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Vicar Shemwell
5/22/21 Homily (Pentecost/Whitsunday 2021) Sermon Text: Acts 2:1-21 |
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A SERMON FOR THE OCCASION OF THE FESTIVAL
COMMEMORATING THE BIRTH OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as I stand before you today, this fourth Saturday of May, in the year of our Lord 2021, my wife, Amanda, and I are now less than one month out from the expected due date for our little girl, Freyja Lynn. Now I still happen to think she’ll be arriving somewhat early, but who knows. She may well take her time in there. (Though I know Amanda dreads the thought of it drawing out too terribly long! Her poor feet!) But that’s okay if Freyja does. No rush, my darling girl. You take all the time you need. So yeah, maybe she’ll come early, maybe on time, maybe even a little late. We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s on God’s timing. Either way it shakes out though, we are almost certainly only about a month or so away from the birth of our first child. And that’s just such an exciting thing to realize – and to say out loud even! I’m sure many of you remember well all the excitement and expectation associated with having your first child. And perhaps you even recall all the anxiety as well. I sure know I’m getting to the point where it is all becoming overwhelmingly real and unavoidably intense for me. This baby is fast on her way and my life—our lives—will be forever changed. It is exciting, yet also a daunting prospect. In a month’s time, I’ll be fully responsible for another human being. A completely helpless and dependent little person. You leave the hospital and then, well, it’s all on you. No instruction manual, no how-to guide. You’re just left to figure it out on your own along the way. And so we shall, I’m sure. We’ll do just fine. After all, this is how it has always been. Parents have always had to simply figure it out for themselves.
And figure well they have. And really, so long as there’s true love and sincerity in your heart and you do your best, the child will be alright. I’m confident of that. God’s got our backs.
Speaking of all that though, you know, Amanda and I were wondering aloud recently as to what our little girl’s birthday might actually turn out to be. The supposed due date is between June 19th and the 21st. And if she just so happens to make her debut right in the middle there, on the 20th, well that’s Father’s Day. And what a remarkable Father’s Day gift that would be. And every year from there on out, each Father’s Day for the rest of my natural born life, I would be foremost reminded of the birth of our eldest child – of our precious little daughter – of the one who made me a dad. And we could even celebrate together. (Although something tells me such a celebration would invariably end up being rather one-sided! At least for the first eighteen years or so. But that’s okay, of course.) Anyhow, friends, I bring all this up, this talk of births and birthdays, for two reasons, really. First of all, if you cannot already tell, I’m nervous as all get-out. I’m utterly overwrought. And I kind of need an outlet to talk through these considerable nerves, friends. If nothing else, from a pulpit, right? I mean, it’s literally only one month now. I know I keep saying it. But I seriously need your prayers, guys! (Help me!) Yet also, I mention all this because today, we are celebrating another birthday here at Our Savior/Grace Lutheran, a most significant birthday: the feast of Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter, the birth of the Holy Church. Yes, it was on this day, roughly two thousand years ago, and fifty days out from our Lord’s resurrection, that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles and all those gathered close by, with the thundering sound of a mighty wind rushing through the house which they inhabited and divided tongues as of fire resting on them each.
They were filled with this Spirit and the Spirit gave them the power to speak in tongues – to evangelize in the language of every nation and be thoroughly understood by the faithful thereof. It was a miraculous birth, to be sure.
That day, just as our Lord had promised as He was taken up into the heavens, His hands outstretched as He ascended, blessing His disciples all the way home, just as He had promised, as we heard in our Gospel reading for Ascension Day one week ago, this power was granted to His followers from on high, clothing them with a celestial confidence. Christ Jesus did not leave His disciples as orphans, but bequeathed them this mighty power instead, this heavenly and sanctifying succor. And so, on that day, in fulfillment of the words of the prophet Joel, which St. Peter quotes in this morning’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord God poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, on both Jew and Gentile, and on all creation, that this Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, the Paraclete, might call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify all men and women with the gifts of God the Father, those gifts won boldly and unapologetically for us by the suffering, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son. That this Spirit might direct all flesh toward the path heavenward, marked well by the Blood of the Lamb, the Lamb of God, Who was slain for the sake of a disgracefully fallen but gracefully beloved creation. That this Spirit might uplift all believers, all the forgiven, up toward the gates of life eternal, which were flung wide open by the Son’s Bloody and Atoning Sacrifice. The Father sent the Son to die for us – and the Son indeed met such a fate for our pitiful sake. But it is the Spirit Who reveals all this unto us. This is how our Triune God saves His people. Through this salvific division of labor, as it were.
