Pentecost
Dear friends in Christ. Today we come to what is known as the birthday of the NT Church—Pentecost. Originally, Pentecost was an OT harvest festival giving thanks for the early harvest. It took place 50 days from the Passover—that’s how it got its name: Pentecost meaning “fiftieth.” But the Pentecost we hear about in our reading today was not just the OT harvest festival. Instead, as we read in Acts [2.1]: When the day of Pentecost had been fulfilled. This points us to the deeper truth that, like the other OT festivals, Pentecost was pointing ahead to a deeper reality—not just a harvest and thanksgiving celebration, but pointing forward to the great harvest of souls that began that first Pentecost of the NT Church and would continue throughout the NT era until the end of the world.
To be sure, the Holy Spirit was at work in the world creating and preserving faith in the Savior from the very beginning. After all, Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, the prophets and all the saints of the OT times were believers. But now on this first Christian Pentecost day, Jesus sent His Holy Spirit in dramatic fashion on His disciples. By that sound of a mighty rushing wind, the Lord was showing that He was coming/ intervening in a mighty way; and by that sound He was gathering a crowd together around the disciples to hear the Gospel preached. With the tongues, as of fire, one resting on each of them, the Lord was making clear that He was setting the apostles apart as ones to be listened to; that He was equipping them. Through them and the word they proclaimed He was building His NT Church.
The main miracle of Pentecost is one that continues today: Christ fills His dear Christians with the Holy Spirit. Even today He pours out the great shower of blessings: the gifts, graces and powers of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost was not an isolated act of God’s grace that first Pentecost almost 2000 years ago. Rather it is a continual act of giving that will go on until the end of the world. Just a few verses after today’s Epistle, Peter in his sermon quotes the OT prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,[that is, the NT age], That I will pour out My Spirit on all people. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Church through all ages and He will continue to fill the Church with a great variety of gifts and powers, when and where He wills, for the benefit of each Christian personally and the Church as a whole. We, dear Christian, have the Holy Spirit with His gifts and blessings. That’s the Pentecost miracle we enjoy today!
Our text today from the OT prophet Zephaniah also teaches us the Pentecost miracle as it teaches us the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to faith through His work in the holy word and sacraments and His continued work in our hearts.
Through Zephaniah, the Lord is condemning the wickedness of the OT people who were claiming to be His. With all that wickedness and rebellion going on, the Lord is trying to comfort His OT people who were faithful to Him. He tells them to wait/ sit tight and patiently and trustingly look for His help. Certainly we can well understand this in our day as we see the wicked and evil prospering; we easily doubt the Lord’s control and can easily despair and turn our eyes away from Him. But what does He tell the OT faithful? Wait! “Therefore wait for me,” declares the LORD, “in the day of my resurrection that is to come.” Here the Lord turns the attention of the OT faithful to the future, to the day of His resurrection. Why? Because in that day, by virtue of His resurrection, the Lord will create a new people—the holy Christian Church. The OT faithful saw the people that God had especially chosen and blessed—the Israelites—with the promise that the world’s Savior would be one of them, with the right worship, with the holy Law, with all the reminders of the Savior and His saving work—they saw this people fallen away from the true God worshipping idols and living corrupt and wicked lives.
But after the Savior had come—after His holy life, His innocent suffering and death and His glorious resurrection— in the day of my resurrection that is to come—He would create a new people, the holy Christian Church made up of people from all over the world. Pentecost’s foundation, then, is Jesus, His life, suffering and death and the forgiveness of sin and peace with God He brought about by it. Only after Jesus had reconciled the whole sinful world to God by offering Himself as the one perfect sacrifice for sin, could He send the Holy Spirit into the whole world to bring the accomplished/ finished fact/ work of salvation to all people. First there had to be Jesus’ work, then Easter—God’s pronouncement on the world “forgiven” in Christ—and then finally Pentecost when the risen and ascended Savior, now sends His Holy Spirit to His Church and through the word and sacraments works and preserves faith in people’s hearts, faith that receives these accomplished gifts of Christ—the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Unless Jesus had brought about the salvation of the world He could not send His Holy Spirit. “Therefore wait for me,” declares the LORD, “in the day of my resurrection that is to come.”
How is it that the Holy Spirit works? To be sure, He doesn’t come to us so mightily and visibly like He did that first Pentecost to the apostles. But He does come to us and like that mighty wind works through what we hear—the holy word—and like those visible tongues of fire works through what we see—the holy sacraments.
