Holy Spirit, Light Our Fire

Acts 2:1-21 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?" ¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine." ¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵ These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ¹⁷ "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. ¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. ¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. ²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. ²¹ And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'

Today is Pentecost. There are no poinsettias. There are no Easter lilies. There are not flocks of new people in church today to celebrate this glorious church festival. Why not? At Christmas we celebrate God the Father’s gift of his Son. There are special flowers and the church is full. At Easter we celebrate God the Son’s resurrection from the dead. There are special flowers and the church is full. At Pentecost we celebrate God the Holy Spirit’s work of forming the Christian Church. Where are the special flowers and all the people? Pentecost is one of the church’s three high festivals. Yet, many people forget that this day is special.

Today is a special day. Today is the anniversary of the day of Pentecost, when the Christian Church was born. On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’ disciples with the sound of rushing wind, tongues of fire on their heads, and he gave them the ability to speak in other languages. The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples with his holy fire. He lit them up. He fired them up. Then they went out and spread the message of the crucified and resurrected Christ.

Within the first 100 years, the Holy Spirit used the fire and enthusiasm of the early Christians to carry the gospel of Christ to Spain to the west, India to the east, and Ethiopia to the south. It then took several hundred years for the gospel to arrive in the northern reaches of Europe. But it happened. Throughout the centuries the flames of the Fire burned brightly. The Christian faith gained and its ranks grew because people who were attracted to Christ had their lives changed.

The Holy Spirit has changed our lives. But we need to be lit up again. We need to be set on fire for Christ. Today we ask the Holy Spirit to light a fire in us. We want to have the same courage and confidence and enthusiasm as those early disciples who withstood persecution, trials and death, all for the sake of Christ’s gospel. Today we pray: “Holy Spirit, light our fire.” Understand that when we pray this prayer, we are not going to receive little flames over our heads. Actually, we are asking the Holy Spirit to light a fire on our other end. That he would light a fire under our seats to get us up. To light a fire under our feet to get us moving. To light a fire in our hearts to keep us going.

Pentecost was a special holiday for the Jews. It was a religious harvest festival, something like Thanksgiving without the football games. Thousands of Jewish pilgrims crowded into Jerusalem. We find 120 of Jesus’ disciples together on the feast of Pentecost in a house near the Temple. Suddenly, there is the sound like rushing wind, something that looked like tongues of fire on people’s heads, and a bunch of Galilean disciples spilled out into the Temple courts praising God in languages they had never spoken before. Immediately, they are surrounded by pilgrims trying to figure out what is going on.

The crowds are stunned. But they don’t just want to know what is happening. They want to know why it’s happening. They want to know “What does this mean?” Peter explains, “We’re not drunk. It’s too early to ‘tie one on.’ What you see is God pouring out His Spirit, just as he promised in the Old Testament through the prophet Joel.”

The miraculous gifts were signs that these believers were filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. But Joel’s prophecy didn’t just refer to the day of Pentecost, but also to the birth of the Christian Church. God promised through Joel that all people, male and female, old and young alike, would receive the Spirit. All would proclaim God’s message after receiving the power of the Holy Spirit. The Christian Church came into reality on the day of Pentecost.

In the late 1800’s, no business matched the financial and political dominance of the railroad. Trains dominated the transportation industry of the United States. But then came the automotive revolution, and the leaders of the railroad industry did not make use of this new opportunity. The railroad barons did not understand what business they were in. They thought they were in the train business. But, they were in fact in the transportation business. Time passed them by, as did opportunity. They couldn’t see what their real purpose was.

The same thing happened in the watch and clock industry. The Swiss had dominated time keeping. They controlled 90% of all revenues made in their industry. They made the most precise gears and springs in the world. Their watches and clocks were perfect. Then something new happened called the Quartz movement—LCD readout. Guess who invented it. A Swiss man. But because it had no gears or knobs or springs it was rejected. The Swiss failed to recognize that they were in the business of helping people tell time not making precision gears. They lost their dominance in the industry. They now control only 20% of all revenue. Seiko is the dominant leader.

And folks, if we at Epiphany Lutheran Church, forget that our purpose is making disciples for Jesus Christ we will also become obsolete. If we lose our focus and get distracted by tradition, habit, ritual, or routine, we will go the way of the trains and Swiss watches. We must remember our basic identity. We must fulfill our purpose. That purpose is to proclaim our Savior’s name so that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

I want to be part of a church whose sole purpose is to win people to Christ. I want to be part of a church that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. A church that is going out into the streets with purpose and the authority.

