Acts 2:1-21 (Pentecost Sunday)
St. John, Galveston 5/24/2026
Rev. Alan Taylor

+ In Nomine Jesu +

Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

    Dr. Oswald Hoffman, a long time Lutheran Hour speaker, once said, “Lutherans see themselves as God’s frozen people.” His comment was, of course, a take off on God’s choosing of the people of Israel. It was also a reference to the relatively emotionless heritage of the German people.

    Today is Pentecost Sunday. For whatever reason, generally speaking, people tend to think of the work of the Holy Spirit as ecstatic and, dare I say, emotional, or even expressive. That being the case, do we as Lutheran Christians have anything to say about the Holy Spirit, or do we adopt the sentiments of a Lutheran Professor who wrote a book many years ago about the Holy Spirit, titling it, “The Half Known God?”

    Well, we Lutherans do, in fact, have a lot to say about the Holy Spirit and His work in the Kingdom of God, even though we don’t necessarily buy into the otherwise ecstatic and excessively expressive view of the Holy Spirit and His work. And, by the way, neither do we except the notion that the Holy Spirit has a mission of His own, that is, apart from the Gospel of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection for the life of the world. As Jesus Himself said, “when the Helper (the Holy Spirit) 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.”

    In last Sunday’s message, we reflected for a bit on one of the apostles, namely Judas Iscariot, and how you and I are NOT unlike him, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” As a part of the message, I emphasized that Jesus’ atonement, His death on the cross, was a universal atonement, which means, it was the price paid for the sins of all people, including the sins of Judas, and more to the point, including your sins and mine.  
    The universal atonement is central, both to the Gospel itself and to the mission of the Church. The connection between the Universal Atonement and the Church’s mission is made clear in the last chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

    Jesus has graciously given us the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins, and He tells us to GO, precisely because the Gospel is for all people. On the Day of Pentecost though, the disciples were gripped with fear, frozen, if you will, “all together (as Luke says) in one place.” Perhaps the disciples were Lutherans.

    In all seriousness though, the disciples situation reminds me of a story that a pastor told about his arrival at a church to which he had been called to serve. He began his work by attending all of the various meetings of the boards and committees. One night, he sat in on the evangelism committee meeting. The members of the committee talked about outreach, specially about how to tell people about Jesus. Around midway through the meeting, the pastor asked, “well, when do you go out and make evangelism calls?” They said, “oh, we don’t go out, we just talk about it.”

    As I said last Sunday, we are not unlike Judas Iscariot, but neither are we unlike the other disciples, or in the case of this morning’s message, Simon Peter. Peter holds a prominent place in the text for this morning. In both a confident and assertive manner, he stood up to preach the Gospel to the people who had gathered on Pentecost. Little more than two months earlier though, Peter seemed to be a different person altogether. He was timid, even cowardly. He had followed Jesus into the courtyard of the High Priest. He was curious about what was going to happen to Jesus after He was arrested. He gathered at a fire pit in the center of the courtyard to warm himself. A young servant girl looked at him and said, “you also were with Jesus, the Galilean, weren’t you?” Peter denied it, saying, “I don’t know what you mean.” The girl restated her accusation and Peter denied again. Then, “after a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.” Then (Peter) began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man, (he said).”

    Peter was fearful and timid because he didn’t want to suffer for the sake of the Gospel and his faith in Jesus. In one way or another, I think we can all relate to Peter in that respect. Maybe it’s all part of our perceived frozenness as Lutheran Christians. Peter’s greater failure though was that he trusted in himself to stand up for the faith he believed and confessed. You may remember that earlier he said to Jesus, “though they (meaning all of the other disciples) fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” I think we can all relate to Peter’s misplaced self-confidence too.

    I think though that it is at Pentecost that we, as the people of God, can most identify with and relate to Simon Peter. Now, with what I’m about to say about Peter, please note that the Scriptures are often descriptive more than they are prescriptive. What that means is that they often describe something that happened in the life of a particular prophet or apostle, but that doesn’t mean that we will all have the same, or even a similar experience in our own lives. For instance, David jumped into a lion’s den and was not consumed by the lions. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be jumping into a lions den anytime soon, hoping for the same results.

    The reason for Peter’s new found boldness and courage wasn’t the miraculous manner in which the Holy Spirit was poured out on him, rather it was that God graciously bestowed on him the Holy Spirit to give him “power from on high.” As Jesus had told the disciples earlier, “behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

    God bestowed His Holy Spirit on you as well, through water and the word, and through the continual preaching and hearing of God’s Word. As we learned to confess in the Small Catechism, it is the Holy Spirit given to you by God’s word and His sacraments, whereby “the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, He has enlighten you with His gifts, and He has sanctified and kept you in the one true faith.” And so, for those of you who may worry from time to time about the strength, or the vitality of your faith, know that God has you in the palm of His hand, and that, “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate (you) from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 
 

   To GO into all the world with the Gospel looks different in all of our lives, mainly because our vacations are often vastly different. Nevertheless, by the power of the Holy Spirit, God has broken us free from our frozenness, that we might bear witness to His goodness and mercy. And remember, God’s desire to save people from sin and death is universal, which to say, it’s for all people. And so, even the person in line in front of you at HEB, who clearly has more than ten items in their cart, when the sign says, ten items or less, has been redeemed by Christ the crucified. The Holy Spirit give you the boldness of Peter, and the tender heartedness and compassion of Christ Jesus Himself.  

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.

+ Soli Deo Gloria +