Sermon on the Feast of Pentecost

It’s very good to gather with these five candidates on Pentecost Sunday. In a few minutes time I will lay hands on each of them and pray that God will confirm or strengthen them with his Holy Spirit: that they will be filled with God’s presence day by day in living out their Christian lives; that they will know the presence of the Comforter and never be alone; that God will set within their hearts a spring of living water welling up to life eternal.

But today we celebrate that this great gift of the Spirit is not for these five candidates alone but for each of us. I want to encourage you if I may on this Day of Pentecost to make your own the beautiful prayer which recurs through the service: Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in us the fire of your love. Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in us the fire of your love. 

This is what Christians do on the Day of Pentecost – and if we are wise on many other days in the year as well. 

We know we need the Spirit’s presence in our lives to live to the full. The word Spirit is the same as the word breath and the word wind in both the Hebrew and the Greek languages. Without wind, the ship of our lives becomes becalmed. Without the breath of life, our Christian life lacks life and power.

John paints a beautiful picture of the disciples gathered in the Upper Room, the doors locked for fear of the Jews. The risen Jesus came and stood among them and said Peace be with you. Jesus gives them a commission and a way of fulfilling that commission: As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And then he breathes on them and says: Receive the Holy Spirit.

Behind John’s beautiful picture is another from the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel has a vision of a valley of dry bones bleached white by the sun. Can these bones live the Lord says to the prophet. God commands Ezekiel to prophecy to the bones and they begin to come together: first the bones then sinew then muscle then skin. But there is no life. Prophecy to the wind, to the breath, God says. Ezekiel invites the wind to come and breathe upon those who have died and breath enters into them, death is reversed and they live. 

Pentecost is the reversal of death and decay for the life of the Church. The day for seeking God for the breath of life to sweep through us again and lift us up and give us grace for ministry.

Earlier in John’s gospel we find a different picture of the Spirit. In John 7 Jesus is preaching at the great festival in the temple. He gives this promise of the Spirit: out of the believers heart shall flow rivers of living water. 

Behind John’s beautiful picture is another, again from the prophet Ezekiel. The picture is of a tiny spring flowing from the place of sacrifice and prayer in the temple. The spring becomes a stream and the stream becomes a mighty river no one can cross. The river flows out through the desert and down into the Dead Sea. But here is the remarkable thing. Wherever the river flows there is new life: on land and in the waters. Even the waters of the Dead Sea, where nothing lives, are turned fresh.

This is the spring God promises to set in the heart of the believer, a spring with sufficient strength and power to transform the desert places of our hearts and to transform the world.

The Book of Acts describes the first Pentecost as the disciples again gather in the Upper Room. Acts deploys the image of the rushing mighty wind. But Acts pairs this image with another: tongues of flame appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them. God sets the church on fire with God’s love. Cold hearts are strangely warmed. God’s Church is filled with power from on high.

And behind the Acts picture is another, this time from the Book of Exodus. God calls Moses in the dry place, in the desert, where there is no life. God calls Moses from a bush which is on fire in the desert. God calls Moses from a bush which burns but which is not consumed by the flame. The burning bush is a picture of God’s grace in human lives: a fire which burns within us but which does not consume us. A fire which brings strength and love but which does not burn us up.

Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in us the fire of your love. 

This is our prayer for the candidates today. But make this prayer our own. Our church is in deep need of renewal. Renewal will come only from a fresh discovery of the Spirit of God. We need the breath of life once more so that dry bones may live. We need the springs of living water to be unblocked once again and bubble up to eternal life. We need the fire of God’s presence and love to fill our lives. Make this your prayer today and see what God will do.  

Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in us the fire of your love.