Fairhaven Sermon 5-24-2026

Summary

In this week’s service, Rev. Peg Bowman explores the profound significance of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit. By reflecting on the biblical accounts in Acts, she draws a powerful parallel between the giving of the Law to Moses and the outpouring of the Spirit following Jesus' resurrection. Rev. Bowman highlights how this divine moment transformed a group of believers into witnesses capable of sharing the Good News across diverse cultures and languages, marking the "birthday of the church."

Rev. Peg Bowman also addresses common misconceptions regarding spiritual gifts, cautioning against the extremes of believing that gifts have ceased or that every believer must manifest the same specific signs, such as speaking in tongues. Instead, she emphasizes the metaphor of the Body of Christ, where each member possesses unique, Spirit-given gifts necessary for the whole community. Ultimately, the message serves as a call for the Church to remain a diverse, joyful, and empowered community, dedicated to bringing God's healing and joy to the entire world.

Transcript

Oh, good morning again and good Pentecost, and it's wonderful to see everybody wearing red. This is good. Also, tomorrow is Memorial Day. So before I get into the sermon, I did want to say a quick prayer for anyone who has given their all in service to our country. So please pray with me. Lord, we want to remember before you all those who have given all they had to serivce to others, for the sake of our country. Lord, may these servicemen and women find peace, and comfort, and wholeness, in your loving presence. Amen.

Today, then we remember Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. And this story may be a familiar one, but its meaning and its place in history can get a little complicated sometimes. Acts chapter 2 tells us that Jesus, after his resurrection, did not go home to his father in heaven right away. Jesus spent, at least—actually, this is actually Acts chapter one—Jesus spent at least another 40 days with the disciples in a number of different places, and not always just with the 12, as they were known. And then on the day of Jesus' ascension, as we heard last week, Jesus and the disciples were in Bethany, near where Mary and Martha and Lazarus lived. And again, this was not just the 12 who were gathered there. We don't know exactly how many of the followers were with Jesus on that day, but I think it's safe to say, there were at least a few dozen and possibly a 100 or so.

At this gathering, Jesus reviewed with his friends and disciples all of the Old Testament passages that talk about the Messiah. And according to Google, there are at least 200 passages in the Old Testament that talk about the Messiah, possibly as many as 300 passages, depending on how you interpret them. So it would have taken Jesus a long time to mention all these prophecies and answer everybody's questions. And when Jesus teaching was done, he commissioned everyone present, and he said, "You are my witnesses." But, he said, "don't say or do anything until the Holy Spirit comes. Wait in Jerusalem until the spirit arrives." So the first thing I want to point and point out is that Christian witness takes place under the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit's presence, our words and our witness have no power in them. Like the disciples so long ago, we need to wait for the direction and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to empower our ministry and our outreach.

After Jesus ascended, the disciples returned to Jerusalem, and they stayed in close proximity to each other, and every day, they went to the temple to worship, and every day, they ate meals together, and again, this is more than just the 12. Scholars believe there were probably a couple of 100 believers in Jerusalem at this point. And I mention this because I sometimes imagine, as I read these passages, and I think other people sometimes imagine the same thing, that the disciples were meeting in the upper room, where they had the last supper. But the number of believers were too big for that by now. They had to have been meeting in a larger place. And scripture says that they were meeting in the house, and the Greek word for house is oikos, and oikos is, besides being a yogurt, is also what they used to call the temple. And it makes sense if this group would meet in or near the temple, possibly in one of the outer courtyards.

So in the Jewish Festival of Pentecost came along, that is, the Jewish Festival, the disciples would already have found a spot to meet somewhere in or near the temple. And when all the Jewish worshipers from all over the known world, started showing up at the temple to celebrate Pentecost, they would have come across these followers of Jesus. These international Jewish worshipers were there for the Jewish Pentecost, which has nothing to do with the arrival of the Holy Spirit. The word Pentecost means 50. In the Jewish believers were there to celebrate 50 days after Passover. Because 50 days after Passover was when Moses received the Ten Commandments. So they were there to celebrate the giving of the law, the very heart of the Jewish faith.

Jesus had been arrested just before Passover, and he died, just as Passover was starting, and this connects Jesus with the Passover lamb, whose blood over the doorways of the homes of the Israelite slaves in Egypt back in Moses' day, caused the angel of death to pass over that house. And Jesus is our Passover lamb, whose blood is placed over the doorway of our hearts, whenever we become believers. 50 days after the 1st Passover, Moses received the Ten Commandments; 50 days after Jesus died, the disciples received the Holy Spirit. You begin to see the parallel there. Yes? The law of God, now written on our hearts. So when we become followers of and Jesus, we become part of a story that started many 1000s of years ago and continues into all of our tomorrows.

So with all of this as background, here's what happened on the 1st Christian Pentecost. As usual, Jesus' followers were gathered in or near the temple, and suddenly there was a sound like a rushing wind that echoed through the temple, and filled the building, and tongues that looked like fire rested on all the believers, and they began to speak in the languages of all the foreigners who were visiting Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish Pentecost. And at this point, all these people, both the Jesus followers and the Jewish visitors from many nations—these are all Jewish believers at this point. They were all people who worshiped in the temple, even if they were from foreign countries. The Gentiles, the non Jewish people, which includes us, had not yet been invited to follow Jesus. We will be invited soon. But the faith started in Jerusalem with the Jewish people.

