The Blessings of Pentecost
St. John 14:23-31
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 14:23 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… This, of course, is the first time since three weeks before Easter that we have all gathered together in one Divine Service. To be sure, I have seen all of you over that time, but you have not seen or been with the rest of your church family for that time. Clearly I am thrilled and thankful to our good and gracious God for this great privilege today of serving the entire congregation at once. But we can talk more about that after the service if you wish. For now, we turn our attention to the Holy Scriptures, particularly today’s Gospel account from John 14.
Over the years I have been asked this question more than a few times: “Pastor, there is one Bible but so many different interpretations. Why are there so many different interpretations of it, and how can we know which one is right?” I would argue, however, that that is not really the problem. The bigger problem is not so much in the “interpretation” of the Bible. That is not to say there aren’t wrong interpretations – there most certainly are! The problem is that people, and many Christians, simply ignore or reject what the clear words of the Bible say.
For example, in I Timothy 2:12 St. Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.” And the context of Paul’s words is the conduct of the Divine Service. Yet all across Christianity women are allowed to be pastors – many in “Lutheran” churches. In Hebrews 13:4, we read, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled,” and yet couples still live together without being married even if they call themselves Christian. In I Peter 3:21 St. Peter writes, “Baptism now saves you,” but in all too many places Baptism is just an ordinance of obedience. Jesus says, “This is my body; this is my blood,” and yet many insist that the bread and wine are only symbols.
Obviously, the problem is not with the words of Scripture; God’s Word is abundantly clear. The problem is that people choose to believe and do the opposite of God’s Word, and they very often make pious excuses as to why they do it. And usually that “pious excuse” is, “the Spirit has led me to believe.” In other words, the Spirit is set against the Bible to explain away what people don’t want or don’t like in God’s Word. Of course, that is ridiculous on its face; God’s Word does not contradict itself.
So, what does Jesus say about this? In our reading from John 14, He says, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all things that I said to you.” Now, does that sound like the Spirit’s job is to teach us the things Jesus said or to teach us things that Jesus didn’t say? Does the Holy Spirit come to teach us something different than what is in the Bible, or does He teach what is in the Bible? Listen again to Jesus speaking to us in the Gospel. He says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep my Word.” And then He says “whoever does not love Me does not keep my Words.”
Do you hear that? Word and Words. The Word He speaks about is the message, the preaching, that for His sake, because He died for our sins and rose again, our sins are forgiven. The words are the words by which He has spoken that message, that is, the words of the prophets and the apostles as well as His own words which are all written down and recorded in the Scriptures.
You see, Jesus doesn’t just leave His message “out there” somewhere where we have to try to figure it out. He sends the Holy Spirit – His Spirit – to inspire the apostles and Evangelists to write it down so that we have it and we can look it up and read it and hear it and be certain of it.
Beware, dear Christians, of those who claim they have the Holy Spirit going on and yet deny the simple and clear words of God in the Bible. Consider what happened on Pentecost. When the Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire and a rushing wind, what happened? People didn’t just get a warm fuzzy and start making stuff up about Jesus. No. Peter got up and preached a sermon about Jesus. He tied together the words of the Old Testament with what Jesus Himself said and did, namely, being crucified and rising the third day. That’s exactly what Jesus meant when He said that the Spirit would remind them of everything He said to them.
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This is the Word, this is the message: Jesus Christ, the Son of God became man. He was born for you. He was circumcised for you. He was baptized for you. He was tempted for you. He was beaten and persecuted for you. He took upon Himself your sins. He suffered for you. He was crucified and died on the cross for you. He rose from the dead for you. He ascended to the right hand of the Father for you. And He will come again for you.
That message is that the forgiveness Christ won for you is put upon you in your baptism, pronounced to you in the absolution, preached and taught to you in the sermon and Scriptures, and fed to you in the body and blood of Jesus. THAT is the message, THAT is the Word that we cling to. The words which deliver that message are the words of the Scriptures. It is all there in the Bible. It has been faithfully put down on parchment by the apostles and prophets. You can look it up for yourself to see whether your preacher is faithfully preaching and teaching it or not. You get to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, “who received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”
So, pay close attention to what you hear and always be asking and determining whether it is from the Holy Spirit or not. Know for yourself if it is Christ’s Word and work and Words or not. We all have an obligation to test what we hear and see as to whether it matches up with God’s Word. This is why Bible Study and Catechesis are so important, for these things help you tune our “Bible Radar.” The more truth we read and hear, the better we will be able to spot untruths. We should all be able to hear something that is spoken about God’s Word and immediately be able to tell whether is true or false, whether or not it is the Holy Spirit or a deceiving spirit. For if we do not believe the words, we shall not know the Word, the message; and then we’re in big trouble and become easy pickings for the devil and his false prophets.
Dear fellow redeemed, we must know Christ’s Words so that we may always cling to His Word and thereby cling to Christ alone and His gifts.
To ask the obvious question, what good will all this do for us? Well, Jesus also says in today’s Gospel: “My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives.” The good all this will do for us is that it is for our peace. And I am not referring to the peace and quiet of a tranquil country scene. The peace that the world cannot give is the peace of knowing and believing without any doubt that our sins are truly and completely forgiven for Jesus’ sake. There is no better or more lasting or more effective peace than that.
Look at the world around us. Riots and looting in man major cities, including Denver. Churches across the country still drastically limited in what they are “allowed” to do. Our brothers and sisters in Canada cannot even got to a church or have any in-person interactions. There’s political upheaval and unrest. We have a still-damaged but recovering economy. We have daily struggles we all have to battle because of our sinful nature. We are concerned about sick and vulnerable loved ones. We have concerns over how or if we’re going to travel. We have concerns about unemployment.
There’s no peace in any of that. And all of it is nothing more than the truth of our Lord Jesus who said 2000 years ago that the world is a place that will only get worse and worse until He comes again.
But dear fellow redeemed, we have Christ and His gifts. In spite of the fact that we deserve only eternal punishment and death for our sins, we have the certainty that our sins are paid for by Christ. We have the certainty of life and salvation in Him alone. And because we are gathered here all in one place, we have Christ delivering His forgiveness to us in His Word and holy Sacraments, here in His church where He serves us best. Through water, words, bread, and wine – that is, through Baptism, preaching, absolution, body and blood – we have Christ. And because we have Christ, we have His peace; we have the eternal glue that holds us all together in this falling-apart world in which we live.
Throughout the Easter Season we have been hearing Gospel readings about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the one called alongside to strengthen us by delivering Jesus to us. He comes to teach us everything about Jesus. And that is all we will ever need as we continue to live out our lives among our families and friends and in this crazy world.
Yes, today, on Pentecost, we hear about the Spirit. But more than that, we hear once again about Christ who was crucified for us and is now alive, who washed us and who feeds us. That is how we know the Spirit is here today. There is no tricky or hidden interpretation here. The Bible plainly teaches that Jesus has done all that to make you His own and to give you His peace now. And that peace – HIS peace – will sustain you now and throughout this life until we are brought to the life of the world to come.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
