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

This is the day we celebrate the coming of the Spirit and God presence among us.

Introduktion free from manuscript, but like this:

(We are some Danes to witness that in Denmark Pentecost is synonymous to the greenest and literally lightest time of the year. It means finally summer and God’s recreation of nature, our scenic co-actor to the Good News. The Danes go out-door and enjoy the soft breezes as a Ruah, the breath from the Lord, and our hearts leap with joy by such a grace. I see here the opposite move: You go in-door to avoid the sun and breathe better in the cool air-conditioning. The new bright green dress of the forests is no issue here, and it isn’t news that terraces and parks add new space to your daily living as it is so looked for in my Nordic country: the sun is to you only one of the Lords minor trials you take upon you. The Holy Spirit doesn’t mind, I am glad to say.  So we can celebrate joyously here and there…I am happy to worship with you, my bonus congregation. It is an honor. )

The Holy Spirit bridges the huge gab between Heaven and Earth. It may be explained only as mystic and wild as the Acts 2. Tongues of fire! Gods Spirit until now only recognized as a vague glimpse in Humans was now sent and shed for the Earth, explicit onto the disciples this particular morning. They went out to share it so we today heard it blown in among us by foreign language readers. I was even happy to catch my own language: Our mother tongue gave each of us the very first sense of being, of love and belonging. It is a gift, and in various tongues a hearable sign of our Faith International. Thanks to God’s Spirit this church, CTK, Houston, becomes the Universal Church. Worldwide the Church celebrates its Pentecost together with us.

Each church has its local, national and unique language, in which community and fellowship is born whenever the Word of Christ reaches us and gathers us by the Spirit.

It is in the Christian telling we identify our faith and ourselves.  The Holy Spirit provides it. “He will testify on my behalf”, Jesus said. Love has the quality that it grows when we share it, likewise with the Spirit: it grows from sharing.

If you consider a special party you once gave, then what made it so wonderful and special? O, the table looked beautiful, the flowers fitting for the china, the food was delicious and so the cake...Guests all dressed up for it. But that didn’t do it. I have given parties so rightly done, but somehow it became boring. No, the special to a party we owe to the fellowship, the spirit that lifted the ceiling and made all connect and feel comfortable in each others presence! 

God’s Spirit creates its community beyond human efforts. When it is there love appears and makes us neighbors in the best sense of the word. Forgiveness of sins and second chances are given and received. Then we know life is worth living and in good hands. So with a congregation! Peace and reconciliation host it all, because the Spirit lifts up minds and open hearts. God bridges all with his Spirit in order that we may walk dry-footed over the waters of mistrust, sadness and loneliness.

Jesus says goodbye to his disciples. Ever since Easter we have bit by bit followed John’s own tone taking us carefully into Jesus’ preparation of his disciples.  He couldn’t stay!

The sorrow clings with our own goodbyes with our love ones. Be it shorter or the last goodbye.  

We recognize the focus on love, the focus on the precious time spent together and the promise to meet again. The affirmation of the essence of value we had in love and friendship triumphs everything else in that important moment. Likewise here with Jesus and his bellowed disciples.  But, dear CTK: Resemblance doesn’t do it, we need to see the difference, because the difference is the very core of the Good News.

Jesus will not abandon them, but send his Advocate, the Spirit of Truth and still be with them, guide them and talk them into the truth.  How could the disciples understand that?  Yes, they saw him anew after Easter, but yet they didn’t understand and need the Pentecost Spirit (to unfold it.)  So do we.

Let me unfold that significant difference:  “I met my dear friend yesterday and was cheered by the living friendship and open heart. Today my friend is dead and I am so sad and alone. Not that I do not recall her voice and clearly remember her way of putting things. I am also absolutely convinced of our deep friendship, but I feel abandoned and lonely in my memories. She is not here anymore, neither the friendship. All I have is memories and I feel sad and lonely. Empty”.

That very experience of loneliness also hit the disciples after Jesus’ ascension and a miracle happened Pentecost morning. That lonely sadness disappeared with the presence of the Spirit. The sorrow was gone. They didn’t any longer just recall his words. They heard the living word from a living heart. They were able to hear his very own voice talking from God’s heart to their heart.   The crucified and resurrected Christ again spoke to them through the Holy Spirit, confirming that things were the same, thus lifted up to the godly level where his voice had no bodily limitation. It was to listen to wherever they went and whoever they told. That is the miracle of Pentecost, a true wonder of joy and hope.

Well, in their sadness and sorrow they had gathered in Jerusalem. Not that they felt like going, but duty and discipline called for it, so they went to give their Pentecost thanks for the harvest as it was expected. That was the law.  They had their memories and they treasured them highly. But what they meant and what to use them for, they didn’t know but vaguely.  

Obligation and duty are not irrelevant. We only live a good and meaningful life if we take responsibility to what is our given tasks and duties. But if duty and discipline take over – as sorrow can tend to – tasks and family and friends turn into sheer duty. And there is no life in it. The enthusiasm of heart can leave us.

So, the disciples went to Jerusalem to affirm to God that they would still keep the law and live their lives in duty to him the best they could. And NOW – here they experienced the sad, sheer duty transformed into the opposite:

The Holy Spirit struck them, infused them, and empowered them as happened with Jesus at his baptism. (Baptism is a gift of the Spirit , its blessings can be activated when it is remembered. Today this grace of God is given to 4 little children in our midst. (Late service only) )

The Holy Spirit made the disciples feel with all their senses how much bigger life was than the law and plight of duties. The disciples were drunken, spirited by life itself. They met the life-widening wonder: the Spirit of truth and hope.

It struck them with forgiveness of sin and a renewed faith. It is indeed a new beginning, a new birth. Life was transformed from a sad mechanic duty and into joy and a wide-open perspective of the future. What a day full of grace! They felt loved, guided and encouraged to go out to the World and tell the whole story, the Good News. The Spirit gave new meaning and purpose and they became apostles. He was with them; they heard him, true and real as ever.  The Christian church was a reality!

That is what we today celebrate and share with each other. The crucified and risen Christ is in our midst. The advocate gives life to the old rituals and words. We are not left with dry letters and memoirs in a godless World, but the Lord Jesus Christ is present and speaks his words to reach out for us and widening our faith and hearts to life.

May the Lord’s Spirit reach us with his Ruah and blow away sorrow, infuse joy and meaning into our duties and responsibilities to one another. This day is a celebration, red for the love and blood that pulses anew in our church: a grace for its baptism and birthday. Jesus did not let go of his disciples and he will not bow out on us: “See, I am with you always”, he says. Happy Pentecost, Christ the King and worldwide! Amen!