The Day of Pentecost, June 4, 2017

Joel 2:28-29 - And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.  ²⁹ And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

“Can you hear me now?”  That question is famous now, thanks to the people over at Verizon Wireless.  But they weren’t the first to say it.  Actually, that honor goes to a lowly, unnamed technician working for the New York office of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company—that’s right, AT&T.  On January 6, 1927 this technician and his counterpart in London made the first transatlantic phone call.  As the connection was made across the Atlantic Ocean, that unnamed technician spoke those now-famous words, “Can you hear me now?”

Those words changed the world.  People who lived across oceans could now talk with one another as easily as two neighbors chatting over the back fence.  All the advancements we enjoy—the way we can now talk to just about anybody we want anytime we want—it was all made possible because of this one phone call.  It’s an amazing accomplishment in communication. 

And yet it’s not nearly as amazing as the communication God opened up at the first Pentecost, as He poured out His Holy Spirit!  Communication—not between people, but between human beings and the Almighty God!  To be able to hear God’s voice speaking to us in His Word, to know His attitude toward us—this is what we celebrate on this day!  As we see the Lord fulfilling this promise that He made in the days of the prophet Joel, we celebrate the fact that the Lord graciously pours out His Spirit—and that He does so both (I) indiscriminately and (II) purposefully.

I.     Indiscriminately.

On this day you can rejoice that the Lord pours out His Spirit indiscriminately—without regard for whether or not we deserve it!  To see how great a blessing this is, we need to think in terms of a set of “before” and “after” pictures. 

First the “before” picture.  In the days of the prophet Joel, the Lord wasn’t pouring out His Spirit.  He was pouring out locusts, a plague of locusts so thick and numerous that they blocked out the sun and the moon.  Joel compares the locusts to a nation’s army rising up against them, “strong and without number,” with teeth that are like “the fangs of a fierce lion” (Joel 1:6).  And when they finally move on, they leave total destruction in their wake, like a fire that devours the open pastures and burns all the trees of the field (Joel 1:19). 

But why did God see the need to allow this to happen?  Well, in those days, the Lord didn’t pour out His Spirit on everyone—only a relatively small number of people:  people like Moses or King David, or the prophets like Joel.  If you wanted to know God’s will, you had to listen to them.  But most people didn’t listen to God’s will; they followed their own heart’s desires and worshiped other gods.  So, the Lord had one option left:  the blunt force of plagues and punishment.  This horde of locusts was the Lord’s effort to send His people a wake-up call to turn away from their sin. 

It appears the locusts had done the trick.  People were listening now, repentant, praying for deliverance.  So, the Lord promised them an “after” picture to go with this “before” picture.  He promised that He would open the lines of communication with them, that He would graciously and indiscriminately pour out His Spirit on them: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I shall pour out My Spirit on all flesh” (v. 28).  Afterward, he says—after the great restoration, after God put everything back the way it was supposed to be, not just before the locusts, but before sin entered the world.  After the promised Savior came.  That Savior was Jesus, who died to pay for humanity’s sin and who rose from the dead to declare God’s peace and forgiveness to the whole world.  After Jesus completed His saving work, that’s when God promised to pour out His Spirit. 

And He pours out that Spirit indiscriminately “on all flesh” (v. 28).  Poured out on both “daughters” as well as “sons” (v. 28), on the young as well as the old, on menservants and maidservants (v. 29).  Think of that first Pentecost, of who all was present.  In Acts 1 we’re told that the group that was meeting together with the apostles was about a hundred and twenty people strong, consisting of both men and women of all ages and backgrounds.  There was no more chosen few.  Not to mention all those who heard Peter’s sermon that day—we’re told that they also received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  What an amazing mark of God’s grace for sinners, that He pours out His Spirit on people—simply because they’ve been redeemed in the blood of His Son!

