Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost
He Will Take What is Mine and Declare it to You
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ! Amen. In today's Gospel, Jesus promises you the Holy Spirit,
Who will bear witness about ME [Jesus]." Then Jesus explains to you that the
Holy Spirit "will take what is Mine and declare it to you." With these
Words, Jesus declares to you the on-going work of the Holy Spirit in your
life: the Holy Spirit delivers to you and gives to you everything that first
was given to your Lord.
Dear Christian friends,
A week ago last Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension, which
remembers the day "the Lord Jesus. was taken up in to heaven and sat down at
the right hand of God" (Mark 6:19). Today is the Feast of Pentecost, which
commemorates the day on which Jesus fulfilled His promise to send His dear
Christians "the Helper. the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,"
as you heard in today's Gospel. Ascension and Pentecost are two separate
feast days, but these days are directly connected to each other.
· Your Lord Jesus Christ "ascended far above all the
heavens, that He might fill all things" (Ephesians 4:10). This means that
Jesus, because of His ascension, is now everywhere present. Jesus did not go
far away from you in His ascension, but He actually came nearer to you. Now
there is no place in heaven or on earth that Jesus, True God and True Man,
is not. Jesus now fills the farthest reaches of space, light years away, and
at the same time He also fills the air you breathe.
· There is a great difference between Jesus being near to
you and the benefit you receive from this nearness. Stated another way,
there is a great difference between being near to Jesus and being connected
to Jesus. Where the Ascension marks Jesus filling of all things so that He
might be always near to you, Pentecost is the connection Jesus makes to you
through the gift of His Holy Spirit. "He [the Spirit] will glorify Me," says
Jesus, "for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you."
o As an analogy, think about the water you see in a lake or pond. When
the water evaporates, it does not go away. It simply passes from your vision
and it enters the atmosphere all around you. Then you receive the benefit of
evaporation when the clouds open and it begins to rain. Jesus' ascension
into heaven is like evaporation: He did not go away, but He passed from
sight and entered into everything. In keeping with this analogy, Pentecost
is like the rainfall that waters your garden and the morning dew that soaks
your lawn. Pentecost is Ascension delivered personally to you. Pentecost is
the "for you" of the Ascension. Pentecost is the connection between you and
your ascended, ever-present Lord.
o By way of another analogy, think of the Ascension of your Lord as
being like a warehouse full of beer. No matter how long you might stand
there in the middle of the warehouse, none of that beer will give you any
blessing or benefit until it finds its way out of the barrel into your
belly. Pentecost is the tapping of the Ascension keg, as it were. Pentecost
is the filling of the glass and it is the pouring of all that rich
Ascension-benefit, if you will, into your mouth.
"When the Helper comes. the Spirit of truth. He will bear witness about Me,"
says Jesus. "He will take what is Mine and declare it to you."
· Stated another way, the job of the Holy Spirit is to
deliver to you and to proclaim to you and to assure you that you now have
all the gifts of Jesus Christ's life, death, and bodily resurrection.
· Stated another way, the Pentecost-gift of the Holy
Spirit is the doorway and the portal through which to the Ascension-gifts of
your Lord Jesus Christ come to you.
· Stated another way, the Holy Spirit is NOT in the
business of drawing attention to Himself. The Holy Spirit's main interest
and desire is to glorify Jesus; to draw your attention to Jesus; to give you
the divine gift of faith in Jesus; to press you up against Jesus; to fill
you with Jesus; to tell you that you have forgiveness and life through
Jesus; "He will bear witness about Me," says Jesus. "He will take what is
Mine and declare it to you."
For age upon age, the holy Christian Church has prayed the same words that
we ourselves have prayed today:
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of Your love. Alleluia!
We should use today's Gospel as a way of understanding what it means-and
what it does NOT mean-that the Holy Spirit should fill our hearts and kindle
in us the fire of His love.
· We do not take this to mean that the Holy Spirit
creates herky-jerky worship and gibberish languages for us, as the
Pentecostals rave.
· We do not even take this to mean that our worship
should be geared toward the stirring of our emotions, which is a devilish
trap into which some of our own dear brothers in our sister congregations
have fallen.
· When we pray that the Holy Spirit would fill the hearts
of the faithful, we are praying that we would indeed receive from God all
the gifts of Jesus' ascension into heaven. This is because Jesus says in
today's Gospel, "He [the Holy Spirit] will take what is Mine and declare it
to you." When we ask that the Spirit would kindle in us the fire of God's
love, we are really asking the Holy Spirit to bring us Jesus. This is
because Jesus says to you today, "He [the Spirit] will bear witness about
Me."
What does all this mean for you?
1. This means that you who are Christian have the Holy Spirit living
and dwelling in you, and this in spite of what the Pentecostals may say and
in spite of the way you may feel. You have the Holy Spirit because you have
the Words of Jesus and you have the miraculous gift of faith.
2. This means that your worship participation does not depend on how
you respond and it does not depend on whether or not you felt like the
sermon had anything for you and it does not even depend on whether you think
the pastor is young and relevant or old and gray. Your worship participation
depends on the Holy Spirit coming to you through the preaching of the Word,
through God's miracle of Baptism, and through His service of Holy Communion
to you. By means of these things the Holy Spirit faithfully announces to you
all that Jesus has done and continues to do for you. That is where life is
found! That is where forgiveness is now yours! That is the fire of God's
love and the over-filled hearts of God's faithful people! "He will bear
witness about Me," says Jesus. "He will take what is Mine and declare it to
you."
Because of the good work that the Holy Spirit is doing for you,
right here and now, you have all the gifts (Ephesians 4:8) that Jesus
carried into His ascension into heaven, where He now fills all things.
· Jesus has the gift of forgiveness, and that forgiveness is now
yours through the witness of the Holy Spirit.
· "The Father raises the dead and gives them life," says Jesus,
"[and] so also the Son gives life to whom He will" (John 5:21). That life is
now also yours, given to you by the declaration of the Holy Spirit.
· Jesus has "the Words of eternal life" (John 6:68), and these Words
are now your Words.
· Jesus has the heavenly Father's approval, and so also do you-from
the day of your Baptism.
· Jesus has "the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:9),
and that is the name which is now given to you, the name in which you are
now swaddled and the name by which you are nourished in the faith.
· Jesus has an incorruptible Body-fully human yet unimaginably
perfected and glorified. In Holy Communion, the Holy Spirit gives that same
incorruptible Body to you. This means that you also shall be
The miracle of the Word, the miracle of Baptism, and the miracle of Holy
Communion: here is where Ascension meets Pentecost. Here is where you meet
Jesus-or stated a better way, Jesus meets you. Here is where you get the
Holy Spirit and the fire of His indwelling love.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus. Amen.
___________________________________________________________________________
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