PENTECOST SUNDAY

A worship service was held at 10.30am in the church building on Sunday 24 May. The service was simultaneously broadcast on the Church Facebook page.  For the next four weeks, you can catch up here.

The Bible passage is  Acts 2:1-21, and David led the service and preached.  You can read the whole text of David’s sermon below.

Sermon

Scripture:  Acts 2:1-21

Come, Holy Spirit. As you filled that room two thousand years ago, fill this one now. Open our ears to hear, our minds to understand, and our hearts to receive whatever you want to do among us today. Amen.

Introduction

Last week we were with Jesus’ followers in the Upper Room, just outside Jerusalem. They were huddled together, afraid, threatened, uncertain. They had, however, just overheard Jesus praying for them: vouching for them to the Father, and asking for their unity, just as The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are perfectly united in love.

This morning we are back in a crowded room. The door is locked, full of uncertain people, followers of Jesus, waiting for something Jesus promised but nobody could quite picture. Before he left, Jesus said:

First,

“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”

And then,

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So they knew something was coming – the Spirit, power, a mission. Which is genuinely exciting news.

But I’m sure, if you’d pressed any of them on what exactly they were expecting, you’d probably have heard something like… a strong sense of confidence? A warm feeling of reassurance? Perhaps an unusually productive prayer time?

Not… this.

Not a sound like a category five hurricane inside a building that has all its windows closed.

Not what looked like tongues of fire thinking for themselves and landing on each of them.

And absolutely nobody – nobody – had put “spontaneously fluent in fifteen languages I’ve never studied” on their bingo card of things that might happen that day.

The Holy Spirit, it turns out, did not get the memo about managing expectations.

If what happened in that room happened here this morning, I think most of us would be heading for the exits. The health and safety protocols would be in full swing.

But perhaps that discomfort is actually planned. God’s arrival has never been tidy.

Fire Has a History

Where have we seen this before?

Well there was the Burning Bush. Moses was working in the wilderness, a rather ordinary day, when heaven broke in. There was no spiritual retreat, or prayer vigil…. just a man doing a job… when he spotted a bush on fire. And, oddly, the bush didn’t burn up.

God was calling Moses, commissioning him for the rescue of his people – and marking out the ground as holy in the process.

And then we head to Mount Sinai.

There was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. (Exodus 19:16-18)

God is now meeting his people in fire on a mountain, although this is in some ways a terrifying scene.

The people aren’t allowed to approach. There are boundaries, barriers, a cordon around the mountain. Even to touch it means death. Moses alone can go up. The fire is real, the presence of God is real – but the message the fire sends to ordinary people is: this is not for you. Not directly. Not yet.

And that becomes the template for centuries. The travelling tent – the Tabernacle – was accompanied at night by fire. And when the Jewish temple was dedicated fire came down and God’s glory filled the temple.

God’s presence was real, but it was bounded. It lived in the Holy of Holies, behind a curtain, accessible only to the High Priest, only once a year. The fire of God was kept at a safe distance.

But there’s a progression here… this fire of God was getting closer and closer… from a bush, to a mountain, to the tabernacle that went with the people, then to the temple, a permanent presence.

So here’s a thought… what happens when that fire of God doesn’t land on a bush or a mountain or a tent or a building… but on people?

The Fire Distributes

Back into the action of Pentecost. Luke, the author of the book of Acts, tells us that the fire distributed itself and rested on each one of the followers.

This is the moment the temple is not demolished, but relocated.

Into people.

Saint Paul put it like this:

“Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Let that sink in.

Because this should change the life of every believer. We no longer need to say:

“I have to get myself together before God can use me”

And we definitely can’t say:

“I’ll engage with God on Sunday and get on with real life Monday”

Instead it means that all who believe carry the presence of God into every room they enter. Your workplace, your kitchen, the hospital, school, college, your difficult relationships – that’s all temple space now.

