The Holy Spirit: Still on the Job!

[Below, you'll find the message presented at both worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, and live stream video of both services. Today is the Day of Pentecost, the third great festival of the Church Year.]

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost already was a festival on the Jewish calendar long before the events described in today’s second lesson. That’s why there were Jews, both those born Jews and converts, from every part of the known world gathered in Jerusalem. It was a day of obligation, if you will, which every Jew would have expected to participate in at least once in their lives.

Pentecost had its roots as an agricultural celebration, celebrating the spring harvest. But for God’s people, the Jews, it was also a festival celebrating the giving of God’s Law at Mount Sinai.

God’s people loved God’s Law. “Oh, how I love your law!,” Psalm 119 says,  “I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies.” (Psalm 119:97-98)

But for all the love God’s people had for the Law, they were no more successful at obeying it than you and I are. Paul, the Jewish Christian apostle, speaks not only for himself but also for God’s ancient people and for you and me (and the whole world) when he writes, “...in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:22-23) Whenever we resolve to love God with our whole being and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we fail. Such love is foreign to our sinful nature. If we are to love God and love others as God commands us to do, that love must come from outside of ourselves.

The people gathered in Jerusalem had no idea what they were in for on that Pentecost Day! They were just there to be outwardly obedient to God’s Law.

The Jews gathered in Jerusalem didn’t know it even though nine hundred years before, God had foretold it through the prophet Joel. God said that when Jesus, the sinless Savior, paid for our sin with His life, the sun would “be turned to darkness and the moon to blood…” (Joel 2:31) (Sounds like Good Friday to me.) But at this, God would pour out His Holy Spirit in ways not seen since the Spirit moved over the waters to create the universe in Genesis. “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” (Joel 2:28) This describes what happened to the fearful disciples of Jesus in that upper room on the first Christian Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was poured on them, just as He is poured on you and me in the waters of Holy Baptism.

The 120 disciples of Jesus also didn’t know what they were in for as they gathered in the upper room either. This was true even though Jesus had told them what was going to happen. Just before He was arrested, He had said, “...it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7) And He also told them why this was so. “When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he’ll expose the error of the godless world’s view of sin, righteousness, and judgment: He’ll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin; that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control; that judgment takes place as the ruler of this godless world [the devil] is brought to trial and convicted.” (John 16:8-11, The Message]

Jesus had told the disciples He would send the Holy Spirit so that they could share the Gospel, the good news, with all the world. The Holy Spirit would give Christ’s Church the power to tell and to share the message that “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36) By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church would be given the ability to tell the world that, “In Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven and you are free to trust in that truth!”

Because of this Holy Spirit, Jesus says elsewhere, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Think of that, friends! Jesus says that with Him back in heaven at the right hand of God, after He has sent His Church the Holy Spirit, His Church–you and I–will do greater things than He had done in an earthly ministry in which He proclaimed good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, sight for the blind, (Luke 4:18), and everlasting life for all who are turned from sin and trust in Him. (John 3:16; Mark 1:15)

On the first Christian Pentecost, we see this happen. The Holy Spirit descended on those 120 disciples, giving them the power to speak plainly about the mighty works of God, including the mightiest of all, when God the Son took on human life, died on the cross to set sinners free from death and condemnation, and rose again to open eternity to all who trust in Him.

The Jerusalem crowd is stunned! They hear the sound of a violent wind from heaven, then hear these Galieans speaking to them in their own native languages about Jesus. It’s bewildering!

But Peter–of all people, Peter, impulsive, foot-in-the-mouth, brave-talking-but-not-always-so-brave-living Peter–explains everything. (If that doesn’t prove the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing does!) Peter recalls what Joel had said and realized that, despite his imperfection and sin, the Holy Spirit had come to him and the other disciples so that they could proclaim new life for all who turn to Jesus.

By the power of the Spirit, Peter knew what he needed to say next: “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Acts 2:21)

Later, speaking in the passive voice about something only God could do to people who hear God’s Word coming from a preacher’s mouth, Peter would tell the crowd, “Be repented and baptized,” that is, “By, the Word of promise from God, be turned to Christ and receive new life in His name.” (Acts 2:38)

On that first Christian Pentecost, God used the disciples of Jesus speaking His Gospel Word to do greater things than Jesus had ever done: 3000 people were baptized into the Kingdom of God!

So, what about today? Is the Holy Spirit still open for business today?

Well, Christianity is the fastest growing religion by conversions in the world today. In places like Ethiopia and South Sudan, in underground churches in China and North Korea, and other places where people haven’t grown self-satisfied or self-righteous or jaded, as we see among people in North America and Europe, the Church is growing at a Pentecost Sunday-rate.