And this saving work, while it began the very same day Adam and Eve fell into sin and was objectively finished on the Cross at Calvary at the ninth hour, the work of this salvation reaching each and every sinner, however, this work is ongoing. And this labor of love, of the promulgation of the Good News, of the sharing of that salvation with all creation by the power of the Holy Spirit, it truly did begin two thousand years ago, in the room of that house in which the Holy Apostles dwelt. And it continues to this very day. On this day, the Church was born, and from now until the very end of days, She, the Church, now a Mother Herself, births countless new believers, hour by hour, minute by minute, from this exact moment until the dawn of eternity.
My wife and I have been waiting eight long months for this baby girl. And now we’ve but a short thirty-or-so days left to go. Yet friends, those anticipating the birth of the Holy Church, those expecting the pouring out of the Lord God’s Spirit upon all flesh, they waited much, much longer. Since the beginning, since the exile from Paradise, the expulsion from the Garden, God the Father, He had a plan for our salvation. And He conveyed that plan to our first parents that very day, the day they fell into sin and disobedience. Remember, to the Serpent, and just as much to Eve, God Himself declared: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall crush your head, and you shall strike His heel.” Yes, the offspring of Eve, the One sent to save, would someday come to undo what Satan had wrought among our primordial parents, but only by way of hardship and hurt. And the Father told them all about this, from the start. And friends, the Lord God continued to share His Divine Economy, this plan for salvation, with His people throughout the millennia, through the revelation of His own Word, so often imparted by the Patriarchs and Prophets of the faith. The promise of the Messiah, the One ready to rectify the sins of all men, this promise was articulated for centuries through the prophesying of God’s devoted servants.
Therefore, those who were listening, who had ears to hear, they knew to expect a consummate redemption. They knew what was fortunately headed their way. And as we hear from the words of the prophet Joel, proclaimed by St. Peter in his sermon that first Pentecost celebration, God even deigned to communicate the profundity of the all-encompassing nature of such redemption with His Chosen people. He told them, through Joel, that not only would the Messiah be sent to right the wrongs of a fallen creation, but also His very Spirit, the Spirit of the One True God, would thereafter be extended unto all mankind – that the overabundance of that salvation might be poured out on every last sinner.
The faithful people of God knew salvation was coming. Yet they still had to wait. For so many years. Nevertheless, God did not leave them hopeless during this time of waiting. He continued to shepherd His sheep and care for them as they awaited the coming Messiah. And His Spirit, too, was never far from them. Not at all – but always tenderly near. And so they waited, thoroughly shepherded, and excited and joyfully expectant; but moreover, I’m sure, altogether anxious. Their nerves were most certainly elevated in their hopeful suspense and amid their various encounters with trial. Would they be ready when the Savior was to come? Would they be ready to receive the Spirit when He was to descend? They no doubt were as overwrought as any, anticipating this birth of a new age, an age of perfect redemption. And brothers and sisters, as you and I both know, this side of the crucifixion, as we know, the Savior did come eventually. Thankfully so, little flock! After centuries of expectation, God did finally become man. He took on our lowly flesh, in order that He might save it and sanctify it. From the venerated line of King David, a Virgin gave birth to a baby Boy – to be called Emmanuel – “God with us.” A most miraculous birth, to be certain.
And this God, Jesus, the Christ, He grew up in total obedience, taught, preached, and healed throughout the land. And the whole time, as He gathered His disciples and enlightened them with the fulfillment of prophecy to come, He also assured them that, upon His impending departure, He would not leave them alone, He would never orphan them. Instead, as Joel, too, had confidently pronounced, Jesus comforted them with the knowledge of the Comforter to come, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, Who would be breathed out over all nations as a beatific breeze. But first, the prophesy had to be fulfilled. That dreadful and sorrowful prophesy. The Son of God, the Divine Incarnate, was betrayed, beaten and mocked, nailed to a tortuous tree and left to die. And die He did. On that Cross of tragedy He gave up the ghost for the wickedness of the world, that through Him, the world might be judged righteous at the Last Day. And through His death, He sanctified death itself – and He made the grave holy by overcoming it. On the third day He rose again, glorious and triumphant over mortal fate. And in His resurrected form, as we’ve heard throughout this Easter season, our Lord visited His Apostles and disciples on numerous occasions, eating and drinking with them, enlightening them regarding all the miraculous things which had happened and beseeching them to remain in Jerusalem until they be clothed with the power from on high.
Our Lord, of course, He entrusted these particular men with His Spirit first. Scripture manifestly attests to this. Yes, He initially breathed the Spirit upon His closest followers, His inner circle, in that upper room before His ascension. But then, fifty days on from His resurrection, and after that glorious ascension into heaven, His Spirit came down from above for all men and women. And such is what we’ve happily heard this morning in our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. There was the sound of a mighty wind, and divided tongues as of fire resting on them each. Wind and fire and the miraculous did abound.
