Resurrection of the Church

Here is my sermon for Pentecost Sunday. The text was Acts 2:1-21:

I want to start this morning telling you the story of a church that I know of, that some of you have probably heard about as well. It was founded by a fairly charismatic minister, who was known to preach good sermons. They didn’t have a permanent home where they met, but instead met where they could, and while they would get higher than normal attendance on the big holidays, sometimes more than a hundred, their normal attendance was in the twenties, although there were only around a dozen who could be counted on to be there all the time. Just as soon as it seemed like they were moving in the right direction, that they were about to see some huge growth, people would decide that this wasn’t the right church for them because it challenged what they had been taught as children, or it just wasn’t big enough, or stable enough, or it was too challenging, or they couldn’t be anonymous, or too much was required, or whatever the reason was, they just decided it wasn’t for them. But they did all the right things, although some of them were a little unusual, but it just didn’t seem like they were ever going to be bigger than they were. And then their pastor suddenly died, and no one knew what was going to happen, because one of the things that happens when charismatic leaders die is that their movements tend to quickly dissipate, unless another leader steps into the void, and it wasn’t clear that any of the members of this church had the skills or graces or ability to fill that hole. And so the members of the church gathered together, and they worshipped and prayed, but they didn’t know what their future held, and they were a little scared and a little nervous and a little anxious and timid, they hoped something might happen with their little church, they loved it after all, and while the people weren’t perfect, and there was some conflict, over all it was a good place to be, and they didn’t want to find another place to go, and so they gathered together into a room to discuss what they should do, to hold the dreaded all church meeting, and then something miraculous happened.

Does anyone want to take a guess as to what church this was, or where this took place? It was the original church with Jesus as its head, although traditionally we would say that there was not, in fact, a church yet, because today, Pentecost, is seen as the birth of the church. But we forget what the group of was like just 51 days before when they had no idea what was going to happen, and then they encounter the risen Christ, but that still didn’t mean that anything was going to become of this group, and so as we have been talking about resurrection stories, I think it’s important to recognize the resurrection story of the disciples to become the church. According to the author of Luke, who also writes Acts, and we should see them as a complete whole, Jesus has spent the time after the resurrection, until his ascension into heaven, which we recognized on Thursday. I know all of you had ascension parties, right? He has spent that time instructing the disciples, and one of the things he has said to them was that they would receive the Holy Spirit, and when they received the Holy Spirit they would receive what? Power.

The Church

Here is my sermon from Pentecost Sunday. The text was Acts 2:1-21:

Today, which is Pentecost Sunday, has often been seen and called the birthday of the church.  I can certainly understand that idea, but I think it is wrong on many levels.  One of the main reasons is that because a birth of something tends to indicate that something entirely new is created, that before this thing was not there, and now it is.  There can also be a sense that this new beginning, a discarding of the past.  But that is not what is going on here, as is indicated even in the name of Pentecost.  The passage begins “When the day of Pentecost had come.” Which means that Pentecost as a celebration existed and was taking place even before what we consider Pentecost had actually occurred, meaning this is not a new birth.

Pentecost literally means 50 days, and it was a Jewish holiday celebrated on the 50th day after Passover, and is better known as the festival of weeks or the festival of the first fruits.  It is one of the three major holidays called for in Exodus and Deuteronomy in which people are called to come to Jerusalem for pilgrimage.  The other two holidays are Passover and the festival of booths.  Booths and Weeks are both agricultural festivals, with booths representing the fall harvest, and weeks representing the spring harvest, and so Pentecost is also known as the festival of first fruits, in which people would bring in their offering to God, giving from their first fruits from the first harvest of the year.

Although Luke, who is the writer of Acts, tells us that there were people from all the nations living in Jerusalem at the time, which is probably true, the crowds of people who spoke different languages would have been even larger at the time because so many people had come to Jerusalem for this festival.  Now weeks was the least observed of the three, but it still had importance, since it is even mentioned that these things happened when the day of Pentecost had come.  This connects this moment to the history of God’s purpose and the history of the people.  It connects the disciples to their Jewish heritage, and through that connects us to it as well.  This is not some incident that is happening without meaning or context, and something that is only about this new beginning.