2025-06-08 Pentecost

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

Do you remember all the cool science experiments you got to do in elementary school? Sure you do! You mix baking soda and vinegar and voila! You have an instant volcano! And who could forget about Diet Coke and Mentos candies?! That’s like a volcano on steroids! It’s all so dramatic and exciting to see the reaction! It got you fired up to take high school chemistry class, right?! Bunsen Burners and the beakers and the fleakers, all the cool scientific potions you get to mix there! It’s all so exciting! … That is until you actually get to high school chemistry class and you realize that it’s actually all just math in disguise! All you do is balance equations day after day after day! Talk about the biggest bait-and-switch, bag over the head, punch in the mouth ever!

But it does teach you a lot about what happens when you combine stuff together. Today, on Holy Pentecost Sunday, we get a lesson of what happens when you combine wind and fire. Normally, this is bad - very bad. The horrific forest fires up north show us this plain as day. We see the effects as fire is fanned by the wind, burning zillions of acres of trees and even houses and whole communities. It becomes a raging inferno of heat and utter disaster that anyone with asthma or COPD can feel first hand, even thousands of kilometres away.

But today, the lesson is about the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost. 50 days after the resurrection of our Lord. The third most holy festival in the church year has come again. Jesus promised the Apostles that they would be clothed with power from on high when the paraclete would come upon them. The advocate, the counselor, the helper who proceeds from the Father arrives and amazing things happen. The Jews who knew the scriptures no doubt recalled the writings of the Prophet Joel who said “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (2:28). This prophecy comes to fruition as the Apostles receive the Holy Spirit in His fullness. A short ten days after our Lord Jesus ascended back into heaven, 50 days after Easter, boom! The mighty rushing wind and fire of God filled the house where the disciples were. They speak boldly in many languages that Christ is risen from the dead!

Now this miracle may at first seem a bit weird. Speaking in other previously unknown languages is quite out of the ordinary. Those of you who learned to speak another language know how difficult it can be to study, learn the vocabulary and grammar and become fluent in a foreign tongue. But the disciples get this language upgrade immediately! No school. No study. No flashcards. Just the miraculous ability, right now! It becomes the “undoing” of the tower of Babel where the language of humanity was confused and then dispersed over all the earth. Now we see at Pentecost that the nations were gathered together in one place and shazam! The mighty works of God are displayed and the language barrier is broken. The Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for the sins of the world and resurrected to give life to all who believe can now go out into the 4 corners of the globe that all people may hear!

As fire and wind are mixed together, it means that God’s amazing grace and love for the world would not be confined to the Jews and to the Hebrew language. Not only just one people and one language would be chosen to proclaim the message. Rather it would spread like a raging wild fire throughout all the world! But instead of destruction it would bring life and hope and peace and forgiveness in the face of death and sin. The message of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ is what the Holy Spirit brings to all the people of the world through God’s Word and Sacraments.

The Apostles and disciples and everyone watching the Spirit descend as tongues of fire were “amazed and perplexed.” No doubt! Who wouldn’t be after seeing such an amazing site?! But, like all other aspects of life, there were others there who didn’t want to see the miraculous. St. Luke writes in Acts “But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13). It’s not miraculous, they say, it’s just the Cabernet-Sauvignon! It’s just the Merlot! It’s just the Malbec speaking! These clowns are not drunk on the Spirit of God, they are drunk on the fruit of the vine! There will always be those who mock God and His people. Just like our Lord Jesus was mocked by the onlookers at the cross and even the criminals crucified along side Him, the Apostles are mocked for their Spirit-filled faith.

This will continue to be the case for us too as God’s people. And, it’s only going to get worse as time goes on. You believe in a God Who created the heavens and the earth and universe rather than random chance?! You’re a simpleton! You believe that marriage should only be between one man and one woman? You’re narrow minded bigoted hater! You believe the Bible is an accurate, reliable document detailing God’s salvation story for the world from eye witness accounts? You’re a bronze-aged relic in the digital Artificial Intelligence age! You believe that Someone rose from the dead?! You’re a fool! This kind of mockery and much, much worse will only continue. But the Holy Spirit assures us that if we appear as fools in the eyes of the world, then we are fools for Christ (1 Cor 4:10).

And in this foolishness, there is wisdom. The wisdom of salvation. It doesn’t come to the wise. It doesn’t come to the learned. It doesn’t come to those who trust in earthly riches and power. It only comes to the fools who believe that Christ is risen from the dead. It only comes to the fools who are baptized with ordinary water in God’s extra-ordinary name. It only comes to the fools who eat and drink simple bread and wine and in so doing eat the very body and blood of Jesus given for the forgiveness of our sins. It only comes to the fools who love their neighbours as themselves and are rich to forgive their enemies. It only comes to the fools who live in humility, and not to those who boast and celebrate sinful pride.

I’ll bet the name Roald Amundsen doesn’t ring a bell for you. He was a Norwegian explorer who led the first expedition to the Northwest Passage in 1906 and the first expedition to the South Pole in 1926. It is said that on one of his many exploratory trips he brought with him a homing pigeon. When he finally reached the top of the world, he opened the bird’s cage and set it free. Imagine the delight of Amundsen’s wife, back home in Norway, when she saw that pigeon returning to the roost. “He’s alive! My husband is still alive!” So it was with Jesus after He ascended back to the Father. He was gone from their sight but the Apostles clung to His promise. The Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost to remind them that He truly is alive and victorious at the right hand of the Father. And the power of the Holy Spirit filled them with the wind and fire of His heavenly kingdom, set ablaze to be His messengers unto the ends of the earth.

That same Spirit dwells within you and all who trust God’s word and promise. In the midst of mockers, God’s Spirit helps us remain faithful to the promises He gives us in our Baptism. Filled with the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit, filled with the body and blood of Christ our Lord, He sends you out into the world as fools for Christ proclaiming the most important message the world can ever hear: “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). Happy Pentecost and thanks be to God now and forever more. Amen!