However, the most extraordinary sign of all was that of the gift of tongues. For it was through such tongues, nothing scandalously ecstatic or otherworldly, like our Charismatic and Pentecostal friends misunderstand in their pious expressions of gibberish, but normal tongues, true, worldly languages—the miracle itself being the ability to converse in foreign languages of which the disciples knew not, what’s called xenoglossia, not glossolalia—but through those preternatural tongues, the Spirit revealed the Divine Economy to all; through speech and through hearing, as you should recall, the primary means by which faith is worked in the hearts and minds of believers.
The Spirit empowered St. Peter in his preaching, and he thusly told of the Christ’s fulfillment of prophesy. He proudly spoke of what great things had come to pass. He preached of the Son’s death and resurrection for the sake of all flesh, of His sanctification of death itself, and of His overcoming of what Satan and our own parents had so shamefully brought about. And St. Peter confirmed the wait being over, at long last. Joel’s prophesy came to be fulfilled that very day. The Spirit descended upon the whole world, like the Son, in order to draw all people to God, to Himself – to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify all believers in Jesus, just as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther relays in our own Small Catechism. The wait was over, the Spirit had arrived, as midwife to the birth of the Holy Church – birthed from the very womb of the Lamb of God’s Final Sacrifice. The expectation for redemption was met with wide-open arms – a Church born, to be Mother Herself to all people – to fulfill the hope of the Jew and to answer the longing of the Greek. To invite both the Chosen people and the pagan to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. The Church was born that day, for us, for each of us, that we might ourselves be born again, through the Blood of the Son. And thanks be to God for this phenomenal ecclesiastical nativity!
Jesus was born that the Church might be born – all so that you and I might be born once more. Not of the flesh, but of water and of the Spirit. And that’s what has happened, dear faithful. For each of us. We give thanks this morning for the birthday of our Holy Mother, the Christian Church, for it is through this Church and Her Sacraments that we are born again in Christ Jesus. We were each rebirthed through the holy waters of Baptism and by the Spirit breathed upon us. The Spirit condescended for all flesh, including yours and mine. And in that sacred rebirth, we were granted an endlessly generous forgiveness and the promise of life everlasting in the Heavenly Bosom of our Triune God.
However, my beloved friends, that rebirth, it did not just happen once, long ago. Yes, of course, we were baptized only once, into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Yet truly, as Luther has soundly taught us, our rebirth is a daily experience, at least figuratively. We are born again, born new each and every day, as the Old Adam within us is regularly and rightly drowned in the waters of our own baptismal being. Each day is a new birth – our Mother, the Church, facilitating it through the Means of Grace, through Word and Sacrament. The Word speaks to us, by the power of the Spirit, calling us always to repentance for our failure before the Law of God, for our faltering in our freely given Christian liberty. That Word strikes a hard-earned terror in our hearts over our sins and over what they wrought on our Lord’s own broken body at Golgotha. But then through that same Word, that same Spirit, we are comforted with the sweetness of the Holy Gospel, with the news which St. Peter once uttered, the news of eternal redemption by the Father’s gracious plan, through the Son’s benevolent Blood, and with the Spirit’s unending power.
And woefully stricken down by the perfect, eternal Law of God and its confrontation with our lingering sinfulness, with that Old Adam loitering within the depths of our own being, and consequently raised again in the heavenly hope of perpetual forgiveness through Jesus, we are then guided by the Spirit’s calling to the Sacrament of Holy Absolution, where we confess our sins before Pastor as before God Himself and are granted forgiveness again, spoken just for us, and over every last one of our iniquitous thoughts, words, and deeds. And finally, my brothers and sisters, in the arms of the Church, baptized and absolved again, made new each day, we are thereafter ushered, taken by the hand of the Mighty Spirit Himself, our ever-present Helper, we are ushered to the altar of God, to the sanctifying feast of Holy Communion, that Most Blessed Sacrament, that foretaste of heaven and the glory to come, in which the Son dwells among us and indeed within us once more.
We partake of Jesus’ true Body and of His very own Blood, that sweetest wine which indeed intoxicates us with promise and an evangelically quenched thirst, and through it, through His Flesh and Blood, we are properly strengthened for the long haul. This is how our Triune God works: through this threefold labor of love. The Son reconciles us to the Father through His horrendous Sacrifice, and then, in merciful response, the Father bestows His grace upon us through means of the Church and the consecrated hands of Her ministers, who are empowered by the Holy Spirit alone to preach, teach, and administer the grace of God to those who’ve been called and gathered together by the exclusive power of that same Spirit. This is how it happens, every day, every week, until our Lord comes again on that great and magnificent day of which both the Prophet Joel and St Peter, the Apostle, have told. And it all started so long ago, in Jerusalem, in that ancient city, with the first Apostles and the pouring out of the Spirit of the Lord God upon all flesh.
