| Главная » Файлы » Проповеди |
23.05.2010_Pentecost 2010_Sid
| 31.05.2010, 11:36 | |
| By Sidney Dement Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17 (25-27) Pentecost: Dialect of the Soul Today we celebrate a unique event in the life of the Church. Fifty days after Easter, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirt and everything changed: in their personal lives as well as in the life their shared in common, collectively. On this day a community of one hundred became a community of several thousands. But the most important thing here is not quantity, but quality. Something changed qualitatively in a small group of people that had for several years already been following a prophet of a new, primarily Galilean, religious movement. We’ve already heard today, what it was like from a historical point of view. In Acts we read about the event, about the miracles of fire and speaking in other languages, we read about thousands of people coming to God. But we probably know these events relatively well. Let’s listen today to what God is saying to us about Himself through these events and miracles. Who is He, with Whom the apostles were filled? Who is He, the One who appeared in the form of tongues of fire? Who is He, the One who spoke through the apostles, and Who wants to speak to us today? If Easter is Jesus’ holiday, then Pentecost is the Holy Spirit’s holiday. Today we celebrate a historical event, but more than that we remember the Holy Spirit and prophecy about Him. Prophecy -- and the primary Prophet of Pentecost is Jesus. Before His ascension He told the apostles to stay in Jerusalem until until they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Even before that He told His apostles about the Comforter. For Jesus is the Son, the Messiah, the King, the Word in Flesh, but besides that he is also a Prophet. Let’s read Jesus’ prophecy about the coming of the Holy Spirit. John 14:8-17 (25-27) These are some of the most important words in the Bible for us. When we read these verses, we could ponder many things. In the first place, Jesus explains the Holy Trinity for us. We could spend a lot of time today trying to reason out the relationship of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Secondly, Philip’s request is very instructive. Whom among us has not been tortured at some point by the very same request. "Lord! Show me Yourself! I want to see. Others might be able to believe without seeing, but I can’t. If only I could see with my own eyes, I would believe more strongly, I would know how to act, I wouldn’t doubt Your existence.” But today’s word for us is something different. Today the Lord wants to speak to us not about reason, not about faith, and not about dogma. Today God is calling us to sense and hear Himself, the Comforter, prophesied by God’s Son Jesus. As I was preparing the sermon, God continually attracted me to all of the scriptures we read today, and especially to the theme of the ‘word’, the theme of ‘language’ that saturates all of these scriptures. Let’s begin with Psalm 104 about the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything that lives in them: birds, animals, fish. God created all of this through the Word. John draws a very meaningful parallel with the first words of Genesis in the first words of his Gospel. In Genesis it is written: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the Gospel of John it is written: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” When I read these words I usually think about Jesus and not about the Holy Spirit. And the beginning of John really is about Jesus, which becomes obvious in verse 14: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” But as I started reading more about Pentecost, I noticed that the theme of word also has to do with the Holy Spirit. We read in Acts that the miracle of speaking in different languages is a witness of the presence of the Holy Spirit among the apostles. Each of those present, gathered from the whole world, heard the apostles speaking not only in their own language but in their own idiom or dialect. And there also appeared on the apostles tongues of fire, coming to rest on the apostles. It’s as if the Holy Spirit chose for Himself the symbol of language, which responds to Philip’s request: "Show us the Father.” Foreseeing our typically human doubt and suspicion the Holy Spirit revealed Himself as a flaming tongue for those who needed a visible sign, and at the same time revealed Himself in a miracle of foreign languages for those who respond more to audible phenomena. Remember how Psalm 104, the first chapter of Genesis and the beginning of John’s Gospel resonate with each other? The description of the miracle at Pentecost in Acts also resonates with the Old Testament. In chapter 11 of Genesis we read about the Tower of Babel, a story which demonstrates the results of pride, characteristic of humanity, and also explains the confusion of languages on the earth. Even the textual connection between the two events is clear: "Now the whole world had one language and one common speech” (Gen. 11:1). And the apostles also started speaking in different languages (Acts 2:4), and each heard those speaking in his own native tongue (2:6, 8). In other words, it’s as if the Holy Spirit on Pentecost heals the wound caused by pride, which has been open and infectious since antiquity. So what is so important about ‘word’ and ‘language’ here? Creation, Incarnation, Pentecost, all