Text: Acts 2:1-21; Genesis 11:1-9; Psalms 104:24-34; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17

Theme: New Heavens and a New Earth

Prayer:

Almighty and Everliving God
Who fulfilled the promises of Easter
By sending us your Holy Spirit
And opening to every race and nation
The way of life eternal,
Keep us in the unity of your Spirit
That every tongue may tell of your glory.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
One God now and forever. Amen

Introduction:

This is the last of our series "New Heavens and a New Earth." I have found it to be a challenging series in that we have been called to become Easter people whose call is to live the Kingdom life while we wait for the fullness of time. I was encouraged again this past week in two ways.

1. I received a map of put out by the Mennonite World Conference which highlighted the global nature of those who belong to this loose federation of Anabaptist/Mennonite congregations. My first thought is that this is the way that Mennonites play the game of “world domination.” But then I realized how this map illustrates a remarkable story of how a small group of European ethnic churches expanded around the world into a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural group of Christians.
   
   
2. Today is the International Day of Prayer (IDOP). Churches from over 218 countries are praying in concert for the needs of the world, for courage and perseverance amid persecution, and faithfulness amid an increasingly hostile world. How the Church has grown! Praise be to God! Today is the celebration of the first Church and the work of the Spirit in its beginnings, and we've come to know it as Pentecost Sunday.

Genesis story sets the stage for the Acts story of Pentecost in that what seemed eternal and irrevocable is now healed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Until Pentecost the world seemed bound by the consequences of Adam’s first sin, eviction from God’s presence. By the time the story of Babel appears in Genesis 11, humanity’s arrogance has reached the point that it seeks the status of gods, responsible only to themselves and their own desires, at which point God confounds them and scatters them over the face of the earth. And so, in the long story of salvation, God devises a way for humankind to once again be reconciled back to God first through Abraham, Israel and finally Jesus Christ himself. And it is “this Jesus, who you put to death” as Peter describes it, who has become the Saviour of the world.

Named after one of the great Jewish festivals (Greek for Feast of Weeks), Pentecost was a time when Jerusalem was full of pilgrims from all the known parts of the world gathered together to celebrate the wheat harvest and to remember the renewal of God's covenant with Moses and Noah.

Jesus, having left the disciples and ascended back to God, had told the disciples to wait for directions in Jerusalem. And so there they were gathered together, about 120 of them the scriptures tell us, praying and encouraging one another but above all, waiting.

And then suddenly, something happened which the writer of Luke’s Gospel tries to put into words. There is a sound like a rushing wind; divided tongues like fire appeared, one tongue above each of those gathered. All were filled with the Holy Spirit and each began to speak in another language under the liberty of the Spirit.

The narrative tells us that each of the pilgrim Jews who came from every corner of the known world, heard the disciples speaking in their own language:

"in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

At first perplexed, some became rather cynical and suggested a rather early start with the alcoholic beverages.

And so Peter gets up to speak and delivers an amazing message: a message which not only explained what others were seeing but one which would set an agenda for the followers of Jesus for the next hundreds of years.

To help us understand this a little more clearly, we need to understand what and who the Holy Spirit of God is and does.

1. The Holy Spirit teaches us that in Christ history has experienced fulfillment.
   I don’t mean this in the way the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama meant it when he wrote the book The End of History in which he argued that, in Hegelian terms, after the fall of Communism in Europe history had ended but rather that in Christ, the whole point of history has been achieved. Past, present, future—all have been changed into the Eternal Now. Verses from the prophet Joel read “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams…” The Spirit has come; the time for renewal and rejoicing has come.
   
   
2. The Holy Spirit teaches us that we are now "contemporaneous with Christ.” You may ask, “How does an event of 2000 years still mean something for us today?” The Spirit accomplishes what otherwise could not be accomplished. The Spirit removes linear history and places us at the feet of Jesus. The Spirit removes distance and places us at the feet of Jesus. The Spirit removes cultural distance and places us at the feet of Jesus. The Spirit removes "the infinite qualitative difference” between God and humanity and places us at the foot of the cross and tomb of Jesus, and allows us to be known as "children by adoption of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the story of Jesus of Nazareth who has been killed, raised and is now ascended, and who has become our Lord and Messiah.
   
   
3. The Holy Spirit teaches us that we are called to repentance, and moved by the Spirit, in our spirits. Luke describes it as being "cut to the heart." The Spirit of God convicts us of our own inadequacy, our own failure, our own sin. This call transcends all boundaries and artificial divides. It is for everyone. This conviction is both objective-we have sinned and need to repent-and subjective-we sense our guilt and our need for God.
   
   
4. The Holy Spirit teaches us that we are called to be changed (metamorphosed, transformed); Those who repented and joined the followers of Jesus  are described by Luke as having changed in their behaviour, were devoted to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers, cared for the poor and needy by sharing all that they had, shared with one and all, changed from fearful to fearlessness and committed to spread of the message that Jesus Christ is for all.

This passage in Acts 2 describes “the stripped-down Gospel" or as Stuart Murray has described it “The Naked Anabaptist.” The New Testament church was the model church which described the goal of the early Anabaptists. These verses still challenge us today. Which items constitute our core beliefs as Anabaptist Mennonites? Do we make barriers where there should be none? Is the gospel of Jesus Christ meant to change people into cutouts of us or followers of Jesus? Does the Holy Spirit still work in our lives to change, to convict and to encourage and to heal? These are the questions we need to keep asking ourselves and our congregation. The Holy Spirit calls us to be “an Easter people.” May God give us the grace to be led continually by the Holy Spirit as we discern what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ today.

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