Today we celebrate the birth of our Mother, the Church. We come here together in festal rejoicing for the beneficent unfastening of the gates of heaven for every last sinner, every last one of us. As I’ve said to y’all before, so many times, this life we live, this life of salvation in the Incarnate God, it is not a flat circle, right? Sometimes it may feel that way. We may happen to think we’re just going in circles. Being forgiven, departing these doors and out into the world, only to sin again, to fall once more into the same old sinful patterns of behavior, orbiting only our own onerous self-obsessions. Perhaps you might even occasionally feel like a goldfish in a tiny bowl, swimming round and round and getting nowhere.
But I assure you, once more, dear faithful, this life of liberty in Christ Jesus is not a flat circle at all. Rather it is heavenwardly winding, spiraling upwards toward further and further sanctification. And while we cover much of the same ground year after year, in our liturgy and in our lectionary readings, going over the life of Jesus Christ and of the Church time after time, in truth, beloved, even as we cover this same ground, we, ourselves, are never the same. You are not the same this Pentecost celebration as you were last Pentecost. In fact, you are not the same this holy day as you were last week. Furthermore, you are not the same day by day, hour by hour. Each day, each moment, with the Holy Spirit descended upon you and working through you, your life is ever changing, you are routinely transfigured, becoming ever more perfect and closer to what Jesus Himself says of that Spirit’s work within us. To be near our Lord is to love Him above all else – and to love Him so is to obey His commandments. And it is solely through the power of the Spirit that we are made able to begin to do just that.
Now, to be clear here, we will still stumble and fall, all the time. That’s not going to change this side of heaven. But when you founder out there on your own, know this: the Church is here for you, the Means of Grace are here for you, the Spirit is here for you, guiding you toward forgiveness and then toward a more sanctified tomorrow. All so that, in the end, when our Lord does return in His highest glory and in the company of all the angels to judge the world, or until our own final breath, that we might be made altogether ready. That we might be ready for His Second Coming or ready for our own homecoming through the final sanctification of a blessed and holy death. It might seem dreadfully cyclical at times – circular and even monotonous to our sinful nature. However, we are being rebirthed every single day toward closer proximity with the image of God gradually restored within us – and this is made possible only through Jesus and His Holy Spirit. We are getting there, no matter how slowly. And for now, with all hope and with the strength and confidence of God’s grace given to us in Word and Sacrament, and with the courage of the Spirit upon us, we must simply wait. Prayfully, we must await that Last Day, ever ready as we can be.
So here we are, dear faithful. All waiting. My wife and I, for the birth of our little girl, and each of us for the glory to come in the following age. You know, my daughter’s birth, while it will undoubtedly be miraculous for us, the gift of life, made by our own united flesh, it probably won’t be nearly as exciting as the first Pentecost and the birth of the Holy Church. I don’t expect any strong winds or tongues of fire or any ability to speak in foreign languages—beyond what I’m supposed to know for seminary, of course! (Which, at any rate, I don’t anticipate having to use in the delivery room…) Outwardly, it won’t be quite as thrilling, you see? But really, in every way, it will be just as amazing. When Freyja Lynn gets safely here, we will carry her to the waters of Holy Baptism.
And on that day—hopefully this July—the Church will birth one new member, my darling little girl, my sweetheart. Three thousand were baptized that first Pentecost. And this summer, still amid the Pentecost season, we will add one more to the numbers of Holy Mother Church. And then little Freyja will join with us in this hallowed wait we’re all together amid. For there is indeed one final birth yet to occur for us all. That birth which comes when we leave this earth, this creation, for the next, for the life to come, for heaven and the new creation awaiting us.
