May 24, 2026 Sermon

Sermon Title:  “Pentecost”

Scripture:  Acts 2:1-21

(Other lectionary suggestions include Psalm 104:24-34, I Corinthians 12:3-13, and John 7:37-39.)

Acts 2:1-21

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Peter Addressed the Crowd

14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

          The sermon title is “Pentecost,” and today is Pentecost Sunday. Today has been called the Birthday of the Church, the day the Holy Spirit empowered those who had gathered to become something new:  the Christian Church. And there is a JOKE attached to this gathering! The question:  What kind of car did the Disciples drive? The answer:  They were all gathered in one ACCORD!

          To gain a little insight, I looked at a sermon by R. C. Sproul, who simply called his sermon “Pentecost.” The Rev. Mr. Sproul died a few years back, maybe around 2017. He was more conservative than I, but he has some good insight into today’s Scripture reading. He said this:  “Before Jesus had ascended into heaven, he told his disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait. On the day of Pentecost, their wait was over:  a mighty rushing wind, tongues of fire, and power from on high came upon them.”

          Sproul mentions that God spoke to the prophet Habakkuk, who was complaining to God about the misery going on among the people. “God spoke to him and talked about his promises. Among the promises of God, He said to his prophet, ‘Habakkuk, though they tarry, wait, for God will perform what he says he will perform.’” And then the Rev. Mr. Sproul says, “This is the hardest thing for the Christian:  to wait for God to keep the promises He has made.”

          If we remember Jesus’s last words to his disciples before the Ascension, he told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait. He said, “You’re going to receive power like you can’t possibly imagine.....But it’s not going to happen today, and it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it’s going to happen soon. Go back and wait.”

          At this point, it might be a good idea to look at the concept of Pentecost. When we Christians hear the word, we think of wild evangelicals “speaking in tongues.” But there was a Pentecost in the Hebrew tradition before there were ever the people we call “the Pentecostals.” And I learned that from the Rev. R. C. Sproul. (One of the neat things about writing sermons is that sometimes I learn something!)

          Rev. Sproul says that “In the Jewish calendar, the day of Pentecost was the day of the annual feast called the Feast of Harvests, or the Feast of the Ingathering, or sometimes it was called the Feast of Weeks because it was the festival that took place after a week of weeks. A week has seven days, and a week of weeks is seven times seven, which is 49 days. After those forty-nine days are accomplished after Passover, then the following day is Pentecost, or the fiftieth. Fifty days after the great celebration of Passover is the Feast of the Harvest, or the Feast of the Ingathering. Pentecost was a time of Jewish thanksgiving in the Old Testament, but it was also called the Feast of First Fruits because the Jewish people in the arid climate of Palestine had two rainy seasons, and as a result, they had two growing seasons, a former season and a latter season. They would have the former rains and then the latter rains, and they would celebrate at different times. The thanksgiving event of Pentecost had all these people gathering now to the central sanctuary in Jerusalem to thank God for the harvest.”

          You can remember the rest. Scripture says, “When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.”

          What the author of Acts is trying to say is that God’s BREATH, the same RUACH in Hebrew in early Genesis, blew through the house. Just as God’s creative BREATH had formed everything in Genesis, that BREATH, that WIND, which is also the same word, blew new life into those assembled there.

          To me, this is very exciting! In early Genesis, God breathes LIFE into mankind. The first human created by God has God’s BREATH in it or him or her. Says Sproul, “From the beginning of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the breath of God is associated with His life-giving Spirit. God’s breath is associated with the power of creation. It is associated with the energy of divine operation. In the New Testament, another word you might be familiar with used to describe the work of God’s Spirit is the Greek word DYNAMIS. What word do you suppose we get from that? We get the word DYNAMITE from it, referring to explosive power.

          “Jesus said, ‘Go back and wait, for you’re going to receive power.’ They waited, and they had no idea of what was going to happen. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the sound of a mighty, rushing wind came roaring into the room.”

          Something else:  the story we heard in Acts today is different from the Tower of Babel story that is in Genesis. In the Genesis story, humans are made to NOT understand each other, but in Acts, everybody seems to understand each other! And BOTH stories are initiated by God! In Genesis, maybe the explanation is that there are many languages in the world, and God likes that. At any rate, that is ONE explanation. In Acts, perhaps God WANTS everybody to understand each other because a new day has dawned. Whereas in Genesis, being a member of the tribe of Abraham was a way of setting oneself apart, in Acts God now wants to save the whole world. As the Apostle Paul says, there is now neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free. With the coming of Jesus and then the Holy Spirit, God desires the whole world to be saved, not just one specific people.

          I’ll finish by quoting the Rev. Mr. Sproul:  “On Easter Sunday, do we celebrate the fact that one day, one man rose from the dead, or do we believe that He was the firstborn of many brethren and that His victory over death goes on and applies to me and you, if it be that you are in Christ? So, it is with Pentecost. We must understand that Pentecost is a watershed moment in the history of the church, just like Passover, the cross, and the resurrection. The day of Pentecost was the moment in redemptive history when God unlocked the power of the Holy Ghost.” Do you believe that? Amen. Thanks be to God.

Pastor Skip