Sermons

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Surprise!
Pentecost Sunday
May 19, 2002
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Acts 2

Well, it’s Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate God’s sending of the Holy Spirit. The Pentecost story from Acts is two chapters long. Cal read the very beginning of the story earlier, and I want to read from the end of it…then we’ll fill in the middle a bit. Read with me from Acts 2:43-47.

Waiting is hard. Waiting is always hard: waiting for test results, waiting for the arrival of a guest, waiting for Christmas; it’s always hard to wait. But it’s especially hard, I think…when you are not quite sure what you are waiting for. That’s how the Pentecost story begins. Jesus was with his disciples until his death, and then again after his resurrection for a short time. But then he went to heaven, rejoining God the Father, and all he left for his followers were some rather mysterious directions: “Stay here and wait. Stay here in Jerusalem and wait for what I promised you, the coming of God’s Holy Spirit to be with you permanently.” And so they waited.

And you can tell, they’re not quite sure what to do. They have no idea! So they wait around. They spend time praying. Then they handle some administrative tasks (maybe these guys are Presbyterian!)… like choosing a 12th disciple to replace Judas. And they wait some more. And they all get together for Pentecost.

That was a very natural thing to do. Pentecost (50 days after Passover), was one of the major Jewish festivals, one of three times when many people took a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was originally a celebration of the harvest, but later became a remembrance of God’s giving of the Ten Commandments at Sinai. So it was a very ordinary thing that they would be gathered together there in Jerusalem. But they were still waiting, and wondering. Where was God? When would He show up and do something? What was that Jesus said? And would they know it when it happened?

“And suddenly…” the scripture says. “And suddenly,” this very surprising thing happened.

A couple weeks ago, the fire alarm went off as we sat here in worship. It was loud. It was sudden. Alarms don’t just go off. They don’t gradually sound. They knock you over.

For Peter and the others…it was sudden, and surprising. The sound of wind, the appearance of fire…and I suspect they were too shocked to remember John the Baptist’s word that Jesus would baptize with “fire and the Holy Spirit.” Too shocked, because they were too busy noticing that what looked like a tongue of fire was landing on each of them, and they were speaking in languages they didn’t necessarily know, and those words were being understood by the large crowd of people that was rapidly gathering around them, folks from at least 15 different people groups from around the Mediterranean. Some were amazed, some were perplexed, some were…sneering. It was all VERY surprising. I’m just not sure they thought this was what they were waiting for. But as a result, three very surprising things happened… (it’s so cool that the Holy Spirit operates in threes!).

First, Peter stands up and opens his mouth. (Now, in itself, that wasn’t so surprising. In fact, it might have been more surprising if he had CLOSED his mouth!) Peter stands up, and I have to tell you I don’t think he already knew what he was going to say. I don’t think he had a speech prepared, I don’t think he’d been to Toastmasters or had a degree in public speaking. As far as we know he was sort of a rough, blue collar fisherman. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but man, did he say it!

He said, “Some of you been studying scripture your whole life, you know all about the prophecies of God’s Spirit landing on His people, about how the Lord will save you. You’ve heard that stuff your whole lives. Well guess what? It’s true! It’s now.”

He said, “All of you have heard about Jesus of Nazareth, about the signs and miracles that he performed. You all know he was crucified and died not long ago. You all have heard the rumors about God raising him from the dead, about him being the FIRST person that death could not hold.”

He said: “You’ve maybe heard that Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit of God, and now he HAS! And you haven’t just heard it now … you’ve seen it! It’s all connected. Jesus came from God to save, and now He’s sent the Holy Spirit to be with us…we’re actually not alone…who would’ve guessed!?”

The Holy Spirit came over Peter and empowered him to interpret Jesus to that crowd, to explain who he was and what he had done. Peter had obviously been thinking about it, obviously was familiar with the scriptures…but the Holy Spirit took those words and thoughts and went even further. It was surprising. I’m pretty sure it surprised Peter.

I have a feeling you have felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to speak before. Maybe you’ve been asked sometime to explain Jesus to someone. My first year out of college, I was a sales rep, and part of my sales territory was Alaska. My first trip up there was with my boss, to meet customers around the state. We started in Anchorage, and then rented a car and started to drive down through the state. About an hour into a five-hour car ride, my boss suddenly says, “Now, I understand you are a Christian. Tell me why.” It was the most interesting thing to hear what came out of my mouth in that situation.

Maybe you’ve never been in that situation, but perhaps you’ve felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to speak out and defend someone being slandered in the midst of a very ordinary conversation. Maybe it was a simple prompt to start a conversation with someone out of the ordinary.

I woke up this week with the clearest picture in my mind of having a conversation about prayer with someone I really don’t know well at all. That was unusual because I NEVER remember my dreams, I sleep so soundly. As it turns out, I saw the person that very morning. We had the conversation. And it wasn’t an “it all ends happily ever after” deal. It was sort of awkward. I don’t know if anything happened or not. Sometimes the Spirit comes to us in the ordinary, sometimes in the extraordinary. Often it’s surprising.

But on Pentecost, the influence of the Holy Spirit is even far greater than just empowering Peter to talk. The Spirit was at work on that day… causing people to listen.

