Pentecost Jn 16:4-4-15, Rom. 8:22-7

Pentecost is a difficult day in the church calendar for me. In my mind, it has the import of Christmas or Easter, but in reality, it marks another Sunday. We don’t do a terribly good job with the Spirit, as if working with Pentecost would make us Pentecostals, or as Mike McCoy recalls from a sign in a Laurel church; prayin’, preachin’, singin’. On this Pentecost, we see God is on our side, working for the best in us, the best for us.

 

On the 500th birthday year of John Calvin, we do well to recall how much he emphasized the work of the spirit. Calvin calls the Spirit an inward teacher. The spirit can penetrate our defenses. The Spirit manifests power through the sacraments. Spirit confirms and strengthens faith. Calvin calls the Spirit a Schoolmaster. No one emphasized the work of the Spirit in the sacraments more. The Spirit cements our bond with Jesus, so that Calvin’s theme was union with Christ (sec 2). Without the spirit, this is a mere ritual. With the spirit we are joined with Christ, flesh to flesh, bone to bone, as the old Scots catechism would have it.  It is life giving. On this day when we celebrate the Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, Calvin reminds us that the Lord’s Supper is life-giving. His symbol for the life a faith was a heart aflame. Given his nature, I would doubt that it meant only the emotional side of life, but the whole of our lives, the core of our lives would be bright with a thorough-going passion for God, for life.

 

Speaking in tongues does not build of the community of faith unless it is also gifted with interpretation of those strange-sounding babble of voice. The crucial thing about Pentecost is that everyone understood the message in their own language. In other words, the Spirit is a teacher who promotes more than information but understanding, a grasp of what is being said. The Spirit continues to illumine us about the continuing life of Christ and beyond the gospels. Jesus sees the Spirit as training us into notions that the disciples were not yet capable of hearing.  the Spirit is portrayed  as God on our side, as our counselors. In our time that can mean an attorney or a therapist; they are both helping professions, one s that act as a loyal friend to the client, albeit for a fee.  Not only that, Jesus pictures the spirit as working along side us as we go about our daily tasks. John uses the same word for it as Luke uses when Martha wants Mary to help her with working to get ready for company.

 

In Romans, the Spirit, within the very life of God, prays for us, intercedes for us, with that wonderful phrase, with sighs too deep for words. Out of the depth of our situation, the Spirit communicates those needs within the divine depths. Even though Paul uses apocalyptic imagery, instead of speaking of destruction, Paul speaks fo the spirit of new life, as birth pangs for the arrival of the new creation.

 

We’ve been emphasizing some elements of Easter life in our readings. Now we look more at life in the Spirit, the life of the church as it carries on the work that has been handed down generation to generation. Wherever we find the breath of life, we are in the presence of the Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. That Spirit places us in the living presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The same Spirit of God that brought new life to the small knot of disciples is present with us this morning. The presence of God is with us all and as separate souls. My prayer is that our life together and as individuals would be tongues of fire, signs of the presence of God.