Online Worship Service Pentecost Sunday May 31, 2020
John 20:19-23
Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka
Today is Pentecost Sunday. The day where we mark, where we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples.
Now, normally, we read the Pentecost story as told in the Acts of the Apostles. Where Jesus’ disciples are all in one place, and suddenly like a rush of wind the Holy Spirit bursts inside the room. Tongue-shaped fire lands on each head, and the Spirit pushes the disciples onto their feet and out into the street. They’re able to speak all the different languages of their speakers. And they preach with bold power to anyone who’ll hear. It’s an exciting story. Full of electricity, exuberant energy.
The passage we just read though, is the alternate reading. It’s a Pentecost story too, but one told from the vantage point of John’s gospel. The Holy Spirit comes. But it’s a bit more... low key, you could say. A little less high-octane.
The disciples are locked away in a room. They’re terrified that the religious authorities are gonna come and do the same thing to them that they did to Jesus. But then Jesus—who has been raised from the dead that morning—appears among them. He pronounces peace on them, and then commissions them. “As the Father sends me,” he says. “As the Father sends me, I send you.” And then—and here’s the weird part—and then it says that he breathes on them. He breathes the Holy Spirit into them. Just whoosh. All over ‘em.
I mean, no wonder the other story—the one about wind and flame and bold preaching is the go-to story of Pentecost. Compared to that one, John’s story is way less exciting. And frankly, sounds kind of gross. All I could think of when I read it this week was when the Prime Minister counseled us all not to “speak moistly” at each other.
As comparatively low-key this story may be. And as unappealing as Jesus’ breathing may sound, John’s Pentecost story gets at something that the other—more familiar, more exciting story doesn’t.
You see, when Jesus breathes into his disciples, he’s not just what Seinfeld fans would know as a “close talker.” Jesus is re-enacting the second chapter in the whole Bible, from the first book in the Bible, the book of Genesis. In Genesis chapter two, when God makes the first adam, the first human being. God sculpts the first earthling out of dust. Out of dirt. And then, as the finishing touch, God breathes life into him. The first human being’s just a clump of dust until the divine Spirit fills him. Suffuses him with the spark of life.
Now, obviously, the disciples are already breathing. They’re alive, though not well, hiding behind closed doors. They don’t need life—they already have it. They need something else.
They need something else, the need something more. They’re all holed up, locked up. They’re afraid the religious authorities are coming for them in the same way they came for Jesus. They’re anxious and afraid of a hostile and dangerous world. But it’s more than just that. You see, according to the Bible, according to the Christian tradition, Jesus’ death wasn’t just another death. It wasn’t simply the death of a failed political revolutionary, or a well-meaning teacher of eternal truths. It wasn’t just another perpetration of systemic injustice against an innocent man. Jesus’ death goes deeper, it takes us deeper into the truth of the human condition. Because in Jesus the Word became flesh. In Jesus, the goodness, truth, and beauty at the heart of all things walked on two feet. God came to us as a human being bearing nothing but forgiveness, mercy, and love. And we just couldn’t keep ourselves from killing him.
Jesus reveals to us the depth of the world’s brokenness. The power of Sin at work, the dominion of death, and the sway of evil in human life. And if you need any evidence for that, just look at the news. The image of George Floyd, a black man, with a white police officer’s knee on his neck shouting "I can’t breathe.” His words are a wake-up call to all of us about the demonic power of racism at work. But his words are also the eternal cry of all of humanity, the groaning of all creation.
We are created good, filled with the divine spark of life. Created with a divine purpose of eternal communion with God and each other. Every breath we take is a testimony to this fact. And yet, somehow, we’re gasping for air. Unable to fulfill the calling of our Creator. No matter how hard we try or ingenious we become, we just can’t seem to fix things, to make them right. We wanna do good, but it’s all too big and we don’t know where to start. Like the disciples in today’s passage, we’re locked in on all sides, suffocating under the power of Sin. Like the disciples, we need something else. Something more than just a tweak here or there.
That something more is what Jesus came to bring. What Jesus gives the church, gives us at Pentecost. While the world may fumble around in the dark for some kind of way out of this mess, followers of Jesus trust that the world can be different. That we can be different. Because we know that Jesus passes through all locked doors. Into all places of fear and anxiety. To all places all places of dread and danger. And when he breathes into us, he’s performing CPR on our souls, hooking in holy jumper cables, attaching a ventilator of divine grace. He’s breathing new life into us with the Holy Spirit, God’s own energy, God’s vitality, that same power for life that brought creation into being. Whereas God’s breath created us, Jesus’ breath brings about a New Creation in us.
From the hidden hatreds and prejudices we can’t bring ourselves to confront, and the people we’ve hurt who we’re unwilling to face. From the places in your heart that are overcome with shame and the people in your life that you just can’t forgive. All of these. More than just a moral lesson, more than a tweak here and there, the Holy Spirit is healing our human condition from the bottom up. The inside out.
My friends. Brothers and sisters in Christ. The good news of Pentecost simply is this: the world can change. We can change. You can change. In a world that lives under the burden of such fear, such violence, such injustice, we know there is a power greater than all of these. Today we’re given the gift of the Holy Spirit. We’re given the gift of a God who is in the transformation business, of healing each and every one of our lives. She’s a gift that doesn’t always come with the excitement of a gust of wind, or a kindling fire. But one who's just as necessary. Just as constant and as close as each rising and falling of our chest.
Today I pray you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. That you receive this gift of life and power, this gift of hope and transformation. I pray that today's the day that you learn how to breathe.
Amen.