To declare the wonderful deeds of God....

You are a chosen race. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. [1 Peter 2:9-10]

It speaks of time, of a new reality, and of purpose.

A word about each of those in turn.

There are elements of both “now” and “not yet” in the Good News of Jesus.

And we have to keep those elements in tension with each other.

We could emphasize too much the “not yet” side of things, saying that the kingdom of God is all someday in the future; we could also dwell too much on the present joys of knowing Jesus without regard for its fulfillment.

Luther said that folks who became enthusiasts of this kind had “swallowed the Holy Spirit, feathers and all.”

For someone who says that the kingdom is in the sweet bye and bye, Pentecost is a wake-up call.

God's Holy Spirit is among us now, granting God's good gifts, calling us to faith, stirring us to action, enlivening us in mission, sharing Good News right now.

If we just come here on Sunday, sing the hymns, nod solemnly at the lessons, half-hear the prayers without adding our heart-felt “Amen”, without realizing that this time together is to set the stage for all the rest of the week, how we interact with each other and how we anticipate that God will be using our words and actions for his purposes throughout the week....then we have missed half of the event.

The Spirit is active now, when we spend some time with the kids in studying a Bible story, and puzzle over its meaning in an adult discussion group.

The Spirit is active now, when we greet one another gently, and welcome a stranger warmly.

The Spirit is active now, when we plan how we will use all of the things which God has put in our trust, both for ourselves and for the generation to come.

That list multiplies daily!

Pentecost is about both the “now” and the “not yet” of the kingdom of God; and we rejoice in both parts of that proclamation.

II.It is also about a new reality.

The disciples of old, and also we today, think that we know all the important things there is to know.

The disciples saw the brutal execution of Jesus, and think they know how this turns out; death, the end of all their hopes and dreams.

A remade life, a resurrected life, was not in their thinking.

They could resonate with Ezekiel who saw a vision of the valley of dry bones.

That is the way we feel; that is what we sense , a fatalism, a hopelessness; things falling apart and only getting worse.

But Ezekiel's vision is of more than of death and destruction.

The Spirit will breathe life into hopelessness to remake what has been destroyed.

I remember reading about a pastor who was sent to a declining congregation in an inner city setting.

The folks who had built the church had moved elsewhere or died, and it was mostly some widows left.

The pastor was disheartened, and the congregation had no vision of anything different.

The pastor was visiting in the hospital and stopped to visit a first-time mother and newborn son.

“The worst thing,” said the young mother, “is that we have had to have this baby by ourselves.”

“What do you mean,” asked the pastor.

“Our parents live across the country and we have no one to ask what to do, no grandparents close at hand. There are others in our neighborhood like us.”

And then the light came on in the pastor's head.

The pastor recruited those grandmother-age people in the congregation to be “Baby Visitors”.

They quickly got referrals to one couple after another, where they could share the love of God through their experience.

And as a wonderful by-product of their care and concern, the Holy Spirit was breathing new life into that congregation.

It became quite a different reality from that which they thought they knew.

Is the Spirit looking for the right opportunity to give us that same kind of kick-start in a new and different direction?

Let's be looking and listening for what that might be.

III.That verse from 1 Peter gave the purpose of all of this: that you may declare the wonderful deeds of God, he says.

Once you were no people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received God's mercy, but now you have.

So often we treat this message as our possession.

“Jesus loves me,” we can say with a satisfied smile.

But it is not ours to have; rather it is ours in trust to pass on to others.

...that you may declare the wonderful deeds of God....

Isn't that a large part of the point of the Pentecost event?

The Spirit does not visit them in order to make the disciples feel good about themselves, but rather to set them upon the tasks which God has needed them to do.

It is a matter of communication.

All those wonderful places which the Acts passage names, from every direction of the compass, are there to startle us that God's Good News can be heard understandably by each and every person in his/her own language.

No matter their origin, each person from every place can hear this Gospel.

Luther says that all Christians, by virtue of their baptism are called to declare the wonderful deeds of God, to be preachers of varying sorts.

A few do it publicly, but most takes place in other settings.

Husbands and wives may preach to each other; parents share good news with children; all of us are to share the Gospel with the rest of the world, one person at a time.

Invite someone to join you at home.

A meal doesn't have to be fancy cuisine in order to make a significant impression on the heart and mind of a visitor.

One observer has said that before the word “church” can make a full impression on someone's heart that the word “church” needs to be seen in action in someone's home.

It seems that we are doing much less talking or visiting with neighbors than we did years ago.

And if we invite someone in, perhaps this is another good way that we as Christians can swim against the prevailing social order.

These home-based conversations are more significant and more important than watching sports scores or the outcome of television “reality” shows, those things which are done mostly alone.

The conversations can go in many directions, and perhaps the right moment will come along where we can say “Come to sit with me here in worship.”

And the Spirit can do wonders with the opportunity.

It just may become holy time, time set apart for God to do great things.

It may open our minds and hearts to a true reality of our present being bound up in God's future.

It may disclose the purpose of our living and believing in the Lord Jesus.

These are the things that the Spirit may do, things that we cannot accomplish on our own.

We are talking about Pentecost of 2,000 years ago, and also about Pentecost that can happen in our midst this very day.

For the Spirit still breathes new breath into dry bones, and they shall live; because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.