I love to study history. I enjoy memorizing dates. How many of you here this morning like history? Regardless, there are certain dates in history that we remember aren’t there?
For example, if I say 1492 – we all know what happened in 1492. Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
What about October 31, 1517? On this day in history, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five Theses, to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. Most scholars call this the very moment the beginning of the Protestant Reformation – an event that changed the face of the church forever.
OK, let try another one… how about 1861? This is the year of the beginning of the civil war in America. Or what about Good Friday, April 14, 1865? That is the date of the death of President Abraham Lincoln.
How about Christmas Eve 1784? Do we know what happened Christmas Eve 1784? This is the year the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in America, under the leadership of Bishops Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke. Christmas Eve 1784.
Ok lets try two dates now … these are easy ones… some of you may even remember where you were on these days… December 7, 1941 and November 22, 1963. Of course, I am sure some of you have great stories about what you were doing when you first heard that Pearl Harbor had been attacked and when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated.
But do you remember where you were on April 23, 1968? Lots of things happened in 1968… Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, the race riots in Chicago, the protests of the Vietnam War… but on April 23, 1968 the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church.
OK, now lets try two more July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence passed by Congress. We celebrate this date every year. It is the birth of our nation.
Now what about the 50th day after Easter every year? Do we know what happens on this date? Some of you may know but I have to tell you that I believe most of us don’t. Every year the 50th day after the resurrection of our Lord, we celebrate Pentecost. This is the birth of our church. Some 2000 years ago the church was founded and it changed the world forever.
I have to tell you I am upset with my church. As a boy growing up in the Southern Baptist Church we never celebrated Pentecost, but we sure never missed celebrating July 4th. We spent more time and energy and money having a picnic and singing songs about the birth of nation than we did about the birth of our church. We know and are taught more about American History than we know about Christian History. Do we care more about being an American than we do about being a Christian?
I have wonder… we do celebrate Easter and Christmas every year in the church. Surely we would never miss celebrating those holidays. But would we put so much emphasis on these two days if it weren’t for the civil calendars celebration of these days? I mean, everyone celebrates Christmas and Easter. It is a national holiday. The stores, both sacred and secular, are filled with decorations, cards, and all kinds of stuff for these two Christian holidays. Of course, the culture has accepted these holidays and actually tried to take them over with secular themes like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
But if the culture did not emphasize these holidays would we as Christians care as much? Think about it. If the culture made a big deal about Pentecost would we pay more attention? If we could go to Wal-Mart and buy big chocolate figures of the Holy Spirit or have Pentecost specials on TV about the birth of the church or maybe have some secular mascot for Pentecost, maybe some marketing firm could come up with something clever, like Peter the Pentecost Parrot. Maybe then we would celebrate this day with more enthusiasm.
I am upset with my church for not teaching me about the significance of this great day. This important day for us Christians.
An what does it say about our beliefs… what does it say about who we are if we spend more time celebrating the birth of our nation than the birth of our church? What does that tell God about our priorities… about our convictions and our trust in His church. I would be afraid to seriously ask God that question.
So this morning lets look at Pentecost. Pentecost come from the Greek word for 50. You have to know that Pentecost was originally a Jewish holiday. It is the Feast of Weeks or Shavout (Sha-vo-iss) marking the end of the barley harvest. It was a pilgrimage holiday and Jews from all over the known world would come to Jerusalem to bring their offerings. Jewish farmers came to give thanks to God for the harvest by bringing their first fruits and giving them to God. The first fruit – the first date or the first fig—when it became ripe because that as the one fruit that could be offered to God they would pick it and bring it. So Pentecost was about celebrating the bountiful harvest.
Shavout also celebrates the giving of the law. The Jews made the connection of the giving of the law and the giving of the first fruits because the giving of the law and the giving of food by God were both important to the nourishment of the people – body and soul. All of this takes place 50 days after the second day of the Passover.
This same day is the 50th day after Easter, after the resurrection of Christ and we Christians also celebrate this special day. But for Christians this is more than just an event about harvest. And it certainly is a life and world changing experience because at Pentecost was the introduction of a major player – The Holy Spirit. Granted the Holy Spirit existed long before the first Christian Pentecost. In fact, as we can read Genesis 1, we can understand that the Trinity was there from the beginning – God, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
But now, the Holy Spirit is introduced in a new way for us. The Holy Spirit makes his or her first appearance as being revealed as a gift bringing special powers on the community of believers. Here the Holy Spirit helps the people from all the different nations and languages understand the message of the Apostles. This is quite contrary to the celebration of the law – now we are given the Holy Spirit which frees us from the law.
This is something to celebrate. This coming of the Holy Spirit is a fulfillment of Christ’ promise to his followers. Christ has not left us alone, he has come to us as he promised. He promised he would send His Holy Spirit to come to be with us if we would wait for him. And on this special day we see that God has kept His promise. The rushing wind and the tongues of fire are symbolic of the Spirit’s presence on this day. This wind and fire marks the presence of God just as it did with God at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 and Mount Zion in Isaiah 31.
The visitors were amazed at the effects of the Spirit’s arrival that day in Jerusalem. They heard these Galileans speak their own languages and naturally wonder what all of this meant. Peter responds to there inquires by telling them that they were not drunk… after all it is only 9 in the morning. No, he explains the actions by referring to the prophecy of Joel that in the Day of the Lord to come, when God establishes the kingdom, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. This miracle that they have witnessed was the fulfillment of Joel’s dream about the kingdom to come.
