Dan Herold | John 15:26,27 | May 15, 2016
(Sermon begins at 20:49)
Imagine that one day while you are just relaxing at home you hear a knock on your door. You aren’t expecting any visitors or packages to be delivered that day so immediately you are curious who it is. As you open your front door, you see a very polite looking young man there with a package in his hands. He hands you the package as you try to remember what you had ordered that you had forgotten about. Before you can say anything he hands you another envelope and says, “Thank you very much, you’ve been served.” Those words hit you like a punch to the stomach and the happiness of receiving a surprise package has turned into fear and dread of what is in that envelope.
You open up the envelope and it’s a summons to appear in court. It could be for any number of reasons, but the fact of the matter is that you are being taken to court. It all has happened so fast that your head is spinning. You don’t really know what to do next, but you do know that it would sure be nice if you had someone to help you make it through what lies ahead—someone to give you advice and guidance, someone to stand up for you, someone to help argue your case before the judge. If you were being taken to court you’d probably start looking for a lawyer who could do those things for you. You’d ask for recommendations from friends and you’d hire the best lawyer you could.
Even if you’ve never had someone show up at your door unexpectedly and tell you that, “You’ve been served,” we all have received a similar notice. When we hear God speak to us through his law we “get served” so to speak. The law hits hard, cuts deep and convicts us of our sins. The law shows us that we have not obeyed God and we are going to be brought before the judge to answer for our sins. In our second lesson this morning we read a portion of the sermon that Peter preached on the festival of Pentecost—the festival day that we celebrate today. In that sermon Peter served as the polite young man that shows up on the door step. He delivered the hard hitting news that the people needed to hear and that we need to hear. What happened on Pentecost wasn’t the result of Peter and the disciples having too much wine. It was the fulfillment of God’s promise—his promise to send his Holy Spirit, the counselor, to testify on behalf of God’s people.
In the verses we read this morning from John’s Gospel Jesus promised that after he had risen from the dead his Heavenly Father would send the Holy Spirit—whom Jesus called the Counselor. Jesus also told the disciples what the Counselor—the Holy Spirit—was going to do. First, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was going to testify about who Jesus is. That was the first job that the Holy Spirit had to carry out on Pentecost
On Pentecost, before Peter and the disciples went out and preached to the crowd of people gathered there.The Holy Spirit testified to the disciples about who Jesus was. Jesus had promised that after he ascended into heaven the disciples would receive a gift from God which would be very helpful to them in the job Jesus gave them to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. As the disciples were gathered together in a room they heard the sound of a powerful wind. They heard the sound, but they didn’t feel any wind. Then they saw little bits of fire—little flames—on top of each other’s heads. After they heard wind without feeling it and saw fire on their heads that didn’t burn them they all started speaking in different languages.
The disciples, for the most part, were blue collar guys—several of them fishermen by trade—that didn’t have extensive educations. They knew their native language and that was it, but now they all spoke in different languages. They were real languages too—we know that because the other people in town hear the disciples speaking and recognize the languages so they weren’t just babbling nonsense. Luke tells us in Acts chapter 1 that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit filled the disciples on Pentecost to fulfill the promise that Jesus made. The Holy Spirit testified about who Jesus is by doing what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do. The Holy Spirit demonstrated power that only the one true God could and he gave the disciples the gift they would need to spread the gospel. In our Old Testament reading this morning we heard how God confused the languages of the world at the tower of Babel. After God forced the people to leave the tower of Babel there was a new barrier that kept them from communicating with each other in the same way—they all spoke different languages now.
When that happened—when God confused their languages and sent them away—it probably felt like they had just “been served.” Think of what a blow that would be if tomorrow you were no longer able to effectively communicate with the people you work with or even some of your family members. The people at Babel were not punished unjustly, though, they had blatantly disobeyed God and were punished accordingly. Still, though, even their disobedience would be forgiven because it was among the many sins that Jesus paid for on the cross. We don’t all speak the same language today, but God found a way for the Gospel to be communicated to the whole world. On Pentecost God sent his Holy Spirit to testify to the disciples and to give them the gift they needed so that they, in turn, could testify to others.
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“You also must testify, for you have been with me since the beginning.”
This was what it was all leading up to. The years the disciples spent with Jesus, all the sermons and lessons they heard, and all the miracles they saw were preparing them for this day—for Pentecost—when it would be time for them to testify about who their Savior is. Now that the Holy Spirit had done what Jesus promised he would do it was time for the disciples to do the job they had been given. They had received the gift they needed—the one which God had promised. The Spirit had testified and now it was time for the disciples to testify. The disciples had the opportunity on Pentecost to preach to a large number of people and explain to them who Jesus is and what he had done for them. After Peter preached that sermon over 3000 people were baptized that day!
But where do you and I fit in? We still have a Sunday of the church year dedicated to Pentecost. We hear about it and celebrate it every year. Why? Is it just because it’s an important Bible story in the New Testament? That’s a part of it, but it certainly isn’t the only reason. We still celebrate Pentecost because we are still Jesus disciples. What he promised to the 12 he still promises to us. God will pour out his Spirit on us. He will send the Counselor to be our advocate. We still celebrate Pentecost because the Holy Spirit is as real and active today as he was 2000 years ago.
As long as we are still sinful—which we will be until we get to heaven—we will continue to be convicted of sin by the law. That means that we will continue to need a Savior and hope and wish for someone to stand at our side and plead our case before the Judge. We have a Savior—Jesus—and we have an advocate as well—the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit still testifies today. We don’t necessarily find the Holy Spirit in the sound of a great wind, or little bits of fire, or by enabling us to immediately and expertly speak other languages as the disciples did, but we do find him where he has always been able to be found—in the Word of God and in the Sacraments…the same place we find Christ, our Savior.
We also celebrate Pentecost because we still have the job of testifying to others about who our Savior is. After Peter preached that sermon and 3000 people were baptized it probably would have seemed real easy to turn Jerusalem into the center of the New Testament church. They had all the apostles there, thousands of followers, and the Holy Spirit had filled them all up. But instead of turning Jerusalem into the new Babel, what did the apostles do? They spread out! They traveled and found ways to reach out. They did not sit still. After Pentecost Jerusalem was still an important city, but it isn’t mentioned nearly as often as it was before that day. What does that tell us about how we should go about testifying about Jesus?
We have a city of over 10,000 people right outside our doors. What can we do to testify to them about who our Savior is. We even have the benefit that most of them probably speak the same language that we do! As a congregation—a group of believers—how can we testify to the world about who our Savior is and what he has done for us all? That job has been given to all of us—to make disciples of all nations, and that includes our own.
Now that’s not to say that we aren’t testifying about our Savior. I think we would all be surprised if we knew how many people listen to our service on the radio each week. Every week we put the video recording of our service on our website and Facebook page and it’s amazing to look at the number of people who view those, but in each of those areas only a handful of us are involved. Imagine how many people we could reach—how many people we could tell about Jesus—if each of us looked for ways and opportunities to testify about Jesus.
So as you leave here today, go away with that thought. The Holy Spirit came on Pentecost to testify to God’s people and to enable them to testify to others. Now our job is to testify—to tell the world about Jesus. How will you do that? How will you testify about your Savior? The Holy Spirit has spoken to you and for you. Now it’s our turn. It’s our turn to testify to the world about our Savior and theirs—to tell them about Jesus Christ who takes away the sins of the world.
In his name,
AMEN.