Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

          But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. (vs. 26)

          This morning we celebrate the Festival of Pentecost and the fulfillment of the promise made by our Lord to His disciples to send the Holy Spirit. So, this morning - yes, this the Festival of Pentecost - let me invite you to pause and give some reflected attention to the third person of the Trinity on the basis of our Gospel for this day as previously read.  In doing so, however, I would like remind you about the subject of the appointed Gospel readings for these past four Sundays.  They have all come from the 14^th through the 16^th chapter of the Gospel of John.  They have all been part of the extended discourse of Jesus with his disciples in the upper room the night before he was crucified; the night that he instituted his Holy Supper.  But more to the point, all of these texts, including that for this morning, deal with the subject of Jesus telling his disciples that he will be going to the Father soon; and then shortly thereafter, the Father will send the Holy Spirit in the Son’s name. Well today we focus our attention on and celebrate the fulfillment of that promise. 

           In the Old Testament the Spirit of God was closely connected with God’s select use of servants that He would raise up to carry out some special work or mission that God would carry out among His covenant people.  Those who were called by God to be prophets to speak his Word, kings or judges to rule His people. And priests to serve as intermediaries - all were given the Spirit of God in His redemptive history to prepare His people and the world for the fulness of time when He would send us His promised Messiah. And then at the baptism of Jesus, His Spirit is again sent to dwell with His Son incarnate as He would carry out prophetic, regal, and priestly work speaking God’s Word, establishing the Kingdom of God here on earth among the natures, and becoming the one mediator between God and man offering up himself as the perfect sacrifice, one for all, for the sins of the world on the cross.

          But now, as Jesus prepared his disciples for His return to His Father in Heaven, He promised them and us this morning the gift of the Holy Spirit. He promised the disciples, soon to be His apostles, that the Spirit would lead them into all truth and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had already taught them.  What did this leading them into ALL truth mean?  Later in this same discourse, Jesus told them that there were still more things that He wants to tell them but that they were not ready.  They were not yet able to receive the teaching (like, for instance, bringing the Gospel to the pagan gentile world - that you do not have to be a Jew to have Jesus as Lord), but when the Spirit comes, He would disclose and explain all this to them.  In other words, the Spirit will bring them more of the Word and teaching of Christ. In this sense, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to assist in the saving work that the Father has given to the Son - the business of saving sinful human beings like each of us here this morning. You see, the ministry of the Spirit is simply an extension of the ministry of Christ.  And therefore as Jesus ascended bodily to the Father, He now will continue His ministry with a new body, the body of Christ, the Church.  We who make up the Church shall supply his arms, legs, mouth, and voice.  For this reason, the Helper of the Son has been given to his new body, the Church.  As Joel prophesied, the Spirit has been poured out upon us in our baptism just as Peter in his Pentecost sermon promised: Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and you shall received the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38) 

          When Luther arranged his explanation of the Apostle’s Creed, he divided it up into three articles and related them to the Work of the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer, but then the third article He attached to the work of the Holy Spirit and labeled that work, Sanctification. Using the term in a broad sense, Luther meant that it is the work of the Spirit that brings to and through the Church the gifts and saving blessings of the Son that make us holy in the sight of God. This is nothing other than an extension of the Work of Christ. For the Word that saves is the Word of Christ and the gifts that the Spirit imparts through that Word are the saving gifts of Christ. We confess in the Apostles Creed, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. The Spirit makes the Church Holy in baptism where each of us receives the righteousness of Christ. We commune with Christ as by the power of his Word and the Holy Spirit, they become the very body and blood of Christ, given and shed for us. We receive the forgiveness of sins in Holy Absolution and the Holy Supper by the power of Spirit in the Word and we receive and hold them fast by a faith that has been created and sustained by the Holy Spirit . . .and again, all through a Spirit inspired Word of Christ. Where there is the now glorified Christ with His Church, there is the Holy Spirit at work, for us, with us, and in us . . . all by the power of the Saving Word of Christ.

           The Church through the ages has had a difficult time keeping the work of the Holy Spirit tied to the saving Word and work of Christ. It has been tempted to see the event of Pentecost as a second installment of God’s saving work, as if that worked and provided by our Lord, Jesus Christ is incomplete. It has been popular to understand the work of the Holy Spirit as the force in the life of the believer who works a second work of Grace from that of the Son. The notion is that two works of Grace are necessary to save sinners. They need to be forgiven, and they need to be reformed. The Son brings forgiveness, but then the Holy Spirit takes over to help us clean up our lives, giving us the victory over sinful patterns of living and making us fit to live with God. And it is often thought, the more we can be filled with the Spirit, as if you could quantify Him, the more you can become Holy and the closer your relationship with God.

          But these thoughts run counter to the words and promises of Christ. Our Lord promised the Holy Spirit as the Pentecost blessing so that the disciples, now apostles, would receive power to continue bringing the Saving Word of Christ to the nations. He told them: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8). He did not tell them they would receive power to supplement the grace of Christ with additional required holiness. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter links together the gift of the Spirit with the saving gifts of Christ in baptism: be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38).  The Holy Spirit is imparted to us as the Pentecost blessing linked now to our Lord’s baptism that we might live in our baptismal inheritance by faith with the power to live as the already righteous people of God, bringing the all sufficient saving work of Christ to the nations. As the Spirit was received by Christ in his body in His baptism for His ministry of the Word, so the Spirit is received by us in our baptism, now the mystical body of Christ, for a continuation of that ministry until His triumphant return. Pentecost comes to each of us in our baptism. God dispenses with the Dove and the tongues of fire. What we get is Christ and all his saving gifts. We don’t get the trappings of back then, just the water, and just the spiritual blessings . . . and that’s the Spirit of it all. Yes, that’s the Spirit and you get Him in all His fullness.

           In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. A-men!