Pentecost Sunday Intergenerational Message
The Story of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21)
Pentecost is one of my favourite days of celebration in the Church Year! You may really like Christmas, and Easter Sunday is pretty special, but Pentecost is amazing!
I love that I get to wear my red stole on Pentecost. The red colour reminds us of the fire of the Holy Spirit, and my stole also has these lovely doves flying down to bless God’s people. I’m happy to see that many of you wore red today too!
We’re going to start today by telling the story from the Book of Acts about what happened on the first Day of Pentecost after Jesus died and went up to heaven. Marianne and I thought it would be fun to tell the story from Acts 2:1-21 by singing about it. But we’re also going to need your help to make the story really come alive!
The story takes place in Jerusalem seven weeks after Jesus went up to heaven. So we’re going to need someone to hold the sign for Jerusalem, so we remember where we are.
On that day in Jerusalem, the disciples were gathered together in one place. So we’re going to need some people to be the disciples. It would be great if we could get some younger people and some older people and some in between people. Everyone gather together here in Jerusalem!
Suddenly, while they were all together, they heard the sound of a rushing wind, and it filled the whole house! Can we have a couple of volunteers to be the wind of the Spirit (waving blue cloth). I wonder if the whole congregation can help with making the sound of the wind – the Spirit of God sounds like wind!
After hearing the sound of the wind, the disciples saw the Spirit of God moving above them, dividing, and hovering like flames of fire. The Spirit was not only like wind, but it was like fire. Can we have a couple of volunteers to be the fire of the Spirit? If you’re wearing red today, you’d be perfect for the role! The fire of the Holy Spirit descends on each disciple, and moves them to speak about God’s love in all different languages. (Place flames on each disciple. Disciples mime speaking in languages.)
When the disciples start to tell the good news about Jesus in all different languages, the people of the city of Jerusalem start to gather around listening. So we need some more people to come up and join the crowd, listening to the disciples. And the listeners are totally amazed by what they hear!
Finally, the Apostle Peter decides it’s time for him to speak. Which of you disciples would like to be Peter? You get to mime preaching a wonderful sermon about how God raised Jesus from the dead, and how all the disciples are witnesses, and how Jesus is now in heaven at the right hand of God, and the Holy Spirit has now been poured out in power on all Jesus’ followers.
Wow! That was great! There’s one more thing we need to practice, and that’s the actions for the refrain of our song:
I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh:
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy;
your young shall see visions, see visions;
your old shall dream dreams.
Marianne and Amanda sing Hymn #278: “That day in Jerusalem”
Congregation joins on the refrain with actions.
Volunteers act out the story.
Scripture Reading: John 14:8-17, 25-27
Reflection: Greater Works than These
Thank you, Marianne, for singing the story from Acts, and reading the story from the Gospel of John.
You may have noticed that we jumped back in time a little bit when Marianne read the story from John’s Gospel. Instead of the disciples being on their own in Jerusalem, waiting for Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit to come true, they’re back in Bethany at the home of Jesus’ friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.
Jesus is still with them, but he’s preparing them for the fact that he will soon be arrested and killed. Jesus is helping his friends get their heads around the fact that he is not going to be with them in the same way anymore.
I think Jesus’ disciples are quite worried and upset because he’s going to be leaving them. But Jesus is explaining that he will never REALLY leave them. He explains to Philip and the others that he and God the Father are One.
The God they probably thought of as above all and far away has come close to them in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was not just a human being – but he was God’s very presence in the world – because Jesus and God the Father are One.
Jesus goes on to hint at what the church would later come to call the Trinity – the idea that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons, but One God. And when Jesus is no longer physically present in the world, he promises that God will send the Holy Spirit to be with them (and with us). God isn’t leaving them, but God is going to be with them in a new and wonderful way.
We know that Jesus’ promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples like wind and fire, and then God was present and active in their bodies, in their words, and in their love for the world, just as God had been present in Jesus’ body, in his words, in his actions, and in his love.
The line in this passage that always jumps out at me is the one where Jesus tells his disciples that with the Spirit’s help, they will do even greater things than he did. Imagine that!
Jesus did some really amazing things in his life and ministry. Do you remember some of them? (multiplying food, walking on water, healing people from diseases, raising people from the dead, loving and welcoming people who were hated by others or left out, challenging powerful people to change their ways…)
And Jesus tells his disciples that with the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we will do even greater things than he did! Through the Spirit, God has blessed us with many different gifts to share, with hearts to love, and with voices and hands and bodies to use to share God’s love.
Now, I know for sure that I can’t do greater things than Jesus did all by myself. I do have a few gifts and I’m good at some stuff, but I’m no Jesus! You probably feel the same way I do. You can’t imagine doing the kinds of things that Jesus did.
But Jesus didn’t ask his followers to do miracles on their own. He called them together into communities of faith and love, and he gifted us with the Holy Spirit so that TOGETHER as the CHURCH we can do even greater things than he did.
And I don’t just mean First Presbyterian Church, or The Presbyterian Church in Canada. I mean the whole church, including all Christians all across Canada and around the world. Together, with the Spirit’s help we can tell the good news about Jesus to all people, and share food with the hungry, and heal and help people who are sick, and work for peace and justice for everyone, and care for Creation, and bring hope and joy to the world.
During the Easter school break, some of our youth spent some pretty intense time together at the church. They used their gifts, time, and talent to do a pretty great thing in the basement under the sanctuary. They painted the walls and added a colourful mural to brighten the space for the 12-step groups that use that room almost every day of the week.
And they also spent time with me and Sumi delving deeply into their faith and exploring what it means to be a member of the church. It doesn’t mean that these young people know everything there is to know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit or the church. None of us do!
But like many of older folks here today, they’ve decided that following Jesus with their lives is something they want to do, and becoming professing members of the church is an important step on that journey.
I have no doubt that these young people are all going to do great things in their lives of faith. Individually, they won’t be as great as Jesus. But together with each other, with First Church, and with the church throughout the world… And with the power of the Holy Spirit, I trust Jesus’ promise that they will do even greater things.