Sunday, June 05, 2022

Sermon - Pentecost - John 14:23-31

 


“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.

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