Today in the Spirit: Pentecost Sunday C (Whitsunday)
“Pentecost Sunday already!?” While this might well be our reaction to the arrival of this feast day on the church calendar every year, we can only imagine how the disciples felt who were ordered by Jesus to go to Jerusalem and wait until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49). As they gathered to worship and pray on that particular Jewish feast of Pentecost, perhaps they were whispering to one another, “Could this be the day we have been waiting for?” Pentecost Sunday, also called Whitsunday, may be considered the church’s birthday as it marks the decisive moment in God’s season of redemption in which the Holy Spirit collides with the hearts of all those who believed in Jesus, creating the new community of God in the Spirit.
The assigned readings for Pentecost Sunday are the same in all three years of the lectionary cycle, and with little exception, this is the only occasion we hear these passages. The assigned Gospel reading in John 14:8-17 contains Jesus’ teaching to his disciples that the “[Spirit of truth now] lives with you (by Jesus himself) and will be in you” (by the indwelling of the Spirit at Pentecost,17).
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The awkward listing of Acts 2:1-11(12-21) as options for the first and second readings is the church’s way of saying that by all means we must include Luke’s narrative of the coming of the Spirit over the first generation of believers in our worship on this occasion.
The first option for the OT reading, Genesis 11:1-9, is the dramatic account of the construction and destruction of the Tower of Babel on the Plain of Shinar (probably in present-day Iraq). The miraculous confusion of languages in this story serves as an OT antitype to the supernatural comprehension of languages in the Acts reading.
The assigned Psalm 104:24-35 communicates to the worshiper that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, while being something novel, is an act of continuing creation in line with what has been revealed in the Old Testament: “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (30). The inspiration here is that we understand Pentecost as a bold new brush stroke on the canvas of God’s revelation of himself, now nearing completion.
The alternate New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 12:4-13 gives us Paul’s teaching on the varieties of gifts from the Holy Spirit distributed to members of the church that they might make through them a winsome witness to oneness in Christ.
Each of the alternative collects assigned for the day touches on differing but co-related aspects of the Holy Spirit’s arrival—an outward manifestation for salvation “to the ends of the earth” and an inner manifestation within the disciples for the gifting of “right judgment” and “holy comfort.”
The Collect
Almighty God, on this day, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, you revealed the way of eternal life to every race and nation: Pour out this gift anew, that by the preaching of the Gospel your salvation may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Or,
O God, who on this day taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending to them the light of your Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
And Suddenly There Came from Heaven (Acts 2:1-11[12-21])
1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Acts :1-3
Take note of Luke’s careful ordering of events here: There “suddenly came from heaven” the Spirit (2), and then, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak” (4). The movement is outside-in. This is consistent with the witness of all of Scripture–God first approaching us, rather than we him: God comes to Adam and Eve in the garden, to Moses on Sinai, to the Israelites in Jerusalem. We are, says John, “born from above” through faith in Christ (John 3:3); and, here from Luke, filled with the Spirit “from heaven.”
Those who refuse to believe in God always have excuses at hand for why conversion has touched others and not them, like they are high on something, “filled with new wine” (13), or, more politely but equally dangerous, they are religiously inclined. We who believe must never be lulled into thinking like that, especially when it seems so few around us are converting to Jesus.
The minute our faith becomes something about us, what we have or do not have, something other than “from heaven,” we lose that sense of a venturing of God in the world. The Father God is active in sending the revelation of his Son from heaven to others all the time. In Jesus’ own words (found in the Gospel reading today), “the Father who dwells in me does his works” (John 14:10). The gift of repentance and faith and empowerment comes “suddenly” on others as it does that day on Pentecost, as it does for many of us. We may experience things gradually, but there is always an element of surprise in it, for it is God at work. We remain expectant in our prayers for it, and ready to make disciples at all times.
Today, Holy Spirit, seeing how you came suddenly “from heaven” on the Day of Pentecost, we make ourselves ready for the outbreaking of faith and new life on anyone at any time.
This is Only the Beginning of What They Will Do (Genesis 11:1-9)
1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
Genesis 11:1-9
Or, “..then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them” (6). Here is a stunning statement of respect from God about the potential of human beings to unite and dominate. Divinely-imaged men and women possess tremendous power, and the Lord foresees this city and tower as a descent into disorder from which creation may never return. If God has resolved to redeem humanity after the fall (and starting in Chapter 12, we find this is his intention), scattering and dividing the peoples of the world only makes the job far more difficult. Better this, however, in his wisdom, than a union of men built on rock-solid, impregnable pride. Now, the only way to rescue humans and redeem the universe will be divine persuasion set against a complex babble.
