By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow
This sermon is based on the lectionary readings for Pentecost.
An audio version of the sermon is available here.
Today we are celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, the Fiftieth Day after Easter, the Sabbath of sabbaths after a week of weeks of dwelling in the Paschal Mystery. Today is both the final day of Easter and a holy day in its own right, the first day of a new season marking Christ’s continuing mission in the Church. Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost.
The centerpiece of our Pentecost celebration is of course the coming of the Holy Spirit, as Luke narrates in our reading today from the Book of Acts. It is to celebrate the appearance of the Spirit as flames of fire above the apostles’ heads that we dress the church in red today. It is because the Spirit made the apostles so enthusiastic for the Gospel that the bystanders thought they were drunk, that we let our own joy well up in us and open us up to the enthusiastic Spirit as well.
But Luke’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is not the only story the New Testament tells of disciples receiving spiritual empowerment and presence for their life and mission in Christ. Another story, and a very different story, is told by John, and we read that story as our Gospel passage on this Pentecost Day.
In John’s story, the Spirit comes on the evening of Easter Day, the first day of the Resurrection, not the fiftieth. In John’s story, the Spirit comes when the disciples are huddled together in a locked room, the doors shut because they are afraid, their minds and their hearts confused because just that morning Mary Magdalene had told them she had seen the Lord, he was risen — but they haven’t seen him yet, and they know only too well what the Temple authorities and the Roman soldiers will do to them if they should venture out now in Jesus’ name. So there they are, locked in the room, huddled in fear, when Jesus suddenly stands among them, Jesus suddenly reveals this New Life to them, Jesus says to them “Peace be with you” — and then Jesus breathes on them, and he says “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In John’s story the Holy Spirit comes when Jesus sends forth his disciples even as the Father has sent him.
There are a couple of things I really like about John’s Holy Spirit story. It’s not as exciting as Luke’s, to be sure; and I do like a good, exciting Spirit story. But there are some things about John’s way of telling this that really make me stop and think.
One of the things that makes me stop and think is the imagery of how Jesus communicates the Spirit to his disciples: by breathing it to them. Luke uses grand and impressive and powerful imagery of wind and fire; John uses the much more personal and intimate imagery of breath. But being personal and intimate doesn’t make the breath-image any less powerful; in fact, John’s use of the image is primordially, even cosmically, powerful. That’s because John has composed this scene of Jesus breathing the Spirit into his disciples consciously and intentionally as an echo of the story of the original creation of humankind in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis. You all know the story: how God scoops up a handful of mud — red mud, the original Hebrew says — and God shapes the mud into a little human figure, a little manikin, and then God breathes into its nostrils the breath of life, and the manikin becomes a living, breathing human being. That breath of God is the source of life, and poetry throughout the Hebrew scripture speaks of how God’s breath breathes life into all creation, into the entire cosmos. It’s there in our Psalm today, when we sing “you send forth your spirit — or, you breathe forth your breath — and they are created, and so you renew the face of the earth.” It is that life-giving, earth-renewing breath of God that Jesus is sharing with his disciples when he breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In this story John shows Jesus not just giving his disciples a spiritual boost, but re-enacting the very act of creation itself; John shows Jesus beginning the re-creating and renewing of the whole entire world by sharing a New Life, a Holy Breath, with his living, breathing, sent-out disciples.
And the gift of holy breath, the gift of new life, has an immediate effect on the disciples. Jesus tells them that this re-created holy life brings with it the power of forgiveness, the power to move beyond old hurts and old fears and old mistakes and old failures — the power to move beyond all that and to reconstruct relationships that show forth justice and peace and compassion and reconciliation and love. Now think about that for a moment: these are guys who are locked in a room because they are afraid — they are completely trapped in their fears and their sadness and their uncertainties and their doubts. But when Jesus gives them holy breath, when Jesus gives them new life, they are set free from all that, they come alive again, they come more alive than they’ve ever been before, and they are ready to be sent on their mission to share Jesus’ new life with everyone they can reach. When Jesus breathes on them he brings them to life, and to greater life, in the ancient and eternal creative power of God the Holy Spirit.