That’s how the Lord has graciously poured out His Spirit on you too.  You and I also have a set of “before and after” pictures that we confessed in the creed this morning.  Our “before” picture was this:  “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him.”  The plain and simple fact is that we come into this world spiritually dead—incapable of knowing God or believing in Him (1 Cor 12:6).  We see this spiritual death all around us—but we also see it in ourselves.  We see it in the way that we so easily fall into sin, to the point that sometimes it takes something big to wake us up to our need to repent—maybe not a horde of locusts, but other things like a car accident or a heart attack.  We don’t deserve to have the Holy Spirit poured out on us!

But we’ve also got that “after” picture of God’s grace:  “But the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”  The Lord has graciously poured out His Spirit on each and every one of you the way some people pour gravy on their plates at Thanksgiving—indiscriminately, without regard for who you are or what you’ve done, purely on the basis of what Jesus has done for you.  By the riches of God’s undeserved love in Christ—He has poured out His Spirit on you through the Gospel, through the good news of your peace with God in Christ.  He’s breathed life into your dead soul, creating a living faith in your heart that clings to all His promises!  This is the gift of the Spirit that Peter talks about—the gift of saving faith in Jesus.     

II.     Purposefully.

The Lord in His grace wants to open up the lines of communication with you—but not just with you.  In His grace the Lord pours out His Spirit—not only indiscriminately, but also purposefully, with a definite plan in mind.    

According to His promise, the Lord said, “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see vision” (v. 28).  But what is the Lord saying?  Does this mean that God’s pouring out His Spirit so that we can have miraculous dreams and visions?  Is He saying that, if you’ve got the Spirit, you’re going to start prophesying on the corner up here out in front of Shopko? 

Remember, the Lord’s speaking of New Testament promises in Old Testament terms.  In Old Testament times, how did the Lord reveal His will to human beings?  Through things like prophecy, dreams, and visions.  The Lord uses these images with Joel because people understood that prophecy, dreams, and visions were pictures of how God revealed His will to people.  What God was saying was that as He poured out His Spirit, He would be revealing His will. 

As God pours out His Spirit on you, He’s revealing His will to you in your life, to give you the vision of what He wants for you.  So what does God want for you?  He tells us in His Word, doesn’t He?  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him has everlasting life” (Jn 3:16).  By the Spirit’s work in our hearts, God speaks to us now in Word and Sacrament as clearly as the neighbor over the back fence!  Only the things He tells us are far better!  He shows us the heart of His love, the heart that is willing to give up His only Son to die for us, and then raise Him from the dead so that we can live with Him forever! 

Yet God’s purpose in sending the Holy Spirit isn’t just for us, but to save others also.  “Your sons and daughters shall prophesy” (v. 28), God said.  And that’s exactly what happened!  Everyone in that upper room started prophesying and speaking in foreign languages.  Not everyone was called to preach!  Everyone prophesied, but only Peter got up and spoke before the crowd publicly.  Similarly those men who are called into the public ministry of the Word are called by God to preach and teach at Christ’s command and on the church’s behalf. 

But every one of you is called to be a priest in God’s kingdom.  He’s poured out His Spirit on us so that He can open up lines of communication with others, so they can hear the truth of His Word.  Think of the ways you do that in your life, the opportunities God gives you to talk about Jesus with a friend or a neighbor, or with your kids and grandkids.  I can think of one way right now.  There’s a sign-up sheet for Vacation Bible School teachers and volunteers in the narthex.  Go and put your name on it somewhere!  Do it today!  Instead of spending a Saturday at the lake or mowing the lawn, spend a Saturday teaching God’s truth to some kids who need to hear it!

I know it can be a little frightening to do something new if you’ve never done it before—just like it was a little frightening for that AT&T technician to make that first call overseas to England.  But I know you can do it.  God has poured His Holy Spirit into your hearts.  He has made you alive in Christ’s death and resurrection.  And as He calls to your mind every wonderful thing that the Lord has so graciously done for you in your life, He will give you the strength to share His Word.  With His Spirit in your heart, you never have to ask Him, “Can You hear me now?”  You know that, in His grace and mercy, He’s always there.  Amen.