The Festival of Pentecost, 8-6-2025 | A Sermon on Acts 2:2-21 | by The Rev. Dr. Judson F Merrell, STS |

 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

 ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

 ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

 ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

 ⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.

 ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.

 ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: „Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?

 ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?

 ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,

 ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome

 ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs–we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!“

 ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, „What does this mean?“

 ¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, „They have had too much wine.“

 ¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: „Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.

 ¹⁵ These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!

 ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

 ¹⁷ „‚In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

 ¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

 ¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

 ²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

 ²¹ And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.‘

 (Act 2:1-21 NIV)New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Monday morning started like every other Monday.  I headed to the office to get things started.  Monday’s are sometimes our craziest days in the office, so one of the first things I did was get another cup of coffee.  I sat down and caught up on email and then started my text study for my sermon today.  I actually already had a direction that I was planning to go in, and then that all changed.  I was re-reading a few things and this idea popped into my head that I should look for a book that I have not opened in about 10 years.  That book is called Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals.  It was written by two gentlemen, one of whom is Lutheran and one of whom is Roman Catholic.  I found the book, opened it up, and pretty quickly landed on this passage:  “When Christians narrate and ritualize their lives, the Jesus story provides a transforming vision for expressing and creating meaning.  Christian worship and ritual is a medium for discovering how God is always at work making something new of our personal stories.” (pg. xiv) I thought those two brief sentences were pretty powerful, especially in the context of what we celebrate today.

Today is, once again, the Day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church, the giving of the Holy Spirit to the apostles.  What we celebrate today is the joining of personal stories with the story of Jesus.  That joining is indeed mighty, it is indeed transforming, and it does create a very new meaning for us.  God is constantly at work reforming us, just as he is at work reforming the church.  And all that began on that day of Pentecost, when the apostles were gathered together.  Jews from all over had come into Jerusalem to celebrate this important festival, and at that moment God chose to join the stories of those that believed in Jesus with the ritual of worship.  The apostles began to speak in tongues, so that all the different cultures that were present would be able to hear and understand.  For that brief moment, the apostles, as well as all those that heard God’s deeds being proclaimed, encountered God.  They heard the divine word, felt the divine touch, and received the divine presence.

Our ritual, our liturgy, offers us the same thing even today.  The liturgy is not just something to be memorized so that we feel as though we are going through the motions every week.  Instead, it has been assembled by the Holy Spirit, using biblical texts that were inspired by that very same Spirit.  We follow our Lord’s commands to celebrate the sacraments, and we profess our faith, confess our sins, pray for ourselves, our church, and the world.  Although I have the majority of the liturgy memorized, that happens with doing it so much, I find myself still reading the words as I sing and speak and pray.  I find myself trying to focus on exactly what I am doing, and just how powerful these words really are.  Our liturgy is a gateway for our own unique interaction with God.  It is one of the places where we find God.  But as we celebrate God today, and worship using our liturgy, we don’t necessarily see tongues of fire, and we don’t necessarily hear different languages.  But there are things we do see, and things we do hear.  I love it when I can hear a child singing the liturgy, especially knowing they may not read yet.  Or see people so eager to receive communion.  I have seen quite a few people who couldn’t necessarily stand for the service stand up to receive communion.  But the best thing is just being able to look out and see all your faces, to hear you pray, to hear you sing.  Look around, everyone you see was brought to this place by the Spirit.  Some 2000 years ago the Spirit brought together people from all countries of the world, and then enabled them to hear the deeds of God.  Today, the Spirit is still doing the same.  We live in a world where 3 stories collide…our story as individuals, our story as a group, and God’s story…and where they collide is where the world finds the cross.  God has chosen to weave his story of salvation into our story as people, and has done so through his son Jesus.  After the resurrection, he sent the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to maintain this connection, to help it grow, and to nurture it.

When we come to church, participate in the liturgy, sing, pray, and worship, we nurture that relationship.  We nurture these mighty stories of our God.  We connect ourselves with all the saints that have gone before us, while at the same time preparing for the day when we too will join them in the new life that comes through the resurrected Christ.  But we also do this when we are not at church.  A theologian by the name of Karl Rahner once suggested that there is a “liturgy of the world”, in which “the gift of God’s gracious self-communication is not limited to a baptized few” but instead open to all.  His suggestion is that in this world that breathes life and death, we find a God who permeates us with his grace, who helps his good deeds to save his people shine above the deeds caused by sin in the world, and who performs the final act of resurrection to overcome death once and for all.  As we live in this sin filled world, we seek the guidance that God gives us through the Spirit.  We pray for the work of the Spirit not only in the church, but in the whole world, the world in which we eat, live, and play.  The world in which we call home.   As we celebrate this Pentecost Sunday and the gift of the Spirit to the church, let us also celebrate God’s gift to the whole world, his Son Jesus, who overcame death and the grave, so that we all might live as people of God, filled with his promised Spirit.  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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©The Rev. Dr. Judson F Merrell, STS

   judsonmerrell@bellsouth.net

   St. Peter’s Lutheran Church

   Lexington, SC USA