And here’s the important part: The promise of the Spirit is for us, too; the promise that Jesus will breathe new life into us, the promise that Jesus will empower us with the creative energy of resurrection living — that promise is not just an old story about somebody else a long time ago; that promise is real and true and right in front of us today. And that promise is one of the most important spiritual truths in all of our religion. In a time when more and more people are saying they want something spiritual in their lives, something personal and experiential and inward, it’s important for us Episcopalians to be able to show that the outward and formal and institutional dimensions of our religion really do lead to spiritual experiences. Of course we have formal credal teachings about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit — that’s what today is all about — but those formal credal teachings are all for the purpose of guiding our hearts and our minds and our spirits into experiencing the living presence of the living God, they are all for the purpose of experiencing our own life-activities being activated by divine Spirit, as Paul writes in the Epistle today. We teach about Jesus giving the Spirit to the disciples, because we want to experience Jesus giving the Spirit to us, too. That's one of the most important ways our religion is spiritual.
So think about that for a minute. Where in your life do you feel a hunger for this Holy Spirit? Is there a part of your soul that feels like it is huddled away in a locked room? Is there a place in your psyche that seems trapped in old fears or old hurts or old brokenness? Is there something for which you want to forgive or be forgiven, a relationship you long to renew and reconcile and restore? Is there some part of your life that seems to have gone dead inside but wants to come back to life? Is there a way you want to be sent to share in Christ’s mission? How would you receive the Holy Spirit if it were offered to you right now?
Because that is what is offered to us in this liturgy today. Imagine that Jesus is standing in front of you now — Jesus is present here in Word and Sacrament, so he can be with us in imagination as well. Imagine that Jesus stands before you and says “Receive the Holy Spirit” and breathes on you. How do you respond? Can you picture yourself receiving this breath, this gift, this life? Can you picture some part of you that’s been locked away opening up and taking the air? Can you feel your breathing getting deeper and your heartbeat getting stronger? Can you imagine new energy, new creativity, coming on you like wind and fire — and can you see yourself wanting to share that energy with someone else? Imagine Jesus standing before you now and breathing the Spirit into you — how do you imagine yourself receiving it?
The Feast of Pentecost is the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church. And whether we think of that coming in images like Luke’s or images like John’s, the meaning for our spiritual experience is the same: the Spirit empowers us to be like Jesus, the Spirit empowers us to be filled with life and creativity and joy and love that comes from God, the Spirit empowers us to be sent out to share this life with all the world. That is what we celebrate today; that is what the Spirit inspires us to live every day. Amen.
This sermon is based on the lectionary readings for Pentecost.
An audio version of the sermon is available here.
Today we are celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, the Fiftieth Day after Easter, the Sabbath of sabbaths after a week of weeks of dwelling in the Paschal Mystery. Today is both the final day of Easter and a holy day in its own right, the first day of a new season marking Christ’s continuing mission in the Church. Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost.
The centerpiece of our Pentecost celebration is of course the coming of the Holy Spirit, as Luke narrates in our reading today from the Book of Acts. It is to celebrate the appearance of the Spirit as flames of fire above the apostles’ heads that we dress the church in red today. It is because the Spirit made the apostles so enthusiastic for the Gospel that the bystanders thought they were drunk, that we let our own joy well up in us and open us up to the enthusiastic Spirit as well.
But Luke’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is not the only story the New Testament tells of disciples receiving spiritual empowerment and presence for their life and mission in Christ. Another story, and a very different story, is told by John, and we read that story as our Gospel passage on this Pentecost Day.
In John’s story, the Spirit comes on the evening of Easter Day, the first day of the Resurrection, not the fiftieth. In John’s story, the Spirit comes when the disciples are huddled together in a locked room, the doors shut because they are afraid, their minds and their hearts confused because just that morning Mary Magdalene had told them she had seen the Lord, he was risen — but they haven’t seen him yet, and they know only too well what the Temple authorities and the Roman soldiers will do to them if they should venture out now in Jesus’ name. So there they are, locked in the room, huddled in fear, when Jesus suddenly stands among them, Jesus suddenly reveals this New Life to them, Jesus says to them “Peace be with you” — and then Jesus breathes on them, and he says “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In John’s story the Holy Spirit comes when Jesus sends forth his disciples even as the Father has sent him.
There are a couple of things I really like about John’s Holy Spirit story. It’s not as exciting as Luke’s, to be sure; and I do like a good, exciting Spirit story. But there are some things about John’s way of telling this that really make me stop and think.