It is a new day for Christians. Later on we can read in Acts 2, the founding of the first church. I preached for about 6 weeks on Acts chapter 2 when I first came to New Burlington. I preached about how the 3,000 new members of this church devoted themselves to what I called the Four priorities of the Church. On this day, the 50th day after Easter, the church was born with the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Think about what that means. Can you imagine our world without the church?
At some point in time a major geological event happened in California. When the Colorado River broke away form its southerly course to the Gulf of California and instead began to flow west, it formed the Salton Sea near the border of Mexico. The sea is 45 miles long, seventeen miles wide, about 85 feet deep, and 227 feet below sea level. The area was hailed as the Golden State’s new playground. Two hundred and fifty miles of streets were laid, a golf course was developed right next to a new yacht club, and a fashionable resort was erected. But today it is a ghost town because the Salton Sea has become so salty, having no outlet, that life is stifled and the glitter has turned to brown mud.
Imagine the world, lost in darkness without the light of the church. Imagine the violence and destruction and discrimination and obscenity that would exist without the church. I mean we have all of this with the church. In our culture violence, discrimination, obscenity is rampant, and the church is here to speak out against it. Imagine if we did not have the church, how much worse our world would be.
Imagine that we did not have a place to come to learn about the faith of God, the promises of the Holy Spirit, a place to come when all else in our lives seems wrong, we have a place to meet that is just right. The church is wonderful and our world would not be the same without it. Imagine how stale and stagnant our world would be without the church of Jesus Christ. Imagine how muddy our lives would become without the outlet of our Christian community.
You see we are nourished by a fountain of living water – the Spirit of life everlasting. We can draw from this plentiful source of refreshing vitality provided by the Spirit. We can be renewed. And we do all of this as we come together in the church community. We are privileged to have the opportunity to come here and worship God together, to hear each other’s joys and concerns, we can learn and teach each other, we can fellowship together, we can break bread and pray together. And then we can leave these doors and face the world for another week with the assurance that God will be with us, that God will bless us and help us in the good times and the bad times. What’s not to celebrate? Why shouldn’t we recognize this day as a day of rejoicing? Why shouldn’t we spend as much time and effort and money celebrating the birth of our church as we do the birth of our nation?
Your answer to that question will inform me about who we are as Christians. I have been pastor here for two years in July. Since I have been here we have faced some major challenges in our nation and we have come together, rightfully, as a community of faith to lean on each other and to seek God’s presence for help in our times of national crisis. But something has bothered me during these times of seeking and times of remembrance. I remember one Sunday even more clearly than the rest. At the end of the service, after we had prayed for our troops in the face of danger, after we had prayed for peace throughout our world, after we sought out God in the midst of war, a song was played – it was the national anthem. And as it played we all stood up, in reverence, in respect, in honor. Our culture has come to prize this song.
Yet, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to do it – but I wanted to sit down. I was disgusted – and to the danger of losing your respect this morning – I must tell you I still am. Each and every Sunday we sing praise songs. We sing songs to our God, our creator, our savior – we sing to God praise songs, and we remain seated in our pews. I have not once seen this congregation stand for a praise song. In fact, when I first came here to this church there was a statement in our bulletin instructing us not to stand during the praise songs. Of course, I believe my first action as your pastor was to have that sentence removed. Yet, still we don’t stand. We just don’t do it. And it seems to me we only stand where the asterisks tells us. But that day, when the national anthem played – no matter how tired we were, no matter how our legs felt, or how often we had stood up in that service previous to the end – we stood up for that song, even though there was no asterisk instructing us to do so. We did it because it is second nature. We did it out of honor and respect.
Why will we stand for the national anthem instantaneously and not stand to sing praises to our King – the true and one ruler of this world? What does that tell God about our love for Him? What does that tell God about our allegiance?
This reminds me of a funny story. A pastor was trying to raise money for the building fund and he knew the church really needed to raise some money. So on this particular Sunday, he was going to challenge the church to pledge some funds to help rebuild. He talked to the music director and told her that he was going to challenge the church to pledge some money for the fund and asked if she would play an appropriate song after he made his plea. She thought about it as she listen to this young preacher make his plea for the building fund. Just as he was finishing he said, “I challenge you this morning to stand up right now and pledge $100 a person for the building fund.” At that moment the music director started playing the national anthem and everybody in the church stood up to sing the song.
I ask you this morning what do you stand for? Do you stand for the goodness of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of God His father, and the gift of His Holy Spirit? Do stand for the church, which on its birthday, was created to bring about God’s kingdom – on earth as it is in heaven? It’s time we celebrate what deserves celebration. Be proud of God’s church and all its accomplishments. Stand in awe of the incredible things the church has done. It has lasted the test of time. It has adapted in cultures and reached millions of people with the love of Jesus Christ. She has been there for you and for me.
This morning may we celebrate the birth of our church. May we rejoice because the Holy Spirit has come and set us free. The Holy Spirit empowers us to come together to be witnesses for Christ throughout the world. Maybe we can’t speak in the tongues of different languages but we can work through the church to reach all the lands, all the tribes, all the people of this earth. Through the work of the Holy Spirit in the church we can take the healing message of Jesus Christ – the peaceful message of the prince of Peace, the restoring Good News of the wounded healer and offer it to all persons everywhere.
There nothing better to celebrate, each and every year. There nothing better to stand for each and every day.
Let us pray.