At least some of the people in that crowd were ripe, were ready to hear Peter’s words, were “cut to the heart.” You see, their response could’ve been one of these:

“Peter, you are nuts!”

“Peter, you are a religious fanatic.”

“Peter, you’re practicing bad theology.”

And maybe some reacted that way…it doesn’t say “all listened,” or “all were cut to the heart.” But some were. The Holy Spirit was at work not just in Peter’s talking, but in the people’s hearing of it. The Spirit had been readying them to hear about Jesus.

The same is true in our lives. You see, most of us don’t have any idea WHO the people are around us who have been wrestling with God, or someone else has been talking to them, or praying for them. We just don’t have the ability to see, they’re not wearing an “R” on their forehead that proclaims them “Ready!” And so it is…we can’t talk about Jesus only to someone we think is ready. We just have to be obedient, and trust that God knows what he’s doing. And it feels awkward and we think, “God can’t be prompting me to speak,” and we worry about being embarrassed. I have a quote from a Christian leader over my desk that says, “Lord, if my looking foolish, or feeling embarrassed would bring You glory…just do it!” Because the Spirit is at work on the hearing end as well.

I get to experience this a fair amount, because you allow me the privilege of speaking regularly. I work on a sermon, and bring particular thoughts on Sunday. Sometimes, I’ll have some people talk to me during the week following that they heard some words intended just for them, that it hit them right where God had been dealing with them. It’s always a very affirming thing, because it means GOD is at work. Sometimes I’ll even have somebody say, “Remember when you were preaching on…forgiveness? Well when you said this one particular thing, all the lights went on, it was incredible.” And I’ll be thinking, “I don’t remember saying that. In fact, it doesn’t even sound like something I would’ve said!” But the Spirit is at work…in the listening as well as the speaking.

When Peter finished his first sermon, there was a big hush…people were cut to the heart. “What should we do?,” they asked. And Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit…”…and those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. THREE THOUSAND!!

That is so surprising! And if you had interviewed Peter right after, I bet he would have been bowled over in shock, probably said “Wow, God is really doing something.”

Friends, we NEED to be open to God’s Holy Spirit at work. We’re living 2,000 years after that Pentecost Day. It’s the easiest thing in the world to look at it as just another historical or religious event…instead of the START of something amazing. So much of the time we feel like it’s our job to hear the teaching and wisdom that Jesus handed out all those years ago. And we think if we can somehow capture some of that thinking in a ritual or formula, God will act. Or we just come up with the best plans we conjure up, and say, “Lord bless this.”

Have we lost the sense of awe that God is at work?! That the Spirit might just break out among us, and somebody might sing or shout or raise their hands or be healed, or do something we never imagined, even something not in the bulletin?!! We try our darndest to domesticate God, but He won’t have any of it! There’s something about God that is wild and untamable and unpredictable. If God is really alive and active in the Holy Spirit, then we’ll find ourselves in the position…often, I think, where we say “Wow, I never expected to be in THIS to happen...but here we are!” So surprising.

So the Holy Spirit EMPOWERS Peter to explain Jesus. The Holy Spirit PREPARES people to hear about Jesus. Now, the Holy Spirit does one final thing here on Pentecost. It begins to build the church. Spirit-filled people speak, spirit-convicted people hear…and the church starts. In that order, actually.

John Stott says that “before Christ sent the church into the world, He sent the Spirit into the church.” And so the church GATHERS…that’s what “church” means, a gathering of people called by God… if we really want to watch our words, we should never say, “We went to Church,” but “We gathered as a church.”

The Spirit does this. That first day the church becomes bigger than a handful of folks…and: People gather together, they hold things in common, they give things to people according to need, they worship, they eat together, they share the Lord’s Supper…this amazing thing happens. The Church happens. It happens so fast, so strong, in such a remarkable way…that even people on the outside start to say, “What is going on here? There’s something happening.” THEY’D say “This is different.” WE’D say: God is doing something!” These things…these things that begin to mark the church…on the one hand, they are so very ordinary. On the other, they are so extraordinary. Two thousand years later, the church continues to exist. And as often as it messes up, as often as it falls short…God does some amazing things. He calls people to a family, he convinces people to share resources, he uses people in our healing and growth, he meets us in worship, he communicates forgiveness. In the Holy Spirit, He gathers people together in the Church, and He empowers it to impact the world.

The question that keeps popping up for me is…will I be a person open to Him? Will we be watching for His Spirit? Hard as it may seem to believe, I think we might be capable of missing the fact that there are tongues of fire dancing on the heads of others around us. And we might just miss the fact that people are speaking in all of these different tongues, all to the glory of God. Will we be open to something in our lives we didn’t expect? Open to something different than what you had written in your five-year plan? Will we listen for the sound of the wind? Will we see the tongues of fire when they come? Will we open our mouths to speak? Will we trust that the Spirit is at work in the hearers? And will we let the Spirit build the church instead of vice versa?

The Holy Spirit is such a great assurance…that we are not alone. The Holy Spirit is such a terrifying reminder…that we are actually not in control. The Holy Spirit is God acting in us…and in the church. Let us be alert, open and willing…lest we miss something surprising…and wonderful. Amen.