Pentecost Sunday — Wear Red to Church this Sunday — 6/8
This Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost is the day when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples 50 days after the Jesus rose from the dead.
These past few weeks in church we have heard readings and sermons about the work of the Holy Spirit. John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” The Reformed theologians Frederick Dale Bruner and William Horden wrote a book called, The Holy Spirit: Shy Member of the Trinity. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached a banger of a sermon. You can read it here. In his sermon, he presents Jesus Christ to those who are gathered and faith is awakened in them. The preaching of God’s Word on Sunday morning, Bruner writes, “has been the ordinary conduit of the life-giving Spirit of God through the ages.”
Reflecting on why Luther’s Reformation caught on when so many other attempts of reformation the preceded Luther failed, Gerhard Ebeling points out that, “Luther’s Reformation became a reformation in deed, not just in words because Luther trusted online the Word and not at all in the deeds.” St. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan who lived in the 4th Century said, “[The] Spirit is called the Sword of the Word… Inasmuch as the word is in turn called the Sword of the Spirit, the highest unity of power is thereby recognized in each.”
From Scripture and the teachings of the church for millennia, we can see that The Holy Spirit is all about pointing people to Christ and He uses the Word of God to do so. Pentecost then recognizes the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.
This teaching is captured well in Luther’s Small Catechism. Luther writes,
“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
What does this mean? I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.
In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.
In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.
On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ.
This is most certainly true.”
