Exordium
The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.
—Those words of Christ from our Gospel lesson are what our observance of this day is all about, this Day of Pentecost.
Believers had gathered in Jerusalem (as they always had for this particular Feast that perhaps commemorated the giving of the Law through Moses on Mt. Sinai). But among them were also these who’d become Jesus’ followers. It had been ten days since He’d ascended into heaven (telling them to remain there in Jerusalem, to wait for the promise of the Father, to wait to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, to be clothed with power from on high [Luke 24:49]). Huh, they were probably thinking to themselves as they scratched their heads (What else would one think at having been told something like that)?
But then, on that day, imagine their joy! Jesus’ words had been fulfilled in such a remarkable way! A sound from heaven like a mighty rushing wind, tongues as of fire that glowed above each of them, even visibly resting on them, the sudden uttering by them, of languages they hadn’t known before (even more, the Spirit was speaking the wonderful works of God through them!). The Holy Spirit had come to them as Jesus had promised, to teach them, to draw them closer to God—knowing Jesus their Savior even better, giving them power to proclaim Him even.
You are Jesus’ followers who are gathered on another Pentecost thousands of years later. You aren’t any different from those first ones. You cling to God’s Word because you know the burden of your sins. You hang on His Words of mercy. You wait on the same work of the same Spirit. For many of you, He came to you first at your Baptism as an infant, communicating with you in whatever way was necessary the wonderful works of God—that He has removed your sins for Christ’s sake.
Perk your ears up to hear St. Peter’s message in our text this morning. He speaks it to you, too. He accuses you of crucifying the Lord, Christ, because it was your sins, too, that necessitated such horror. What will you do with such an accusation? That’s the question the accused ask in the text, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Will St. Peter answer with a long list of works they must accomplish in order to get back into God’s good graces? How will He answer this most desperate of questions? For now, we’ll just say that you aren’t the answer; Jesus is. We sing our festival hymn, #399 – O Light of God’s Most Wondrous Love
Sermon
Acts 2:36–42
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Our text follows the events of our Epistle lesson—the Pentecost things. After Jesus’ Ascension, the Spirit had come upon His apostles as He’d promised, to remind them of His Words, and to guide them into all truth (John 16:13). He’d brought about wonders of sight and sound in the seeing and hearing of all gathered in Jerusalem for the feast. The writer (Luke) says that all were amazed and perplexed. And he says that some were mocking [this miracle—the apostles proclaiming Christ in the various languages of the gathered peoples], saying, “They are filled with new wine.” They’re drunk, they meant, of course. Peter had stood up and begun to address that assumption. Drunkenness didn’t explain it, he’d said; rather, prophecy. The Old Testament prophet Joel had foretold this outpouring of the Spirit, and subsequent prophesying of many of God’s people—and conversion unto eternal life of many of the hearers.
The confirmands have learned that the Law is one of the Bible’s two main teachings. It says what God requires of us (the following of the Commandments themselves, and the extent to which we’re to follow them: perfectly). And, of course, the fuller conversation revolves around where that realization leaves us. Guilty is the answer; it leaves us guilty. It leaves us without any way of reaching God’s kingdom that we could accomplish on our own. We look into the mirror of the Law and see in ourselves only guilt and shame (and therefore, as being in a great crisis!).
Imagine what it would have been like to hear Peter’s preaching of the Law in his message that day: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
And we might think, well, wait a minute! That’s gonna make ‘em feel bad! Yes, and there’s an object to it. It’s what Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes when He says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:3,4). The poor in spirit, the mourners—they’re the ones who’ve had this sort of finger pointed at them, and have recognized their sin, and have come to realize there’s no way out of the trouble without God’s help.
Peter’s listeners had been deceived (even by their own spiritual leaders). They’d been caught up in a wickedness that now made them ashamed. Now, they’d seen the power of God displayed in the Holy Spirit’s coming. It horrified them to hear Peter say what they’d done. That’s why in the beginning of our text, after Peter has added: God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified, they respond with shame and regret. St. Luke says, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
You shouldn’t think there isn’t the same finger pointed at you. You share the same nature as Peter’s audience. You’ve been deceived by the devil, and the world, and your flesh into grievous sin, too. You aren’t any less guilty before God. You’re to be included in the Bible’s statement: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)—me too.
Haven’t you had moments like those people in our text, when the Law’s spotlight has been shined on you, and you realize you’ve been trapped into speaking or thinking something evil toward someone else (or doing something). It felt like the right thing at the time because your wicked nature was celebrating it and even making plans to continue it in the future, expanding on it, even! But now you realized that you had (once again) been led down a path that wasn’t glorifying God, but rather the devil. And having had those times you can relate to how the people in our text were feeling. You can relate to the regret, and to the shame. You can relate to the desperate question: “Brothers, what shall we do?”
The other of the Bible’s main teachings that the confirmands have come to understand is the Gospel. When you recognize that you have fallen short of God’s glory, and are guilty, and are deserving of everlasting punishment, the last thing you would want is for someone to answer your question, “What shall we do” with a list of possibilities for you to try in hopes that God might be suitably impressed with your effort, and consider you to have made up for your wrongs. What a discouraging thing that would be! Nothing has changed since Martin Luther tried to find comfort in that 500 years ago, and only kept imagining hell’s flames awaiting him (He was right to be thinking that; the wages of our sins is death!). You come to the same conclusions he did: your nature has been sinful since your conception! You don’t gain ground in making up for what you’ve done and been; you only add to it. You need a different answer than DIY salvation. You can’t do it yourself. If it’s up to you your sins will continue to be attached to you in the Judgment; you’ll be held entirely accountable for them without any escape. What a disaster if that were the answer to “What shall we do?”.
It isn’t Peter’s answer to that question in our text. Instead, it’s: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The answer isn’t what you do for yourself; it’s what’s done for you. Being baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ is being moved from the category of those who will be held accountable for their own sins, to the category of those on whose behalf Christ is held accountable. That’s what you have faith in if you have faith in Christ. You have faith in His having done for you what you couldn’t do for yourself. You have faith in being able to stand before God in the judgment and say, “It’s His record that’s going to be judged as my record. It’s His having looked in the Law’s mirror and seen perfection that counts for me. It’s His punishment that counts as the payment for my sins.
Dear confirmands, you were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. In that Baptism you received the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who spoke God’s invitation into your hearts.
I want you to think especially this morning about the last little portion of our text: And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. That’s a description of the believers’ regular existence in the early church after Pentecost. They were weekly gathered to hear God’s Word (the Apostles’ teaching), to receive the Supper, to pray. Another way this might have been written would have been to say that the Lord, Who bought them for Himself through the redeeming blood of Christ continued to send them the Spirit in His Means of Grace to build them up, to encourage them, to unite them with each other, to draw them to Himself.
The Spirit will continue to work in your hearts every week, in a place like this, through these same means of grace. He will hear your confession, and will pronounce to you through the servant He has provided, the absolution—the pronouncement that Christ’s blood and merit have covered your sins, you are fully and freely forgiven. Your own question of “What shall we do?” is to be answered in the same way as for the people in our text: return to your Baptism in repentance and in faith, where God’s grace is to be found in the blood of Christ. It isn’t what you do for yourself; it’s what’s been done for you. God be praised! Amen.
Other Lessons:
Joel 2:28–32
“I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on My servants, both men and women, I will pour out My Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.
Acts 2:1–13
The lesson will be read in Portuguese by Erik Lee
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”
St. John 14:23–31
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
“These things I have spoken while being present with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid.
“You heard Me say to you: ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said ‘I am going to the Father,’ for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.”