We wait for that day here and now, with excitement and joy and hope and longing – and maybe there are even some nerves here and there, some fears and doubts and sorrows which creep in on occasion. Will we truly be ready? Will we be scared? Or will we be prepared? But those nerves and aches, they are quickly quelled, calmed by the Word of God itself – by what the Prophet Joel and St. Peter have spoken to us this morning: “Indeed, it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Everyone… We are saved now, and we can rest assured that we will be saved then as well, when that ultimate birth draws nigh, when the time for our final sanctification arrives, our being made entirely holy, if even in death. In Jesus, in calling upon His name always, and with His Spirit ever guiding and comforting us, we have the fullest certainty that we will be ready. And we’ll do just fine. Just fine alright. I promise you, friends. The Spirit is upon us now – and we will be prepared when the time comes for that final baptism at the end of time itself. So thanks be to God for His Holy Church, our Mother, and for His Holy Spirit which gave rise to Her and safeguards Her to this very day, and unto all eternity and the Triumph above, that She might always protect and keep ready until then all us saintly sinners and sinful saints who wait patiently here below. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
COMMEMORATING THE BIRTH OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as I stand before you today, this fourth Saturday of May, in the year of our Lord 2021, my wife, Amanda, and I are now less than one month out from the expected due date for our little girl, Freyja Lynn. Now I still happen to think she’ll be arriving somewhat early, but who knows. She may well take her time in there. (Though I know Amanda dreads the thought of it drawing out too terribly long! Her poor feet!) But that’s okay if Freyja does. No rush, my darling girl. You take all the time you need. So yeah, maybe she’ll come early, maybe on time, maybe even a little late. We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s on God’s timing. Either way it shakes out though, we are almost certainly only about a month or so away from the birth of our first child. And that’s just such an exciting thing to realize – and to say out loud even! I’m sure many of you remember well all the excitement and expectation associated with having your first child. And perhaps you even recall all the anxiety as well. I sure know I’m getting to the point where it is all becoming overwhelmingly real and unavoidably intense for me. This baby is fast on her way and my life—our lives—will be forever changed. It is exciting, yet also a daunting prospect. In a month’s time, I’ll be fully responsible for another human being. A completely helpless and dependent little person. You leave the hospital and then, well, it’s all on you. No instruction manual, no how-to guide. You’re just left to figure it out on your own along the way. And so we shall, I’m sure. We’ll do just fine. After all, this is how it has always been. Parents have always had to simply figure it out for themselves.
And figure well they have. And really, so long as there’s true love and sincerity in your heart and you do your best, the child will be alright. I’m confident of that. God’s got our backs.
Speaking of all that though, you know, Amanda and I were wondering aloud recently as to what our little girl’s birthday might actually turn out to be. The supposed due date is between June 19th and the 21st. And if she just so happens to make her debut right in the middle there, on the 20th, well that’s Father’s Day. And what a remarkable Father’s Day gift that would be. And every year from there on out, each Father’s Day for the rest of my natural born life, I would be foremost reminded of the birth of our eldest child – of our precious little daughter – of the one who made me a dad. And we could even celebrate together. (Although something tells me such a celebration would invariably end up being rather one-sided! At least for the first eighteen years or so. But that’s okay, of course.) Anyhow, friends, I bring all this up, this talk of births and birthdays, for two reasons, really. First of all, if you cannot already tell, I’m nervous as all get-out. I’m utterly overwrought. And I kind of need an outlet to talk through these considerable nerves, friends. If nothing else, from a pulpit, right? I mean, it’s literally only one month now. I know I keep saying it. But I seriously need your prayers, guys! (Help me!) Yet also, I mention all this because today, we are celebrating another birthday here at Our Savior/Grace Lutheran, a most significant birthday: the feast of Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter, the birth of the Holy Church. Yes, it was on this day, roughly two thousand years ago, and fifty days out from our Lord’s resurrection, that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles and all those gathered close by, with the thundering sound of a mighty wind rushing through the house which they inhabited and divided tongues as of fire resting on them each.
They were filled with this Spirit and the Spirit gave them the power to speak in tongues – to evangelize in the language of every nation and be thoroughly understood by the faithful thereof. It was a miraculous birth, to be sure.
That day, just as our Lord had promised as He was taken up into the heavens, His hands outstretched as He ascended, blessing His disciples all the way home, just as He had promised, as we heard in our Gospel reading for Ascension Day one week ago, this power was granted to His followers from on high, clothing them with a celestial confidence. Christ Jesus did not leave His disciples as orphans, but bequeathed them this mighty power instead, this heavenly and sanctifying succor. And so, on that day, in fulfillment of the words of the prophet Joel, which St. Peter quotes in this morning’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord God poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, on both Jew and Gentile, and on all creation, that this Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Helper, the Paraclete, might call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify all men and women with the gifts of God the Father, those gifts won boldly and unapologetically for us by the suffering, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son. That this Spirit might direct all flesh toward the path heavenward, marked well by the Blood of the Lamb, the Lamb of God, Who was slain for the sake of a disgracefully fallen but gracefully beloved creation. That this Spirit might uplift all believers, all the forgiven, up toward the gates of life eternal, which were flung wide open by the Son’s Bloody and Atoning Sacrifice. The Father sent the Son to die for us – and the Son indeed met such a fate for our pitiful sake. But it is the Spirit Who reveals all this unto us. This is how our Triune God saves His people. Through this salvific division of labor, as it were.