Yet what does our text say? For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. Does such wrath and anger fit with the way the Lord works? Absolutely! This is precisely how the Holy Spirit works—through God’s holy word of Law. We need God’s holy law. Without it, we don’t know our lost and damnable condition. Without the law, it is easy to think our sins are no big deal; we fail to see that just one sin is enough to damn us eternally—and then add to that the sins we commit day in and day out. Because so many people hold to a false view of God and think He is either unable or too weak to punish sin, who think His holy will and Ten Commandments don’t really matter anymore, to them the Holy Spirit must come and first work through the Law. Each time we feel our sin and guilt—that’s the Holy Spirit at work leading us to recognize our sin and our need for Christ as Savior from that sin. Dear Christian, don’t be like the world and try to minimize and excuse your sin. When you feel the Lord pour[ing] out upon [you] [His] indignation, all [His] burning anger; [that] in the fire of [His] jealousy all the earth shall be consumed, rejoice! Rejoice because the Lord is in grace calling you to recognize and repent of your sin. The Holy Spirit is working mightily in the Law.
When you feel your sin and guilt, don’t stop there. The Holy Spirit doesn’t! His work is only half done. He wants to bring you to your Savior from sin—Jesus and the forgiveness of that sin He fully and freely gives you in the sacrament and word. Our text: For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord. When will the Lord change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech so that we believe in and worship Him rightly? Precisely when He is pour[ing] out upon [you] [His] indignation, all [His] burning anger; [that] in the fire of [His] jealousy all the earth shall be consumed: For at that time I will change… When we recognize our sin and long for a Savior from them then the Holy Spirit can first do His true and proper work and in the Gospel and sacrament brings us Christ and all His gifts and blessings. Since Jesus lived, suffered and died about 2000 years ago, how can we get the gifts and blessings of Christ? Answer: by the work of the Holy Spirit in the word and sacrament. Feeling God’s wrath and your guilt, don’t run away from Him but like the sound of that mighty rushing wind drew a crowd to hear the apostles, run to the Gospel word. There is the Holy Spirit! There you hear and are given the forgiveness of your sin. Like the tongues as of fire marked the apostles, run back to your baptism and reclaim the forgiveness of your sins and your place in God’s holy family; run to the altar and there receive in your mouth the very body and blood of Christ for your sin’s forgiveness and be intimately connected to Him—you in Him and He in you.
Notice: I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord. Who does the work? The Lord! We don’t change ourselves/ our nature; we can’t even prepare ourselves to do it. The Holy Spirit does it. That’s why we pray with David in the Psalm [51.10]: Create in me a clean heart, O God. The Holy Spirit creates in us the true and right knowledge of God so that we know Him aright as the Holy Triune God and our Savior; He works true faith in Him. He makes us confessors of and worshippers of the true God; and He makes us able and willing instruments to live lives of good works, serving Him as we serve others: call[ing] upon the name of the LORD and serv[ing] him with one accord—all in joyful gratitude for our salvation.
The Holy Spirit’s work now in the NT Church is not limited like it was in the OT Church where He worked mainly on the Israelites. The NT Church is Christ’s worldwide kingdom, encompassing the remotest corners of the earth: From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. The people the Holy Spirit brings to faith and into Christ’s kingdom, the Church, to be holy and pure are from distant lands, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. This is the mission work of the Church which began on Pentecost as the apostles preached to people in their native languages and will continue on into the whole world until the end of the world. Through the word and sacraments Christ entrusted His Church the Holy Spirit is at work converting people, gathering them into His kingdom. By the Holy Spirit’s work you, me, people from all over the world, and from all times in true faith in Christ call upon Him, turn to Him, and in faith daily offer up ourselves and our sacrifices of prayer, praise, thanksgiving and good works.
That’s because the Holy Spirit has worked mightily in our hearts! In Christ God declares us righteous because by that faith in Jesus and His saving work the Holy Spirit has worked in our hearts we are receiving the forgiveness of sins and the holiness of Christ. Our text: On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; we are forgiven, our sins no longer stand before God; they are wiped out in Christ. Not only that but by the Spirit’s work, we don’t look to ourselves and our works for forgiveness but in the Church, as His dear Christians, we rely solely on our Lord’s grace for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the LORD.
We recognize our sin and in the strength and by the power of the Holy Spirit we fight against it. Yes, we will still daily stumble and sin—even grievously at times—but we will not willfully serve sin and wickedness, instead fleeing from it to our Lord’s strength and forgiveness. They shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. We walk in the light of our Lord’s saving word and in and by His Holy Spirit we busy ourselves in a holy and blameless life. Our consciences are at peace in the Lord as by His Holy Spirit He is constantly at work in work in His word and sacrament giving us the forgiveness of sin and peace with God. As He does this we find the strength to grow in a life of holiness—that is, to grow in knowledge and to walk worthily before the Lord.
What a grace of Christ, that He continues to pour out the Holy Spirit on His Church today and on each of His dear Christians—you and me. INJ Amen