What a strange event!

• The assembly of 120 disciples all together in one place who had devoted themselves to prayer for ten days after the ascension of Jesus.
• A strong wind that came from heaven and filled the whole house.
• One fire with the wind that separated into flames and rested on the heads of all of them.
• One Spirit that filled all of them and enabled them all to speak in praise of God in many different languages.

As soon as we are born as babies we enter a new environment of air and light.

• We leave our mother’s womb and come out into the open air and see the light.
• As newborn babies the first thing that we learn is the art of breathing.
• Our lungs begin to breathe in oxygen from the air around us and to breathe out carbon dioxide from our bodies.
• We keep on doing that moment-by-moment, whether we are awake or asleep, for as long as we live on earth.
• The oxygen that we receive by breathing animates us and keeps us alive.
• We do not produce oxygen or possess it.
• We have it provided for us and given to us breath by breath.
• Once we no longer take it in we suffocate and Living depends on breathing.

Our spiritual life, the journey of discipleship, is a lot like breathing.

• It is a life that is produced and sustained by the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus does not just give us new birth through water and the Spirit.
• He also pours out the Holy Spirit from heaven to us on earth to sustain and empower us all the time, so that we can live and work together with him as children of his heavenly Father.
• Every Sunday when we go to church the risen Lord Jesus comes to give us his Holy Spirit, just as He did that on Easter Sunday Evening.
• Jesus stands in our midst, breathes on us, and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
• As He breathes His Spirit on us, we breathe His life-giving, life-sustaining Spirit into our hearts.

Over the last fifty years or so there has been much debate and controversy in the Church about the gift of the Holy Spirit.

• We have all, in some way, been touched by it.
• Some of that discussion has been about when and how Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit.
• This issue was put on the agenda by the teaching of the Pentecostal churches about what happened on the Day of Pentecost.
• From that story they concluded that there are two stages in the journey of faith.
• The first begins with the experience of conversion when we are born again as children of God.
• The second stage begins with our experience of baptism by the Holy Spirit, the infilling of the Holy Spirit for our empowerment in doing the Lord’s work.
• The proof of this, the initial evidence that it has occurred, is speaking in tongues.
• Every person who has spoken in tongues is regarded as a born–again, Spirit–filled believer.
• Some groups have modified the link between being filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues, but most Pentecostal churches still retain the teaching that each Christian must have a single definitive experience of baptism by the Holy Spirit.

In contrast to this, the New Testament teaches that all those who have been baptized and believe in the Lord Jesus have received the Holy Spirit as Peter said in Acts 2:38: Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the Holy Spirit.

• There is only one Baptism (Eph 4:5) by which we are born again of water and the Spirit (John 3:5).
• We have all been given the one and same Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians 12:13).

Yet from misunderstanding the teaching that we receive the Holy Spirit through baptism we all too easily fall into the same trap as the Pentecostals, if we believe that every baptized person has the Holy Spirit as a permanent possession that can never be lost.

• The notion that we “possess” the Spirit misreads the Scriptures and misapplies the teaching of the Church.
• Even though the risen Lord Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit through his Word in Baptism, we do not possess the Spirit, any more than a wife and a husband possess each other and their love.
• The giving and receiving of love in marriage is a life–long business that has its foundation in the ceremony of marriage.
• So too the giving and receiving of the Holy Spirit has its foundation in Baptism!
• After all, the Holy Spirit is a person, not a thing.
• A thing can be possessed, but not a person.

That process of receiving the Holy Spirit begins with a single event, just as breathing begins at our birth and married life starts with a wedding.

• Therefore, just as a husband gives himself and his love to his wife on the day of their marriage, so God the Father gave us His Holy Spirit through Jesus on the day that we were baptized.
• But that’s not the end of it.
• We who have been given access to the Spirit in Baptism keep on receiving the Holy Spirit from God the Father for as long as we live here on earth.
• So, in that sense, we never possess the Spirit, just as we never possess the light of the sun.
• In fact, for the whole of our life as baptized people we keep on receiving the Holy Spirit.
• Paul therefore tells the Christians in Ephesus, who have already been baptized, to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18).

The biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit make sense only if we realize that Christ does not just give us His Holy Spirit once for all, at one point in our lives, but continually, over and over again.

• Jesus is the fountain, the spring from which we receive the Holy Spirit, like drinking water from a tap (John 7: 37-39).
• When He declares that His words are “Spirit and life” (John 6:63), He tells us that He gives His life–giving Spirit through His Word.
• Paul likewise teaches us in Galatians 3:1-5 that we receive the Spirit by hearing God’s Word when he asks: Did you receive the Spirit by works or by the hearing of faith?… Does he who supplies the spirit to you … do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
• So wherever God’s Word is proclaimed and heard and believed, we can be sure that Christ is there giving the Holy Spirit for us once again.
• That’s what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer when we say, Your kingdom come.
• In the Small Catechism Luther teaches that God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.

Since this is true, you can come to church in order to receive the Spirit.

• You are filled with the Spirit when you hear the Word of God in the Bible readings and the sermon and believe in it.
• You are also filled with the Spirit when you receive Christ’s body and blood.
  • They are your Spirit–filled, Spirit–giving food and drink for your journey through life (1 Corinthians 10:3-4).
  • You who have all been baptized by one Spirit are given the same Spirit to drink in Holy Communion (1 Corinthians 12:13).
• If you pray to receive the Holy Spirit, you can be sure that your prayer is answered because Jesus made this promise to his disciples in Luke 11:13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
• You can be sure that he lives in you and is in you as your personal advocate and counsellor and guide (John 4:17).

So come to church each Sunday to be filled with the Spirit!

• Even though we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost once a year every Sunday is a little Pentecost.
• As you come to Holy Communion today, pray that you and all our congregation will be filled with the Holy Spirit.
• Envisage that a tongue of fire rests on your head and on the head of every person here today and remains on all of us as we leave this place.

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