And this saving work, while it began the very same day Adam and Eve fell into sin and was objectively finished on the Cross at Calvary at the ninth hour, the work of this salvation reaching each and every sinner, however, this work is ongoing. And this labor of love, of the promulgation of the Good News, of the sharing of that salvation with all creation by the power of the Holy Spirit, it truly did begin two thousand years ago, in the room of that house in which the Holy Apostles dwelt. And it continues to this very day. On this day, the Church was born, and from now until the very end of days, She, the Church, now a Mother Herself, births countless new believers, hour by hour, minute by minute, from this exact moment until the dawn of eternity.
My wife and I have been waiting eight long months for this baby girl. And now we’ve but a short thirty-or-so days left to go. Yet friends, those anticipating the birth of the Holy Church, those expecting the pouring out of the Lord God’s Spirit upon all flesh, they waited much, much longer. Since the beginning, since the exile from Paradise, the expulsion from the Garden, God the Father, He had a plan for our salvation. And He conveyed that plan to our first parents that very day, the day they fell into sin and disobedience. Remember, to the Serpent, and just as much to Eve, God Himself declared: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall crush your head, and you shall strike His heel.” Yes, the offspring of Eve, the One sent to save, would someday come to undo what Satan had wrought among our primordial parents, but only by way of hardship and hurt. And the Father told them all about this, from the start. And friends, the Lord God continued to share His Divine Economy, this plan for salvation, with His people throughout the millennia, through the revelation of His own Word, so often imparted by the Patriarchs and Prophets of the faith. The promise of the Messiah, the One ready to rectify the sins of all men, this promise was articulated for centuries through the prophesying of God’s devoted servants.
Therefore, those who were listening, who had ears to hear, they knew to expect a consummate redemption. They knew what was fortunately headed their way. And as we hear from the words of the prophet Joel, proclaimed by St. Peter in his sermon that first Pentecost celebration, God even deigned to communicate the profundity of the all-encompassing nature of such redemption with His Chosen people. He told them, through Joel, that not only would the Messiah be sent to right the wrongs of a fallen creation, but also His very Spirit, the Spirit of the One True God, would thereafter be extended unto all mankind – that the overabundance of that salvation might be poured out on every last sinner.
The faithful people of God knew salvation was coming. Yet they still had to wait. For so many years. Nevertheless, God did not leave them hopeless during this time of waiting. He continued to shepherd His sheep and care for them as they awaited the coming Messiah. And His Spirit, too, was never far from them. Not at all – but always tenderly near. And so they waited, thoroughly shepherded, and excited and joyfully expectant; but moreover, I’m sure, altogether anxious. Their nerves were most certainly elevated in their hopeful suspense and amid their various encounters with trial. Would they be ready when the Savior was to come? Would they be ready to receive the Spirit when He was to descend? They no doubt were as overwrought as any, anticipating this birth of a new age, an age of perfect redemption. And brothers and sisters, as you and I both know, this side of the crucifixion, as we know, the Savior did come eventually. Thankfully so, little flock! After centuries of expectation, God did finally become man. He took on our lowly flesh, in order that He might save it and sanctify it. From the venerated line of King David, a Virgin gave birth to a baby Boy – to be called Emmanuel – “God with us.” A most miraculous birth, to be certain.
And this God, Jesus, the Christ, He grew up in total obedience, taught, preached, and healed throughout the land. And the whole time, as He gathered His disciples and enlightened them with the fulfillment of prophecy to come, He also assured them that, upon His impending departure, He would not leave them alone, He would never orphan them. Instead, as Joel, too, had confidently pronounced, Jesus comforted them with the knowledge of the Comforter to come, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, Who would be breathed out over all nations as a beatific breeze. But first, the prophesy had to be fulfilled. That dreadful and sorrowful prophesy. The Son of God, the Divine Incarnate, was betrayed, beaten and mocked, nailed to a tortuous tree and left to die. And die He did. On that Cross of tragedy He gave up the ghost for the wickedness of the world, that through Him, the world might be judged righteous at the Last Day. And through His death, He sanctified death itself – and He made the grave holy by overcoming it. On the third day He rose again, glorious and triumphant over mortal fate. And in His resurrected form, as we’ve heard throughout this Easter season, our Lord visited His Apostles and disciples on numerous occasions, eating and drinking with them, enlightening them regarding all the miraculous things which had happened and beseeching them to remain in Jerusalem until they be clothed with the power from on high.
Our Lord, of course, He entrusted these particular men with His Spirit first. Scripture manifestly attests to this. Yes, He initially breathed the Spirit upon His closest followers, His inner circle, in that upper room before His ascension. But then, fifty days on from His resurrection, and after that glorious ascension into heaven, His Spirit came down from above for all men and women. And such is what we’ve happily heard this morning in our lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. There was the sound of a mighty wind, and divided tongues as of fire resting on them each. Wind and fire and the miraculous did abound.
