laugh just the same.

Come Holy Spirit, come!