Our purpose in this church, in any church, is to communicate the love of God to a lost and dying world. At Pentecost, God communicated his message through a miracle. Today we have to grind it out. Mission work is difficult. It is time consuming. It is frustrating. It is expensive. But through all the setbacks and struggles our purpose must never change. From the moment we became Christians, God commissioned us to share Christ with our little section of the world.

And how cool is it that on this day when we celebrate the birthday of the Christian Church where 3,000 were baptized and joined the Church that Roger Tanner celebrates a new birthday as he is baptized and joins our church.

The Festival of Pentecost is about the Holy Spirit and His Christian Church. But perhaps you don’t worship your Triune God in church as regularly as you want to or as much you should. Perhaps you have isolated yourself from your congregation. Maybe you find something wrong in your church. Churches and congregations will have problems. Why? Because they are full of sinners! Just like you. Just like me. I’m a sinful pastor trying to lead a flock of sinful sheep. We are all a bunch of misfits and malcontents, simple-minded, stumbling screw-ups. It is only by God’s grace that He still calls us saints, children, sheep and lambs.

On family pictures from my childhood you can count three children. But my mother must have suspected that there was a fourth. His name was “Not me.” “Not me” was the child who broke mom’s Hummel figurines, left toys all over the floor and left the chicken coop door open. “Not me” dropped chewing gum in the rug and broke the basement window.

“Not me” was the very first response of Adam and Eve when God asked them if they had eaten from the forbidden tree. But denials of “not me” leave you alone, apart and separated from God and God’s family of believers. That is why God has created His Christian Church on earth. In the Church we tell people that they are guilty, that they have crucified Christ with their sins. We ask them to repent of their sins. When they repent, we announce that they are forgiven, redeemed, and given the fire of faith from the Holy Spirit. We inform them that they are now like us, part of a new society, and new family. We have come out of a world of slavery and superstition. We have come out of a world of selfishness, greed and dishonesty.

We are a part of the Christian Church because Jesus Christ has redeemed our lives with His shed blood and ransomed our souls with His crucified body. He made us His own in the waters of Holy Baptism. He feeds us with His own body and blood in His Holy Supper. He announces His forgiveness in the absolution and gives His blessing in the Benediction. And where does all this take place? In the Christian Church.

Any hope for a moral recovery in our nation, in our culture and even in our own homes always begins with the Church. It flows from Christ through His justified, forgiven, redeemed and sanctified people of God. Any hope that we in this country will ever recover from this downhill slide into degradation and despair lies in the presence of the Church in our midst.

Evil, immorality and impenitence do not stand a chance against Jesus. Against Christ, our sins cannot prevail and our fears cannot rule. Jesus crushes lies with His truth and builds up broken lives with His Gospel. He conquers evil with His cross and changes eternal destinies with His empty grave. He punishes immorality with consequences and forgives His wayward children with His love.

At Pentecost, 3,000 people were changed by the Holy Spirit and made different and new. They were born again. Their number quickly grew to 5,000 and then into multitudes as the Church spread throughout Jerusalem. More and more people were attracted to them. They were different from everybody else.

We, too, are different from everybody else in our world. We live differently. We speak differently. We act differently. We dress differently. Vote differently. Love differently. Manage our time differently. Spend our money differently. Prioritize differently. We are a different people, a different culture.

Most institutions are only interested in what they can get from you, but the Church wants to give. Many will take advantage of you, but the Church is where you can come and hear the truth, be ministered to, and your needs will be met. The Church is an oasis in the midst of a desert, a shade tree on a summer day, a cup of cool water when you are thirsty, a place to come and  know that you won’t be rejected. You can come and know that you will be accepted and loved as brothers and sisters, as fellow members in the family of God. We can come to church and be ourselves with all of our warts and blemishes and scrapes and scratches. We will still find love and acceptance, because that is the purpose of this Church, now and always.

Pentecost tells us that. The world changed after Pentecost because of the Church’s influence on that world. Fellow Christians, let us be an influence on our world. But in order for that to happen, we need to pray: Holy Spirit, light our fire. Light a fire under our seats. Light a fire under our feet. And light a fire in our hearts. Amen.

Festival of Pentecost at Epiphany on June 12, 2011