“Called, Gathered, Enlightened, Sanctified”
John 14:23–31
A blessed Day of Pentecost to you.
Pentecost is the day in the church year in which the Holy
Spirit is on center stage. As part of
our aim to teach the “whole counsel of God”, it is fitting to consider this
Third Person of the Holy Trinity with regularity. As Easter certainly draws our attention to
God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and as Christmas perhaps leads us to
consider the Father’s love that sent his Son into our world. So Pentecost, the third great feast or
festival of the church year – turns our minds to the Holy Spirit.
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus is preparing his
disciples for his departure. And he
recognizes it as potentially bittersweet for them. He bids them peace, and urges them not to be
troubled of heart or afraid. And to calm
their fears and sweeten the bitterness of his departure, he promises them the
comfort of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit,
the Helper, is sent by the Father and Son.
And the Holy Spirit is therefore a great blessing to the church.
There are many directions we can take on the Day of Pentecost. There are many ways to consider the person
and work of the Holy Spirit. As I looked
back at my own sermons over the years – I’ve preached on all of the 3 readings
and emphasized different aspects of doctrine concerning the Spirit. It is good that we come back to this every
year, as there really is so much to say.
Today, with reference to this reading from John 14, I’d like
to take an approach that is rooted in the Small Catechism. If you want to know about the Holy Spirit
from the Catechism, you go to the 3rd Article of the Apostles’
Creed. And the “what does this mean?”
answer Luther writes is wonderful and profound:
“I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength
believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the
Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true
faith. In the same way he calls,
gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and
keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”
We pay attention to the grammar, and especially to the
verbs. What does the Spirit do? He calls, gathers, enlightens, and
sanctifies. Let the catechism chart our
course today as we consider the Holy Spirit’s work in light of these 4 verbs –
both as individual Christians, and also as members of the Body of Christ, the
church.
First, he calls us.
It’s shocking that Luther begins teaching about the Holy Spirit by
making a big deal about what we can’t
do – what we lack. We cannot believe or
come to Jesus on our own. Behind this
statement is a freight of theology.
The problem, of course, is our sinful state. Conceived and born in sin, plagued by
original sin, and perpetuated by our actual sins. We are in no position to, of our own devices,
come to faith in Jesus. We can’t reach
for him, choose him, or even want to follow him on our own. We can’t open our heart to faith, or to God,
unless the Spirit does so first. We
can’t seek God, unless he first finds us by his Spirit.
So lost and backward is our sinful state apart from Christ
that Scripture characterizes us as blind, dead, and enemies of God. It takes a divine miracle to break through
all that. It takes the work of God, the
Holy Spirit.
He calls us to faith.
He makes us Christians. He takes
what is dead and makes it alive (the Lord and giver of life). He opens blind eyes to see. He turns hearts from hatred of God, to fear,
love, and trust. He brings us to Christ,
and Christ to us.
And the Spirit does all this through the Word. He has called me by the Gospel. Just as Jesus emphasizes the importance of
the word in John 14:
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and
my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my
words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.”
It is the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and Son, that
calls us to faith in Christ by God’s word to keep his word and believe his word
and live by his word. And we should not
look for or expect the Spirit to work apart from the word.
Our second verb is gathered.
The Spirit gathers us to the church, and gathers the church
together. Pentecost was, for the Jews, a
festival of the first-fruits of harvest.
It’s no accident that the Spirit uses this occasion gather the nations
to Christ – at least in a first-fruits sort of fashion. Visitors, pilgrims, from all over the world
had come to Jerusalem and now they got to hear the mighty works of God in their
own native tongues!
But it wasn’t just then.
The Spirit still gathers, even today.
I look out there and see pilgrims from Denton and Arlington, from North
Richland Hills and Southlake. All
brought together on a Sunday morning as one church family, gathered around the
Word of God – read, preached, prayed and sung.
Gathered for a holy meal – another feast of firstfruits, just a
foretaste of the feast to come. Sure you
set your alarm last night, and got in your car this morning. Sure it looks like you made the decision to
come to church, but you get no credit.
The Holy Spirit gathers you to Christ, along with other believers.
And the Spirit will gather us on the last day as well,
gathering even our bodies from the grave, breathing into us the breath of life
just like he did in the vision of the valley of dry bones. But even better, for we will stand before
Christ, a great multitude cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, who will welcome
us into the eternal home of the Father.
Called, Gathered… Enlightened! The Spirit enlightens us, that is, he sheds
light. Far more than just helping us
understand the word of God, although that’s certainly included. Jesus promised that the Spirit would teach
the disciples and bring to remembrance all that he said. The New Testament is the written record of
the disciples’ teaching as the Spirit led them.
And it is by this same word that the Spirit enlightens us.
To shed light on something is to make it visible –
accessible. The Spirit finds us in the
darkness of sin and sheds the light of Christ upon us. The Spirit finds us in the shadows of doubt
and despair, and casts the bright beams of the gospel into our hearts and minds
– chases away the darkness of sin and doubt and shame. The Spirit enlightens us to Christ, who is
the light of the world by the light of the Gospel.
We once were blind, but now we see… by the Spirit. And more than an on-off switch, the Spirit
continues to enlighten us by the word as we grow in its wisdom and
understanding. This brings us to our final verb:
Sanctifies. The
Spirit sanctifies us, that is, he makes us holy. And here’s a word we can use in two
senses. For one, he makes us holy by
bringing us to Christ. Washed in the
blood of Christ, we are made children of God and set apart as his people. We are sanctified. So the church is one and holy – Una Sancta in
the Latin.
And yet, there’s another sense. Sanctification is also a process. It is the ongoing work of the Spirit to make
us more and more holy, more and more Christ-like. You could call it maturity or growth of faith. The Spirit is always working in us and on us
to apply that word in our hearts and lives.
Sometimes through pain and suffering, sometimes through knowledge and
understanding. But always drawing us
deeper into the word and closer to Christ our Savior.
So thanks be to God in Christ Jesus for sending us the Holy
Spirit, the Helper, as Jesus calls him.
But his help is much more than an assist or a leg-up. He does far more than even the
heavy-lifting. He calls us to faith in
Christ. He gathers us with other
Christians. He enlightens us with his
gifts. And he sanctifies and keeps us in
the true faith.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