But it’s not just in places like these that the Holy Spirit is at work today. This past Thursday night, I was honored and happy to accompany Jim Lopez and Warren Mansfield to one of the monthly dinners of Whole Truth Ministries. Whole Truth helps those recovering from addictions to get new starts in life. If you ever want confirmation that the Holy Spirit is active and bringing people to new life in Christ, go to one of these dinners. The hunger of those people for Jesus is at least as big as their hunger for the great food Jim prepares each month.

And even here, even today, we know it is the Holy Spirit Who proclaims Jesus in God’s Word and in the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit Who claimed us in Holy Baptism and gives us the ability to call on the name of the Lord Jesus, Who saves us, Who gives us new and everlasting life with God!

Pentecost is still happening! The Holy Spirit is still on the march in our world, in our lives, and in the Church, in this church! May He give us the power and the confidence that He gave the first disciples to march in time with Him and share the good news of Jesus with a world still in desperate need of Him. Amen

[The painting is Pentecost by Titian (1488-1576)

While It's Still Day

[This was shared during online worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, for Sunday, March 22, 2020.]

John 9:1-12
In our gospel lesson for this Sunday, Jesus tells His disciples, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

As He speaks here, Jesus, the One described by John the apostle as “[t]he true light that gives light to everyone,” knows that one day, darkness and condemnation for our sins will envelop Him. He will go to a cross, die, rise, and then ascend into heaven only to return to this world when the Father says it’s time. 

But until all of that happens, Jesus is intent on doing the works that God gave Him to do.

We who by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, belong to God, are called to a similar intent for our lives. 

No matter how dark the world may become, we are called to be about the work of the God Who has saved us from sin, death, darkness, and eternal condemnation.

In the coronavirus, our country and our world face perhaps the gravest physical threat to the human race since the invention of the atomic bomb. Now, we all, from the moment we are born, “walk through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4, ESV).” But we are all likely more conscious of it now than we have been at most times in our lives. 

Yet, as Bishop Dan Selbo pointed out during a conference call with deans last week, for all the dangers and difficulties with which this moment confronts us, it also brings us opportunities to be about the works of our Lord, to bring His light into the darkness. 

In an essay written during a sixteenth-century plague, Martin Luther wrote about the Christian’s duty in such circumstances. Luther said that not all had the duty to do the same things: some would be called to stay where the plague was happening, others to where it hadn't reached. But he asserted that the call of every Christian was to find ways to love others as Christ has loved us.

In our lesson, Jesus and His disciples are walking along when they encounter a man that we’re told was “blind from birth.” The disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2)

Whenever a person is afflicted with disease, adversity, or hardship, you can bank on it that someone somewhere will likely say either that it’s all the victim’s fault or someone else’s fault. The disciples believe themselves to be good people to whom a bad thing like being born blind could possibly happen. 

People say things like the disciples say to make themselves feel superior or safe. 

They do this even when they become afflicted and need a scapegoat.

But Jesus shows no interest in assigning blame for people’s afflictions. 

Jesus has different priorities. 

We see this in His reply to the disciples, found in verses 3-5. Most English translations get Jesus’ words at least partly wrong. Our translation, the New International Version, for example, says that Jesus answers: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned...but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” 

The way Jesus’ words are rendered here seems still to imply that God caused the man to be blind in order that Jesus could perform the miracle of opening the man’s eyes to sight. 

But the Greek in which John composed his gospel reads literally like this: 

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But in order that the works of God might be revealed in him, we must do the works of him who sent me while it is day.” 

“It doesn’t matter where this man’s blindness came from," Jesus is saying. "I’m here to bring the light of God’s love. Period!” 

The application for you and me is clear. 

Don’t worry about assigning blame, especially if it makes you feel superior (because you’re not and neither am I), just get about the business of doing God’s work in the world.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus shows us that our work as His people isn’t something we do in order to gain God’s favor. We know that we can only be saved by grace through faith in Jesus. (See here.)

Instead, Jesus says that there are two basic things that constitute the work you and I are to do while it’s still light, while we still live, before we pass from this life. 

First, we are called to believe in Jesus. “This is the work of God,” Jesus says in John 6:29, “that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 

Of course, we can’t convince ourselves to believe. Belief in--or trust in--anyone but ourselves is foreign to our natures. 

That’s why the Holy Spirit gives us God’s Word about Jesus--the Gospel--so that as we hear it, receive it at the baptismal font, and taste and see it at the Communion table, God will create saving belief, faith, within us.

Second, we’re to bring the light and love of Jesus to others. Think for a moment of the light of Jesus has brought to our dark world through Living Water in just the past few months. 

We’ve fed homeless men at St. Vincent’s; helped the victims of the Dayton tornadoes to rebuild their lives; joined together in small groups to meet God around His Word, pray for one another, and be empowered to live out our faith with others; provided rice and beans for and helped spread the Gospel among people in Haiti, and done similar work among families in South Africa; joined in the work of the Miami Valley Women’s Center, Love Monkey, and the Life Enrichment Center. We’ve helped our children know and grow in the faith in Jesus. 