of these most important of events are interwoven with one and the same linguistic theme: the Word. The more I thought about language, the more the theme of language in Scripture seemed to me to be a wise one. Language is perhaps the most essential part of our personality. A sense of humor, relationships with our loved ones, education -- all of it demands knowledge of language. Even the Gospel is a text. At the end of the day we have to read and hear the Gospel. Language also often serves as a symbol of the spiritual condition of a person. Flaming tongues came to rest on the apostles in a sign of holiness and the presence of the Holy Spirit, but James also tells us about language and fire in a different sense. "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the same tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing” (James 3:6-10). Language really is a two-edged sword isn’t it? As a teacher of language I often see how this ambivalence of language affects my students. When a student feels like they know something well, that they can pronounce some word or another like a Russian, then they’re proud of it, they like the feeling. But when a student feels like they don’t know something, like they don’t understand something and that they speak with a ridiculous accent, they can feel down, even ashamed. Overcoming these emotions connected with language is sometimes the largest hurdle for my students. As a teacher I see them struggling with themselves, they want to speak but are ashamed because they are afraid to seem stupid in front of their classmates. Or it sometimes happens that a student thinks a little too highly about their knowledge of Russian and no matter what I do I can’t get them to slow down and think a little more about pronunciation and grammar. Well and I myself have felt this on my own hide. You see I’m the teacher, and I know Russian very imperfectly. Like a hypocrite I act like I know the language in front of my students, but actually I need to study myself! And during a class if I know something and can answer everybody’s questions then I like it and I feel good about it. But students are students, they love to catch me in a mistake, to try and show that they know more than the teacher. Maybe that is only characteristic of American students, but I think you understand what I’m talking about. Language can be an occasion for pride, like in the story of the Tower of Babel, and at the same time, because of pride, language can be the cause of feelings of shame. We see similar emotions among the witnesses of the first Pentecost. Sure, some came to the faith. But some started laughing with condescension, saying: "They’re drunk!” They couldn’t bring themselves to believe that Galileans could speak in different idioms, surely only the most refined people in the world can command a language with such subtlety! Their ashamed that Galileans know their dialect, and they themselves speak Aramaic poorly. Pride gnaws at them and therefore they take a miracle of God for drunkenness. But that’s not even the biggest tragedy for them. They missed the fulfillment of the Messiah’s prophecy. The Holy Spirit was speaking to them, the Comforter, and all they can think about is human dialects. For them the miracle isn’t consolation because they don’t see God behind the miracle. You see the miracle isn’t that Galileans speak different languages, but the the Almighty God is speaking to them in an accessible language, in the language of their hearts. Jesus foresaw that not everyone would recognize the Holy Spirit. Remember, in verses 16 and 17 Jesus says: "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever -- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.” Let’s not miss the miracle of the Spirit of truth, Who doesn’t speak to us in Russian or in any other human language. What word is He whispering to you today? Maybe He’s whispering the word "shalom,” like Jesus said in verse 27: "My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Or it is completely realistic that today we don’t hear this Word because of some other human words that are sounding so loudly, words we just can’t forget about and no matter what we do we can’t silence them. Maybe someone said something to us, offended us, cut us to the quick. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. We offended someone with a word or a deed and today we can only hear our own words of accusation. Let’s try and turn off these human words today and hear the Comforter. Let’s forget about Russian and about English, about Armenian and Kazakh, Greek and Aramaic. What is being said to us in the language of our soul? What is the Comforter saying to us? Maybe we’ll have to ask for forgiveness. Maybe we’ll have to forgive ourselves. Maybe the Holy Spirit will make us do what we’re afraid to do, what we don’t want to do and what we can’t do by our own efforts -- He’s very unpredictable! But stop worrying about that -- it’s all secondary. We will only be able to do it later, first of all we need to understand the Comforter Himself, not on the level of Russia language, but deeper, on the heart level, where the Spirit of truth speaks to us in the dialect of our soul. That is the real miracle of Pentecost -- not the quantity of new Christians. New believers are a side effect of the real miracle of the Holy Spirit being among us. Let’s listen to Him. | |
| Просмотров: 414 | Загрузок: 30 | Рейтинг: 0.0/0 | |
| Всего комментариев: 0 | |