One of the things that makes me stop and think is the imagery of how Jesus communicates the Spirit to his disciples: by breathing it to them. Luke uses grand and impressive and powerful imagery of wind and fire; John uses the much more personal and intimate imagery of breath. But being personal and intimate doesn’t make the breath-image any less powerful; in fact, John’s use of the image is primordially, even cosmically, powerful. That’s because John has composed this scene of Jesus breathing the Spirit into his disciples consciously and intentionally as an echo of the story of the original creation of humankind in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis. You all know the story: how God scoops up a handful of mud — red mud, the original Hebrew says — and God shapes the mud into a little human figure, a little manikin, and then God breathes into its nostrils the breath of life, and the manikin becomes a living, breathing human being. That breath of God is the source of life, and poetry throughout the Hebrew scripture speaks of how God’s breath breathes life into all creation, into the entire cosmos. It’s there in our Psalm today, when we sing “you send forth your spirit — or, you breathe forth your breath — and they are created, and so you renew the face of the earth.” It is that life-giving, earth-renewing breath of God that Jesus is sharing with his disciples when he breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In this story John shows Jesus not just giving his disciples a spiritual boost, but re-enacting the very act of creation itself; John shows Jesus beginning the re-creating and renewing of the whole entire world by sharing a New Life, a Holy Breath, with his living, breathing, sent-out disciples.
And the gift of holy breath, the gift of new life, has an immediate effect on the disciples. Jesus tells them that this re-created holy life brings with it the power of forgiveness, the power to move beyond old hurts and old fears and old mistakes and old failures — the power to move beyond all that and to reconstruct relationships that show forth justice and peace and compassion and reconciliation and love. Now think about that for a moment: these are guys who are locked in a room because they are afraid — they are completely trapped in their fears and their sadness and their uncertainties and their doubts. But when Jesus gives them holy breath, when Jesus gives them new life, they are set free from all that, they come alive again, they come more alive than they’ve ever been before, and they are ready to be sent on their mission to share Jesus’ new life with everyone they can reach. When Jesus breathes on them he brings them to life, and to greater life, in the ancient and eternal creative power of God the Holy Spirit.
And here’s the important part: The promise of the Spirit is for us, too; the promise that Jesus will breathe new life into us, the promise that Jesus will empower us with the creative energy of resurrection living — that promise is not just an old story about somebody else a long time ago; that promise is real and true and right in front of us today. And that promise is one of the most important spiritual truths in all of our religion. In a time when more and more people are saying they want something spiritual in their lives, something personal and experiential and inward, it’s important for us Episcopalians to be able to show that the outward and formal and institutional dimensions of our religion really do lead to spiritual experiences. Of course we have formal credal teachings about Jesus and about the Holy Spirit — that’s what today is all about — but those formal credal teachings are all for the purpose of guiding our hearts and our minds and our spirits into experiencing the living presence of the living God, they are all for the purpose of experiencing our own life-activities being activated by divine Spirit, as Paul writes in the Epistle today. We teach about Jesus giving the Spirit to the disciples, because we want to experience Jesus giving the Spirit to us, too. That's one of the most important ways our religion is spiritual.
So think about that for a minute. Where in your life do you feel a hunger for this Holy Spirit? Is there a part of your soul that feels like it is huddled away in a locked room? Is there a place in your psyche that seems trapped in old fears or old hurts or old brokenness? Is there something for which you want to forgive or be forgiven, a relationship you long to renew and reconcile and restore? Is there some part of your life that seems to have gone dead inside but wants to come back to life? Is there a way you want to be sent to share in Christ’s mission? How would you receive the Holy Spirit if it were offered to you right now?
Because that is what is offered to us in this liturgy today. Imagine that Jesus is standing in front of you now — Jesus is present here in Word and Sacrament, so he can be with us in imagination as well. Imagine that Jesus stands before you and says “Receive the Holy Spirit” and breathes on you. How do you respond? Can you picture yourself receiving this breath, this gift, this life? Can you picture some part of you that’s been locked away opening up and taking the air? Can you feel your breathing getting deeper and your heartbeat getting stronger? Can you imagine new energy, new creativity, coming on you like wind and fire — and can you see yourself wanting to share that energy with someone else? Imagine Jesus standing before you now and breathing the Spirit into you — how do you imagine yourself receiving it?
The Feast of Pentecost is the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church. And whether we think of that coming in images like Luke’s or images like John’s, the meaning for our spiritual experience is the same: the Spirit empowers us to be like Jesus, the Spirit empowers us to be filled with life and creativity and joy and love that comes from God, the Spirit empowers us to be sent out to share this life with all the world. That is what we celebrate today; that is what the Spirit inspires us to live every day. Amen.
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