And now, we’ve extended our outreach for Christ and the Gospel onto YouTube, whole new works of light for a dark world to which God has called us in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

We do none of these things in our own power. Jesus says: “...apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) We are helpless in the face of darkness to do anything useful or helpful for our neighbor, anything that honors God or points others to Jesus. 

But we have a promise from Jesus: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12) 

Jesus, Who sits at this moment at the right hand of God the Father and has sent the Holy Spirit to His believing Church, empowers us to bring more light in more places than He ever was for thirty years in Galilee, and Samaria. As we trust in Him, Jesus empowers us to bring His light to others!

So, this week and for as long as you still have breath, do Your Father’s work. 

Believe that Jesus died and rose to bring you into the eternal light of His loving kingdom. 

And while, out of love for neighbor, you’ll need to keep your distance from others, because, without testing, you may be an unwitting carrier of a terrible disease, do those works of love that Jesus gives you to do as His child: 

• steep yourself in God’s Word, 
• pray for our world and for leaders that God will give them wisdom on which they act, 
• telephone your neighbors within and outside the church to see how they’re doing, 
• pick up groceries or prescriptions for someone who can’t get out, 
• reach out to others through email and social media, 
• share the Gospel whenever and by whatever means you can

Jesus says, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me.” This week, be about the work given you by the One Who has sent you: Trust in Jesus and, as you spend time with Him in His Word and in prayer, do whatever loving, light-casting thing He calls you to do. 

This is how the God revealed in Jesus will call our world out of darkness into His light! Amen

[I am the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

While It's Still Day (Online Worship for March 22, 2020)

Here's today's online worship from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Below that, you'll find this evening's live-streamed presentation of Holy Communion. Our church YouTube address is here. (There are a few skips in the second video because of limitations in the WiFi at my home. Apologies for that.)

The Freedom To Act

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on Sunday, July 22.]

Mark 6:30-44

The story of Jesus’ feeding miracle, the subject of today’s gospel lesson, is so well-known to us that we may not confront two important questions I want to address this morning:

• First, did it happen? 
• Second, what difference does it make?

You often hear people question whether Jesus performed the miraculous signs attributed to Him. Some even question whether there actually was a person named Jesus of Nazareth. 

On this latter point, you only have to turn to the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus. Josephus wrote major works on the history of his people. He wasn’t a follower of Jesus. But in his history of the Jews, Josephus talked about Jesus: How Jesus won a large following with His preaching and teaching, how the movement that gathered around Jesus continued after His crucifixion. Even today, historians consider Josephus a credible source, his histories being constantly proven by new archaeological discoveries.

But did Jesus actually perform this notable miracle? 

Consider this: All four of the gospel writers include a narrative of this amazing event in their books. When Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John published their gospels, many eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were still living; such eyewitnesses could have corrected misimpressions they thought were in the gospels. But they didn’t. Early second-century church leaders also wrote of speaking with eyewitnesses, people who told them how Jesus performed this miracle. So, I think that we can confidently say that Jesus fed a horde of people in a miraculous way.

So, what does it mean? 

What does it mean for us? 

To answer those questions, we need to look at the incident more closely. Please take a look at the lesson, Mark 6:30-44. It begins: “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”

This is the only time that Mark uses the word apostles. It’s a Greek compound meaning sent ones. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus has sent out the twelve to preach, teach, and perform signs. They’ve been working hard. 

But Jesus now wants them to get some quiet time to reflect and rest. We all need time to rest, recharge our batteries. And, as believers, we need time to reflect through prayer and the consideration of God’s Word. We need these things because, as our lesson shows us, such quiet time can be hard to come by. Life gets in the way.

Verse 32: “So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”

When Jesus and the twelve crossed the sea, they learned that the Jesus groupies had beaten them there. 

But Jesus wasn’t angry. He had compassion for them because they were like aimless sheep who had no leaders. 

Of course, they had political leaders, like Herod Antipas. But Herod’s recent execution of John the Baptist showed that he and his henchmen were really about themselves. 

They had religious leaders, too. But they were, as their conspiracy with Herod and Pilate would soon prove, in league with the self-seekers in the government. 

Neither Herod nor the priests nor the scribes nor the Pharisees were authentic leaders. They were pretenders.

In a sometimes frightening world, people crave leadership. We want--we need--someone to show us the way through the challenges of our lives. 

There are always would-be dictators and authoritarians offering counterfeit leadership, of course. They're people who seek and keep power by telling us that what’s bothering us is not them or us, but all those other people out there: Samaritans, Romans, Pharisees, Sadducees, Egyptians, the others. 

The only real leader this world has ever seen is Jesus Christ. Jesus led not with an iron fist, but with compassion. 

