Worship
Notes
The Day of Pentecost, Year A
June 8, 2014
The Season
With the Day of Pentecost, we have come to the fiftieth day
of Easter, culminating the series of Gospel stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection
appearances and his words of comfort and encouragement to his anxious and
bewildered disciples. In Jewish tradition, Pentecost, also called the Festival
of Weeks, was celebrated as a harvest festival fifty days after Passover.
Christians observe Pentecost—the gift of the Holy Spirit—as one of the three
major festivals of the Church Year, along with Christmas—the Incarnation of our
Lord—and Easter—the Resurrection of our Lord. The liturgical color of our
paraments and vestments is festive red.
In Word
Our First Lesson for today is the fantastic account of the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem. The “believers” numbered around
120 people, including the disciples (Acts 1:15), and they had been in continual
prayer since Jesus’ Ascension ten days before, when Jesus had promised, “But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth” (Acts 1:8). On the occasion of this festival, Jerusalem
was filled with devout Jews from much of the known world: from Parthia to the east and Rome
to the west, from Pontus to
the north (just under the Black Sea) and Arabia
to the southeast. The account is dramatic: “And suddenly from heaven there came
a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where
they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a
tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts
2:2-4). Those who heard them were “amazed and perplexed,” and asked “What does
this mean?” (Acts 2:12b). The world has been asking this question ever since!
In our psalm
for today we sing, “Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth”
(Psalm 104:30). Could our psalmist have known about our environmental crisis more
than two millennia ago?
The Apostle
Paul in our Second Lesson reminds us that the Spirit gives varieties of gifts
and that all gifts are individually necessary to the healthy functioning of the
Body of Christ. Regardless of the gift that has been given to us, we are each
interdependent with one another. Our particular expression of the Body of
Christ that is Concordia
Lutheran Church
depends on each of us offering and exercising our gifts for the health of the
congregation and for the sake of Christ’s mission.
If the
outpouring of the Spirit dramatic in our First
Lesson, it is quiet and understated by comparison in our Gospel for today. Jesus’ frightened disciples are
huddled together behind locked doors on the evening of his Resurrection. He
suddenly appears in their midst, breathes on them, saying, “Receive the Holy
Spirit” (John 20:22b). The Spirit brings the peace that Jesus proclaimed and
empowers them to do what Jesus had commissioned them to do: “As the Father has
sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21).
In Song
The lyrics
of “Spirit of Gentleness” (Evangelical Lutheran
Worship 396) take us through the workings of the Holy Spirit through Scripture,
beginning with Creation (stanza 1), the Exodus and the prophets (stanza 2), the
Incarnation, crucifixion, and Pentecost (stanza 3), to the present and future,
employing biblical imagery (stanza 4).
No comments:
Post a Comment