However, the most extraordinary sign of all was that of the gift of tongues. For it was through such tongues, nothing scandalously ecstatic or otherworldly, like our Charismatic and Pentecostal friends misunderstand in their pious expressions of gibberish, but normal tongues, true, worldly languages—the miracle itself being the ability to converse in foreign languages of which the disciples knew not, what’s called xenoglossia, not glossolalia—but through those preternatural tongues, the Spirit revealed the Divine Economy to all; through speech and through hearing, as you should recall, the primary means by which faith is worked in the hearts and minds of believers.
The Spirit empowered St. Peter in his preaching, and he thusly told of the Christ’s fulfillment of prophesy. He proudly spoke of what great things had come to pass. He preached of the Son’s death and resurrection for the sake of all flesh, of His sanctification of death itself, and of His overcoming of what Satan and our own parents had so shamefully brought about. And St. Peter confirmed the wait being over, at long last. Joel’s prophesy came to be fulfilled that very day. The Spirit descended upon the whole world, like the Son, in order to draw all people to God, to Himself – to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify all believers in Jesus, just as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther relays in our own Small Catechism. The wait was over, the Spirit had arrived, as midwife to the birth of the Holy Church – birthed from the very womb of the Lamb of God’s Final Sacrifice. The expectation for redemption was met with wide-open arms – a Church born, to be Mother Herself to all people – to fulfill the hope of the Jew and to answer the longing of the Greek. To invite both the Chosen people and the pagan to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. The Church was born that day, for us, for each of us, that we might ourselves be born again, through the Blood of the Son. And thanks be to God for this phenomenal ecclesiastical nativity!
Jesus was born that the Church might be born – all so that you and I might be born once more. Not of the flesh, but of water and of the Spirit. And that’s what has happened, dear faithful. For each of us. We give thanks this morning for the birthday of our Holy Mother, the Christian Church, for it is through this Church and Her Sacraments that we are born again in Christ Jesus. We were each rebirthed through the holy waters of Baptism and by the Spirit breathed upon us. The Spirit condescended for all flesh, including yours and mine. And in that sacred rebirth, we were granted an endlessly generous forgiveness and the promise of life everlasting in the Heavenly Bosom of our Triune God.
However, my beloved friends, that rebirth, it did not just happen once, long ago. Yes, of course, we were baptized only once, into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Yet truly, as Luther has soundly taught us, our rebirth is a daily experience, at least figuratively. We are born again, born new each and every day, as the Old Adam within us is regularly and rightly drowned in the waters of our own baptismal being. Each day is a new birth – our Mother, the Church, facilitating it through the Means of Grace, through Word and Sacrament. The Word speaks to us, by the power of the Spirit, calling us always to repentance for our failure before the Law of God, for our faltering in our freely given Christian liberty. That Word strikes a hard-earned terror in our hearts over our sins and over what they wrought on our Lord’s own broken body at Golgotha. But then through that same Word, that same Spirit, we are comforted with the sweetness of the Holy Gospel, with the news which St. Peter once uttered, the news of eternal redemption by the Father’s gracious plan, through the Son’s benevolent Blood, and with the Spirit’s unending power.
And woefully stricken down by the perfect, eternal Law of God and its confrontation with our lingering sinfulness, with that Old Adam loitering within the depths of our own being, and consequently raised again in the heavenly hope of perpetual forgiveness through Jesus, we are then guided by the Spirit’s calling to the Sacrament of Holy Absolution, where we confess our sins before Pastor as before God Himself and are granted forgiveness again, spoken just for us, and over every last one of our iniquitous thoughts, words, and deeds. And finally, my brothers and sisters, in the arms of the Church, baptized and absolved again, made new each day, we are thereafter ushered, taken by the hand of the Mighty Spirit Himself, our ever-present Helper, we are ushered to the altar of God, to the sanctifying feast of Holy Communion, that Most Blessed Sacrament, that foretaste of heaven and the glory to come, in which the Son dwells among us and indeed within us once more.
We partake of Jesus’ true Body and of His very own Blood, that sweetest wine which indeed intoxicates us with promise and an evangelically quenched thirst, and through it, through His Flesh and Blood, we are properly strengthened for the long haul. This is how our Triune God works: through this threefold labor of love. The Son reconciles us to the Father through His horrendous Sacrifice, and then, in merciful response, the Father bestows His grace upon us through means of the Church and the consecrated hands of Her ministers, who are empowered by the Holy Spirit alone to preach, teach, and administer the grace of God to those who’ve been called and gathered together by the exclusive power of that same Spirit. This is how it happens, every day, every week, until our Lord comes again on that great and magnificent day of which both the Prophet Joel and St Peter, the Apostle, have told. And it all started so long ago, in Jerusalem, in that ancient city, with the first Apostles and the pouring out of the Spirit of the Lord God upon all flesh.