Enter the Holy Spirit, the power of God poured out on believers from all over the known world, and the will of the Father and the Son that “they be witnesses “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Today, Lord, we pray as in the Collect for the church, to preach the Gospel, that “your salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
These All Wait upon You (Psalm 104:24-35)
24 O LORD, how manifold are your works; *
Psalm 104:24-35, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
in wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
25 So is the great and wide sea also, *
in which are things creeping innumerable, creatures both small and great.
26 There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan, *
whom you made to take its pleasure therein.
27 These all wait upon you, *
that you may give them food in due season.
28 When you give it to them, they gather it, *
and when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
29 When you hide your face, they are troubled; *
when you take away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust.
30 When you let your breath go forth, they shall be made, *
and you shall renew the face of the earth.
31 The glorious majesty of the Lord shall endure for ever; *
the Lord shall rejoice in his works.
32 He looks at the earth and it trembles; *
if he even touches the hills, they shall smoke.
33 I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live; *
I will praise my God while I have my being,
34 And so shall my words please him; *
my joy shall be in the Lord.
35 As for sinners, they shall perish from the earth, and the ungodly shall come to an end. *
Praise the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord
This long and majestic psalm seeks to enhance the “meditation” (34, ESV) of worshipers of the One God by considering his power to both create and sustain his numerous creatures. The assigned portion of this song directs our focus particularly to the sea:
So is the great and wide sea also, in which are things creeping innumerable, creatures both small and great. There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan, whom you made to take its pleasure therein.
Psalm 104:25-26
See how man-made ships, which we mark as a great achievement, are merely one of a group of sea creatures of every type moving below them–just one of “these all [which] wait upon you.”
Devotionally, let us stay there for a moment. Our lives are like those ships on the sea. We who appear to be driving the ship have only a minuscule understanding of everything going on around us, things visible and invisible. But our God does. Only the Maker can understand the fullness of everything made. C. S. Lewis frequently addresses this theme in his writings. In The World’s Last Night, he compares people in the world to characters in a play: “But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producers, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are ‘on’ concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.”
Today, on the day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit who renews the world, we pray for the renewal of our minds to contemplate the infinite power of God and our own powerlessness in creation as one of those who must depend on him.
Made to Drink of One Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:4-13)
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit (4-13).
What is the problem the Apostle Paul is addressing here? It is not that the members of the Corinthian church were neglecting the spiritual gifts, but that they were misusing and abusing them to serve selfish ends. To counteract this, Paul provides teaching on the Holy Spirit: that there is one and the same Spirit of one and the same Lord Jesus Christ; and that it is the unity of the Spirit into which they have been immersed—and “made to drink”—in baptism by water and the Spirit. Think about it, he implies: if we drink medicine to relieve a cold, we must not expect it to work for arthritis. Likewise, God has offered spiritual medicine (gifts) for love in the body, resulting in fellowship, not for individual aggrandizement, causing division.
As we in our churches become more open to the manifestation of spiritual gifts, we may find, especially after a bit of success, the temptation to become proud and showy. It is the responsibility of the church leadership to get past the infatuation of seeing power coming into the congregation’s life and to monitor for a form of power that aids (rather than prevents) community building. We must not discourage using the gifts to prevent trouble–that’s the easier road, depriving the church of power in the Spirit. Following Paul’s teaching, we choose the harder road of opening ourselves to all the Spirit has to offer and building in as much as we can the safeguards of love (Ch. 13).
Today, Holy Spirit, Provider of the medicine of power and love we have all been made to drink in baptism, cure us of the desire for self exaltation.
To Be with You Forever (John 14:8-17)
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
“Another Helper, to be with you forever” (16). Jesus speaks as if “forever” starts only when Jesus has asked the Father to send the Spirit. Is that true? The Holy Spirit is eternal and was in the world at its creation and was the agent of creation. But, if I may, Jesus is speaking here of a new “forever,” the time in which the Holy Spirit “will dwell with you and will be in you” (17). Put simply, we might say the Holy Spirit before Pentecost was working on the world but not in the world; now the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in the world via the hearts of believing people. A new relationship, a new “forever”–this time not to create the world and act on it from the outside, but to recreate it from the inside.
Beloved, if the Holy Spirit dwells with us and in us “forever,” it means there is not a time so difficult, nor a place so dangerous, nor a situation so complicated that God can be apart from us. It is easier for us to believe that to be true in the afterlife than it is for the here and now. We struggle day in and day out with doubt and hurt and confusion so much that we feel we must wonder, Is he here now? Are you here, Lord, now? We must take Jesus at his word here and trust him. The new “forever” begins now.
Today, in the Spirit, on the remembrance of that glorious Pentecost Sunday in Jerusalem, I resolve to put my doubts aside and confess that God’s Spirit is with me and in me always because the Son of God has said so.
Today in the Spirit
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