Day of Pentecost

May 11, 2008


The Ultimate Wine Tasting


How fearful it must have been for the disciples on that Easter Sunday afternoon.

Everything pointed to fear, to despair, and to failure.

Christ had been crucified, and everything was dark and dismal.

Common sense would have told them to give up, go home, and forget the whole thing.

So, what next, where do we go from here?

They were literally at the end of their rope.

Or, were they?

Some years ago a pastor came to a troubled church in a troubled neighborhood and things got worse rather than better.

Nothing the pastor tried worked, and finally the church council voted to close the church all the time except for two hours on Sunday

Seventy five families left, the place was in financial disaster.

The pastor tells us: “I was bone weary.

Finally, alone, I went to the seldom used chapel in the basement and wept.

With increasing frequency I sat alone in the chapel weeping, consumed with grief.

Day by day my ears accustomed themselves to emptiness, listening to the incessant hum of the chapel’s fluorescent light as I strained for answer to my questions.

Only sobs punctuated the hollow sound of despair.” (Pulkingham, Graham: Gathered For Power, pg. 54)

Common sense would have told the pastor to call the bishop, move on, and then they could put a for sale sign in front of the church.

That would be common sense.

So, it sounds like both the church and the pastor were at the end of their rope.

Or were they?

Today we celebrate the miracle of Pentecost…the day when the Holy Spirit literally fell upon the friends of Jesus, and all of a sudden a rushing wind filled the place, tongues of fire rested on their heads, and they spoke in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance.

This was no subtle, quiet event.

It was as if the Holy Spirit had literally blown the roof off, and everyone in town knew that something incredible had happened.

“What does this mean?” Oh, they are just filled with new wine.”

New wine…of course!

That is exactly what happened.

Jesus had referred to this when he said: “New wine is put into fresh wineskins, so both are preserved.”

On Pentecost the new wine of the Spirit of God was literally poured into the fresh wineskin of the body of Jesus Christ, and it was an incredible happening!

In fact, it was so incredible, that 3000 people joined the church that very day!

We read that and we think: wouldn’t that be an incredible experience….wouldn’t have been great to have been there.

Wouldn’t it be great if that could happen here.

But, to be honest, we often wistfully place the miracle of Pentecost as a past tense event, and once a year, we sort of dust off the Holy Spirit, celebrate what we call the birthday of the church, and then go back to business as usual.

My brothers and sister, in the Holy Spirit, business is never as usual and there is no such thing as the end of the rope.

With the Spirit of God things aren’t always as they appear to be, and with the Holy Spirit the term common sense doesn’t exist.

The Spirit of God is always doing something new, something totally unexpected, and each moment is vibrantly new.

On that first day when the disciples were at the end of the rope in fear Jesus appears, tells them “Peace be with you” and then breathes on them and says “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

The Spirit of God - the breath, the life, the power, came upon them and things changed forever.

The pastor who wept in the basement of his church, convinced that everything was a failure, finally asked God how things could change and after many days and weeks, in the depths of his heart he heard the answer: “By my spirit” and he says that he felt the incredible experience of God and he thought to himself: “what is going on?”

And then, he tells us: “Those prayers for a powerful ministry are being answered! Right now! Great God, how can it be?”

In a moment of breathless adoration all of my longing for love was satisfied and my and my inner being was swept clean from the tip of my toes to the top of my head as with a mighty rush of wind.” (Ibid, page 76)

As a result, in a short time, membership had quadrupled, finances grew six times over, and the staff of one pastor and two caretakers expanded to four pastors and 35 full time lay workers.

How? Because they were willing to take a taste of the new wine, the new wine of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate wine tasting, and it is very heady stuff indeed.

The prophet Joel tells us that in the Holy Spirit, “sons and daughters shall prophesy, young men shall see visions, old men shall dream dreams, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy and I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath.”

All of that, visions, dreams, to see the possibilities of God, to see beyond ourselves, if only we are willing to taste the new wine.

Then, if we are willing, listen to what St. Paul tells us: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.

When we cry “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

Dear hearts, the Holy Spirit was given to us in our baptism, and we live no less, we have God in our lives no less than the friends of Jesus on that Pentecost day.

But, we at Immanuel church need to have a taste of the new wine, to give ourselves to the Spirit of God, and to know and to expect that incredible things can happen, things that will boggle our minds and things that will change us forever.

Paul tells us that the gifts of the Spirit are many, things like wisdom, prophecy, knowledge, and even healings, and even miracles.

Oh, says our sophisticated and rational 21st century minds, those things could never happen here.

Oh? We just might be surprised.

In a few minutes we will sing “Holy Spirit come to us, kindle in us the fire of your love.”

If we are going to sing it, we need to mean it, and if we mean it, we are going to be stunned at what happens around here.

We are going to have anointing for healing after the service.

Will anyone get healed? Taste the new wine and see.

Will our church grow? Taste the new wine and see.

I challenge each of us, today, to give ourselves over to the Spirit of God, to sip the new wine, and to see what is next in our lives.

We just might be surprised.

Oh, one more thing.

We do live in a frightening world, there is violence, there is injustice, there is financial fear.

Listen to fruit of the spirit according to St. Paul; “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

Isn’t that worth a sip of the new wine?

“O taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Amen

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