It’s Pentecost Sunday! Today as we honor and send off the graduating seniors from our congregation, we hear Jesus promise his followers that although he will no longer be physically present alongside them, God will still be with them, present through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the “paraclete” – the advocate, comforter, the one who accompanies us in every stage of life’s journey. Today’s sermon for Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2021, looks at John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 and Acts 2:1-21.
Grace to you and peace from the One who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Well, in addition to this weekend being Pentecost, it’s also graduation weekend, so as we honor our congregation’s 2021 graduates, I want to teach you a new vocabulary word, a word I’ve never used in a sermon before – this might be the very last new word you’ll learn before graduating.
Here it is: Today’s church word of the day is “paraclete” from the Greek, παράκλητος.
Any idea what paraclete means? It’s the word Jesus uses in our Gospel reading today for the Holy Spirit. In our version, it’s translated as “advocate,” meaning someone who’s on your side. Paraclete is almost like a lawyer, but it’s much more than that. It’s a helper, a teacher, a guide.
The setting for this lesson in John is the same as we’ve had for the last few weeks, right after the last supper, after Jesus and his disciples have finished eating, but before they go out to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus will be arrested.
This is the night before what we call Good Friday, less than 24 hours before Jesus is going to die, and with the little time he has left — because remember, in John’s telling Jesus pretty much knows what’s going to happen, even if his disciples don’t — with the little time he has left, Jesus is preparing his disciples to carry on his mission. He’s preparing them to set out on their own, to continue the work without him.
But he promises them, they won’t actually be alone. Physically, Jesus won’t be with them any more; they won’t be able to just chat with him or eat dinner with him in the same way as they have been, but God is not going to leave the disciples alone.
Instead, God’s presence will be with them in a new way. Jesus will send them an advocate, the Paraclete. Some translations say a “comforter.” Literally, paraclete means “one who walks alongside you, accompanies you, goes with you.”
God’s Spirit, the spirit of truth, the person of the Trinity we call the “Holy Spirit” will be with them, to guide them into the truth, to keep them connected to God, connected to their creator.
So over the next few days, as the disciples witness Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, as they feel like their world’s fallen apart, they have this promise to cling to.
Then, of course, Jesus rises from the dead, and he’s with them for a few weeks, but then he ascends into heaven, and again, the disciples are left alone.
But before he leaves, one of the last things Jesus says to his friends is in Luke 24 verse 49. He tells them, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
So, they wait. I don’t think they have any idea what they’re waiting for, but they know God is not done with them.
Maybe you’ve felt like that, like you’re not sure what you’re waiting for. It’s not a great feeling, wondering what might be next, wondering if you’re doing the right thing, following the right path. Waiting is hard. Uncertainty is hard.
In the first chapter of Acts, the apostles do what they were told to do. They gather in Jerusalem, and they wait. In a very real sense, they’ve graduated from their time as disciples—learners and followers of Jesus—but they don’t know exactly what the next step is. They take care of some administrative details, finding a replacement apostle for Judas who had betrayed Jesus, and they wait.
By the day of Pentecost, the harvest festival 50 days after Passover, seven weeks since Jesus’ death and resurrection, by Pentecost, they’re all together in one place. And then they find out what they’ve been waiting for.
They find out that Jesus’ promise was not empty words. The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, comes upon them. It’s dramatic—there’s sounds of rushing wind, it looks like bits of fire resting on them, and they start speaking in different languages.
Before Jesus’ ascension, he had given them the mission of continuing his work and spreading God’s kingdom, proclaiming the good news of God’s love around the whole world.
He told them, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
And, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Of course, he also said “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” But still, that mission must have seemed overwhelming, impossible even.
No one would look at this group of people and think they’re going to change the world.
There are the eleven apostles who’d been with Jesus, but they’d proven again and again how little they understood of who he was, what he was teaching. When things got tough and their leader was arrested, they had abandoned him and hidden to save themselves.
True, they’re not the only ones in this new church—there are also the women, who by and large had proven more faithful than the men, and there are the rest of the people, the one hundred twenty or so there in Jerusalem, and a few more scattered around, but even so, this group does not inspire confidence.
There’s no way they can carry on Jesus’ work and build God’s kingdom on their own. But the message of Pentecost is that they are not on their own.
We are not on our own. God has not left them by themselves. Instead, God has come to them in a new way, come to us in a new way.
At Pentecost, the apostles start doing exactly what Jesus had called them to do, witnessing to what they’d seen, telling the people around them the good news that God had come into the world. Jesus, the son of God, God in the flesh, had given his life for their sake, as the ultimate expression of how much God loves the world.
And as they start doing what God told them to do, as they allow God’s Holy Spirit to work through them and empower them and use them in God’s mission, miracles start happening.
Reach the whole world? God’s brought people from all over right to their backyard! Language barriers? God can handle it. Hecklers wondering if everything going on is just the result of a little bit too much wine? No, God’s prophets predicted this.
The Holy Spirit is at work. God is on the move. God is doing something new, and doing it through these ordinary people, people like you and me, revealing what’s next one step at a time, calling them and us to trust that God’s got it figured out.
And it’s not just the insiders, the people who’d been walking around with Jesus when he was here in the flesh.
At Pentecost, God is bringing in the outsiders, bringing together these disparate people, people with different dreams, different experiences, different gifts and talents, even different languages, and joining them into the Church, joining them into Christ’s body. God’s Spirit is poured out on all flesh, all ages, all genders, wealthy and poor, slave and free, even people like you and me.
Jesus uses Paraclete to describe what the Holy Spirit does, but the actual word used in Acts to identify the Holy Spirit is “pneuma,” which means wind, breath, air. Think of a pneumatic device, something that runs on air pressure.
The Holy Spirit is blowing through the church, blowing through the world. As Ezekiel prophesied, God’s breath is breathing life into dry bones, bringing hope into hopeless situations, animating the church, giving life and meaning and purpose.
The Holy Spirit is connecting you to your Creator, to your heavenly Father, to the Good Shepherd who promised to leave the 99 to look for you when you’re the one who wanders away.
The message of Pentecost is that wherever you go, God is with you. As the disciples discover, the path is not always easy, but the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is accompanying you on your journey, guiding, calling, drawing you to the right path, back to your Creator, stirring up faith, and reminding you of Jesus, of the grace God has shown to you.
As you go forth today, wherever you’re going, whether it’s back home, or to a new stage of life, to school or work or rest, know that God is with you.
Trust that God is accompanying you on the way.
Amen
Here’s a slideshow of our 2021 graduates from St. Peter.