Today we celebrate the birth of our Mother, the Church. We come here together in festal rejoicing for the beneficent unfastening of the gates of heaven for every last sinner, every last one of us. As I’ve said to y’all before, so many times, this life we live, this life of salvation in the Incarnate God, it is not a flat circle, right? Sometimes it may feel that way. We may happen to think we’re just going in circles. Being forgiven, departing these doors and out into the world, only to sin again, to fall once more into the same old sinful patterns of behavior, orbiting only our own onerous self-obsessions. Perhaps you might even occasionally feel like a goldfish in a tiny bowl, swimming round and round and getting nowhere.
But I assure you, once more, dear faithful, this life of liberty in Christ Jesus is not a flat circle at all. Rather it is heavenwardly winding, spiraling upwards toward further and further sanctification. And while we cover much of the same ground year after year, in our liturgy and in our lectionary readings, going over the life of Jesus Christ and of the Church time after time, in truth, beloved, even as we cover this same ground, we, ourselves, are never the same. You are not the same this Pentecost celebration as you were last Pentecost. In fact, you are not the same this holy day as you were last week. Furthermore, you are not the same day by day, hour by hour. Each day, each moment, with the Holy Spirit descended upon you and working through you, your life is ever changing, you are routinely transfigured, becoming ever more perfect and closer to what Jesus Himself says of that Spirit’s work within us. To be near our Lord is to love Him above all else – and to love Him so is to obey His commandments. And it is solely through the power of the Spirit that we are made able to begin to do just that.
Now, to be clear here, we will still stumble and fall, all the time. That’s not going to change this side of heaven. But when you founder out there on your own, know this: the Church is here for you, the Means of Grace are here for you, the Spirit is here for you, guiding you toward forgiveness and then toward a more sanctified tomorrow. All so that, in the end, when our Lord does return in His highest glory and in the company of all the angels to judge the world, or until our own final breath, that we might be made altogether ready. That we might be ready for His Second Coming or ready for our own homecoming through the final sanctification of a blessed and holy death. It might seem dreadfully cyclical at times – circular and even monotonous to our sinful nature. However, we are being rebirthed every single day toward closer proximity with the image of God gradually restored within us – and this is made possible only through Jesus and His Holy Spirit. We are getting there, no matter how slowly. And for now, with all hope and with the strength and confidence of God’s grace given to us in Word and Sacrament, and with the courage of the Spirit upon us, we must simply wait. Prayfully, we must await that Last Day, ever ready as we can be.
So here we are, dear faithful. All waiting. My wife and I, for the birth of our little girl, and each of us for the glory to come in the following age. You know, my daughter’s birth, while it will undoubtedly be miraculous for us, the gift of life, made by our own united flesh, it probably won’t be nearly as exciting as the first Pentecost and the birth of the Holy Church. I don’t expect any strong winds or tongues of fire or any ability to speak in foreign languages—beyond what I’m supposed to know for seminary, of course! (Which, at any rate, I don’t anticipate having to use in the delivery room…) Outwardly, it won’t be quite as thrilling, you see? But really, in every way, it will be just as amazing. When Freyja Lynn gets safely here, we will carry her to the waters of Holy Baptism.
And on that day—hopefully this July—the Church will birth one new member, my darling little girl, my sweetheart. Three thousand were baptized that first Pentecost. And this summer, still amid the Pentecost season, we will add one more to the numbers of Holy Mother Church. And then little Freyja will join with us in this hallowed wait we’re all together amid. For there is indeed one final birth yet to occur for us all. That birth which comes when we leave this earth, this creation, for the next, for the life to come, for heaven and the new creation awaiting us.
We wait for that day here and now, with excitement and joy and hope and longing – and maybe there are even some nerves here and there, some fears and doubts and sorrows which creep in on occasion. Will we truly be ready? Will we be scared? Or will we be prepared? But those nerves and aches, they are quickly quelled, calmed by the Word of God itself – by what the Prophet Joel and St. Peter have spoken to us this morning: “Indeed, it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Everyone… We are saved now, and we can rest assured that we will be saved then as well, when that ultimate birth draws nigh, when the time for our final sanctification arrives, our being made entirely holy, if even in death. In Jesus, in calling upon His name always, and with His Spirit ever guiding and comforting us, we have the fullest certainty that we will be ready. And we’ll do just fine. Just fine alright. I promise you, friends. The Spirit is upon us now – and we will be prepared when the time comes for that final baptism at the end of time itself. So thanks be to God for His Holy Church, our Mother, and for His Holy Spirit which gave rise to Her and safeguards Her to this very day, and unto all eternity and the Triumph above, that She might always protect and keep ready until then all us saintly sinners and sinful saints who wait patiently here below. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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