Our reading in Acts mentions there were even Jewish people from Rome, who were in Jerusalem at that time, which means that Peter actually did help to start the church in Rome, like tradition says, but Peter didn't travel to Rome. The Jewish believers from Rome came to him in Jerusalem. In addition, other countries represented that day included, but were not limited to Persia, Egypt, Arabia, Greece, Libya, and people from Mesopotamia, and beyond. And the Holy Spirit inspired these new Christians to praise God, in other languages, as the visitors to Jerusalem needed to and to hear it so that they could understand the good news of Jesus.

Now, at this point, I feel like I need to do a little sidebar. A little side note about speaking in tongues, okay? Because today, there are two equal and opposite mistakes that people make about speaking in tongues. The 1st is that this gift no longer exists. The second, and I should say the Apostle Paul lists speaking in tongues is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the second mistake is the teaching that if you're really a Christian, you have to speak in tongues, and this mistake has been taught in some Pentecostal churches and some other churches usually outside denominational structures, and this teaching is a reaction against people who teach that the spiritual gifts don't exist anymore, that they only existed in the time of Jesus and the early church.

So they're 2 equal and opposite mistakes where it comes to the spiritual gifts, the gifts of the Spirit. One is that the gifts of the Spirit no longer exists, and the 2nd is that all believers have to have the same gifts. Both of these beliefs go against what the apostle Paul teaches in the book of 1st Corinthians, which, by the way, we are covering soon in Bible study, and that all believers receive the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit gives gifts, and Paul lists some of the gifts as examples in 1st Corinthians. So I mention this because in the past, I have met people with horrible guilt trips, people who sometimes actually lose their faith, because of wrong teachings on the spiritual gifts. Not all Christians speak in tongues. In fact, most don't. So in case you happen to run up against this teaching, be assured, God loves you no matter what spiritual gifts you have, and you do have some spiritual gifts, as God chooses to give. There are many gifts of the spirit. And if anyone within the sound of my voice does not yet know what their spiritual gifts are, the United Methodist Church offers a number of tools to help us figure that out, and if you have questions about this, I would be honored to explore that question with you. End of sidebar.

And back to Pentecost. Here we go. So this crowd's response in Jerusalem, to hearing God's word, in their own language, was mixed. Everyone heard and saw the same things, but the reactions were varied. And this is very common in ministry. Jesus talked about how the seed of God's word lands in different kinds of soil, and that's pretty much what's happening here. Some of the people present were amazed, some were worried. Some were confused, and some just wanted to poke fun. Some started asking, "What does this mean?" And that's the whole point of having spiritual gifts. In order to point to God and to inspire people to ask the question, "what does this do?"

Peter is ready with an answer to that question. He says, "no. God's people have not been drinking. It's only 9 in the morning." And Peter says, what you're hearing is the prophet Joel's words coming true. Joel said, in the last days, it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. So Peter is saying, these are the last days. 2,000 years later, we still, we don't often think about for the 1st Pentecost that way. But Peter confirms that the coming of the Spirit marks the beginning of the last days. And Peter adds, quoting the prophet Joel, He says, I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and smoking mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

This part of the prophecy was not fulfilled in the temple that day, and it still hasn't happened yet. But from God's point of view, these are the last days. Our world might still go on for a few more thousand years. God's timeline is not our own. But it does look like, at this point, that there's more time behind us than in front of us. And I mention this because so many people today are talking about the end times, and the things that they read in the Book of Revelation, and I must warn that the Book of Revelation, as true as it is, is not a timeline. Revelation was written to be an encouragement to people living under persecution. And when life gets tough, or when the world gets tough, it's hard not to think about the promises in Revelation.

For what it's worth, the Bible says the end times will look like this. There will be signs in the skies, signs on the earth, specifically, blood and fire, smoke you mist. The sun and the moon will turn blood red, and anyone who calls on Jesus' name will be paved. But before all this happens, the spiritual gifts that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians will be poured out on all believers, including but not limited to these gifts of wisdom, words of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues, and interpretations of tongues, all of these gifts given by the same Holy Spirit, and given as God's people have needs. We're not all supposed to have the same gifts. Paul says that the giftedness of believers is like parts of the human body. We are not all eyes, we are not all ears, we are not all feet; a variety of parts is needed, and each part is needed just as it is. And it's the same way in the church. All people are needed, no matter where we come from, or where we've been, or what gifts we've been given.

Pentecost is sometimes called the birthday of the church, not the church building, not the denomination, but the community of people who follow Jesus, the body of believers, is empowered, and inspired, and united by the Holy Spirit. We are called by God into one body. And our calling is to share the good news of Jesus, along with his healing and his joy, to all people, and all means all. Excuse me. So the church is a community that is diverse, worldwide, joyful, a people who trust and love Jesus, a people whose number one commitment is to love and follow Jesus Christ. This is as radical and countercultural a thing to do today as it was 2,000 years ago. But don't be afraid. The Holy Spirit opens the doors and empowers God's people to reach out and bring God's healing to God's world, as God leads.

Let's pray. Lord, as we learn to understand the Holy Spirit and the gifts that the Spirit brings, please enlighten our minds. Clear away the cobwebs, get rid of the fables, and help us to know you as you really are. Fill us fresh with your Holy Spirit and guide us in serving and loving the world around us in your name, to your honor and glory. Amen.