Paul says of Jesus that “being in very nature God, [He] did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,  in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11) 

The only leader the Christian has is Jesus Christ. 

And the only kind of earthly leader we should follow, even as we pray that God would guide all leaders, both the authentic and the pretenders, is a person who follows Jesus Christ. 

The fact is that we all need the one true leader, the one true God in the flesh, Who has died and risen for sinners like you and me--because of the compassion He has for each one of us--so that when we trust in Him, we have a life with God that will survive this world and can never be taken from us!

Verse 35: “By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. ‘This is a remote place,’ they said, ‘and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’ But he answered, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?’”

The apostles are thinking, “Hey, what about our quiet time, Jesus? We have some wowser stories to tell you about our preaching and casting out demons and stuff. Send this crowd home, Lord!” They make it sound that they’re concerned for the crowds when they tell Jesus that if He sends them away, they can go get something to eat. But Jesus tells them simply: “You give them something to eat.”

This is a word to today’s Church, to you and me. 

Are you concerned about the millions who don’t yet have an eternal relationship with the God we meet in Jesus? Give them something to eat; share the gospel, pray for people to share the gospel with people who will go to hell without a saving relationship with Jesus. 

Are you concerned about an injustice? Then do something about it. Don’t wait for a church program. Don’t wait for the pastor. Follow your leader, Jesus. Allow the compassion He planted in your life to be expressed. 

You have Jesus’ permission to be compassionate. 

In fact, you have His command to be compassionate. 

Pray. Serve a neighbor. Write an email to a public official. Work at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen. Volunteer for one of our ministries. Join a group.

“You give them something to eat,” Jesus says. You be about your mission as a Christian. Jesus died and rose to set you and me free from sin and death to do just that while we walk on this earth. It’s one way we can give Him thanks and glory for His grace.

After the accounting department reported to Jesus that, among the crowd, they could only find five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus demonstrated what a servant leader does with the compassion for others that God stirs in believers.

Jesus had people sit in groups of hundreds and fifties, just as Jethro told Moses to organize the people of ancient Israel facing the frightening uncertainties of the wilderness centuries before. Then, Jesus has the disciples distribute this food. We’re told that this throng ate “and were satisfied.” There were even twelve baskets left over. 

And then, Mark writes this: “The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.” (Mark 6:44)

This last verse is significant for two reasons: 

• (1) 5000 is the number of men in a Roman legion of soldiers; 
• (2) Because there were women and children who were fed that day, Jesus fed many more than 5000.

What does this tell us? 

The first thing it tells us is that there’s a place for military might in our fallen world. Not everyone trusts in Jesus and so, doesn’t have the power and impulse for love that Jesus plants in His disciples. That's why in this fallen world, God rules in two ways: by grace in the lives of those who trust in Him, by governments in the lives of those who don't trust in Him. Christians acquiesce to God's ordination of governments for the good of their neighbors. (This all describes Martin Luther's two kingdoms understanding of the Bible's teachings on these matters, by the way.)

A friend of mine, General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, commander of NATO, is originally from Logan, Ohio and a son of the congregation I formerly served as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. In the Army, his nickname is Scap, but those of us in Logan knew him as Mike. I got to know him on his visits home. He's the kind of commander who never asked those who served under him to do anything he wasn't willing to do, like jumping from airplanes in Afghanistan and Iraq when he was a two-star general. Mike is performing an essential service, leading American forces in, among other things, protecting this country in Europe, so that our children will never have to suffer attack by our adversaries, the Russians, here. 

But, here's the deal: No army in the world can protect us from our greatest enemies: sin, death, and ourselves. 

Only Jesus can. 

And Jesus looks to enlist legions of people who have been saved through His compassion, expressed on the cross, confirmed at the empty tomb, to be an army of believers who live out His call to love God and to love all of our neighbors just as He has loved us.

The second thing that the last verse of our gospel lesson tells us is that, because Jesus is our leader and has saved us by grace through faith in Him, we need not be afraid in the face of the world’s challenges. The disciples couldn't imagine how they were going to feed 5000 people. But they did what Jesus commanded because they trusted in Jesus, they believed in Him. We too can act on Jesus' command to share Him with the world through our lives, deeds, and words.

And we can do that with absolute confidence. Why?

Because we already belong to God for eternity. 

Because neither Satan, nor sin, nor death can intimidate us. 

Jesus once referred to the miraculous works He performed and told Philip: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things [by which Jesus here means, more works] than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

In Jesus, we have the power and the commission to feed those who are hungry for food, hungry for the good news of new and everlasting life for all who believe in Jesus, hungry for God’s truth. 

We don’t have to have all the answers or have everything figured out in advance, any more than the disciples did on the day, on Jesus’ command, they passed out the few bits of fish and bread they had. 

We simply need to follow Jesus. 

We simply have to believe in Jesus. 

Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]