If you’ve been to Inverness Cathedral or St. Giles in Edinburgh you may feel what a beautiful space they are. They are, somehow, set apart. The wonderful architecture seems to call us to worship and to behave differently inside it.

Now imagine the dignity, the honour, of you carrying that “set-apartness” everywhere you go.

In the letter 1st Peter, written to people who have come to faith in Jesus, it says:

“YOU are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9)

No-one left outside

We quickly see the fire spreading. Now God travels with each of his believers. Luke lists fifteen nations who have been drawn by the noise and spectacle of this event. A good chunk of the known world, languages and cultural accents are represented here. And, spectacularly, every single person hears God speaking in their own tongue.

Pentecost makes a declaration that every language is an appropriate vehicle for the praise and proclamation of Jesus. Nobody has to translate themselves into somebody else’s culture to access God. The Gospel isn’t limited to a specific place or culture or language: everyone can discover the mighty works of God.

Our base instinct is to solve the problem of difference by eliminating it.

But God’s answer at Pentecost is the opposite – he speaks into every language rather than replacing them all with one.

Preacher Alistair Begg has a wonderful illustration:

When we freeze water, we make ice cubes – identical, uniform, interchangeable.

When God freezes water, he makes a snowstorm, with every flake individual.

What Pentecost declares is that God’s answer to Babel isn’t a new, improved uniformity. It’s something far more beautiful – a unity that doesn’t erase difference but celebrates it. Every language becomes an appropriate vehicle for the praise and proclamation of Jesus. Every culture brings its own voice to the same song.

That’s why the vision at the end of Revelation is so breathtaking:

“A great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages – standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9)

Not the same culture. Not the same style. Not the same accent.

The unity of Jesus’ followers wasn’t uniformity. It was a shared allegiance to one risen King, expressed through a thousand different cultural voices… all singing the same song.

Pentecost was the first verse of that song being sung. Today, we are somewhere in the middle of it. And one day, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord – the chorus completing what Pentecost began.

That’s what the church is meant to be. Not diverse because we’ve worked hard at our welcome strategy; diverse because the gospel itself is the unifying factor, and the gospel is for everyone.

Some of us struggle with the question: “Why do sincere Christians read the same Bible and come to different conclusions?”

Part of the answer is that Scripture is incredibly rich. No single person, tradition, or culture sees every dimension equally well. Different experiences illuminate aspects of the text that others might overlook.

And that is a gift.

It reminds us that none of us possesses the whole picture. We need one another. And I wonder if that, too, is intentional. God seems remarkably uninterested in creating a faith that can be mastered in isolation.

Both Truths Together

So here are two things Pentecost gives us this morning. A human dignity – you are the temple, the place where heaven and earth meet, wherever you go. And a direction – the fire was always meant to spread, to every culture, every language, every person who hasn’t yet heard in their own heart language that the mighty works of God include them.

That means a Spirit-filled church at its best is a diverse community of people who know they carry something extraordinary, and who can’t stop giving it away. The Spirit came so that we can fulfil our God-given destiny, walk in our purpose, and step into the extraordinary life God has prepared for all of us.

The impact of this is stunning. After Saint Peter’s beautiful sermon, which we heard a bit of today, about three thousand people were added to the number of Jesus followers that day.

The disciples were transformed by the Spirit from being afraid and directionless to confident and overflowing with the glory of God.

And they added more followers daily as they dedicated themselves to teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Sometimes it’s the basics that matter most. It’s the basics of our faith that actually amaze outsiders, when the differences between us become like nothing in the face of our faith and the hope and love of Jesus Christ.

When we enjoy fellowship. When we break bread and pray together. Revival always starts with these basics of community.

Pentecost has a vision of a church with the fire growing and multiplying as it spreads. That is what we hold through our unity and our love for a troubled world.

And that’s why we might say today: may the Spirit set our dreams on fire.

Come, Holy Spirit, Come.