Text: John 14:23-31 (Gen 11:1-9,
Acts 2:1-21)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
We Lutherans bear a name not of our own choosing. Martin Luther hated it. It was put upon us by our opponents. Our own confessions never use label “Lutheran.” But we do refer to ourselves and our faith as Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox. Ironically, we have allowed other Christians to steal these descriptors from us, and we act like they no longer apply to us.
When we think of Evangelicals, we usually think of Baptists or Non-Denominational Christians, when in fact, this is what the early Lutherans called themselves. When we think of Catholics, we usually think of the papal church, even though our confessions use the word Catholic to describe our faith and church seventeen times – in one place referring to ourselves as the “true and genuine catholic church.” When we think of Orthodoxy we think of Greek or Eastern Christians with a mysterious liturgy, foreign languages, and big beards. However, our Book of Concord includes the word “Orthodox” eleven times.
But we could actually add another description to our faith and life within the Lutheran tradition: Pentecostal. The word doesn’t appear in the Book of Concord, but there is no reason that we can’t steal it fair and square.
Pentecostals discount the Bible by confessing a belief in direct revelation to us today in the same way that God spoke to the prophets and apostles. But today, the Lord has given us the Scriptures, the infallible oracles of God. Pentecostals claim to “speak in tongues,” though they believe it to mean speaking in gibberish, not like what we heard in the Scriptures where the apostles preached in foreign languages that they never studied. Gibberish is chaos, and it is the realm of Satan. The Word of God, the Logos, is delivered by means of language. The gift of tongues given that first Pentecost of the Church was a special manifestation to jump-start the missionary work of the church – through preaching, not through gibberish, not through jumping up and down, not through rolling around on the floor.
We Lutherans are Pentecostal Christians because we confess the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit ministers through our ministry.
Jesus ordained the apostles, breathing on them, giving them the Holy Spirit, authorizing them to forgive and to retain sins. Modern-day Pentecostal Christians don’t believe in this authority, and don’t practice it. Jesus gives individual Christians the Holy Spirit by means of baptism: “by water and the Spirit” as He told Nicodemus. But modern-day Pentecostals don’t believe in this gift either, reducing it to a mere symbol.
We Lutherans, as Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal Christians who confess the Church to be apostolic, who believe the Scriptures, we send forth missionaries armed with the Holy Spirit: with baptism and preaching, with the Spirit-inspired Word of God, and by these holy means, disciples are made, lives are transformed, and the kingdom of God expanded. We give out eternal life in the same way as the apostles: preaching and sacraments.
For these apostles chose their successors by laying on hands and ordaining them. And as Scripture teaches us, the Holy Spirit is conferred by this laying on of hands. We believe, teach, confess, and practice this Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal rite of ordination – which along with the apostolic doctrine that we hold – makes us indeed “apostolic” as we confess in the creeds.
And we do preach in tongues today, dear friends. You will find Lutheran Christians all over the globe, speaking dozens of languages, because of our missionary endeavors – just like the apostles in the Second Chapter of Acts. We have translated the Word of God into nearly every language known to man. We are establishing seminaries on every continent, and ordaining men to the office of the holy ministry the world over. We hear confessions, absolve, preach, administer Baptism, and conduct the Eucharist in many tongues. And it is through the Word – not through our own enthusiasm – that the Gospel takes root and bears fruit.
This plethora of tongues used in the Church rolls back the curse of Babel, where God used languages to separate people. For God used the apostles on Pentecost to knit together the Church from disparate tribes and tongues, finding unity in our Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. This gift is yours by grace regardless of your tribe or tongue.
And, dear friends, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, we are in the last days. St. Peter preached about the “day of the Lord” that is coming, a time of “wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.” And we also believe, teach, and confess what St. Peter proclaimed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” This is our Pentecostal confession, that the cross atones for all of the sins of the world, and those who ask for forgiveness receive it without cost. This is the Gospel, the Good News that the apostles preached to Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and which we continue to preach today to Europeans, Africans, Asians, Americans, Australians, and Oceanians.
The Holy Spirit is indeed the Helper that Jesus promised the Father would send us in Jesus’ name, whom He did send us on Pentecost, by whom He gave the apostles authority to forgive sins, and whom was given to each one of us at our Holy Baptism.
The Spirit enables and empowers us to hear and understand the Word of God and its preaching. If we pray for the Spirit’s enlightenment, He will not refuse us, dear friends. He will come to you not in an emotional torrent of baby-talk, but rather in His mighty Word – the Good News that your sins are forgiven and that Jesus died for our redemption and rose for our justification. The Spirit teaches us that we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and will rise again from death – all by grace, through faith, as taught by the apostles and inscribed in the Word of God, and confessed by the one holy catholic and apostolic church.
And so let us continue to confess the true and genuine Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal faith, now and even unto eternity. Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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