By Dr. Philip W. McLarty
In his commentary on today’s text, Richard Donovan makes a strong point. He writes:

“Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles – the Gospel being the story of Jesus and Acts being the story of the early church. It seems unfortunate that the two books are separated in the NT by the Gospel of John, because placing Acts directly after Luke would help us to see how one flows into the other – how the Acts of the Apostles picks up where the Gospel of Luke leaves off. This is significant to the story of Pentecost, because the first Christian Pentecost is deeply rooted in the Gospel of Luke. (For example):

– (In Luke, the angel says to Mary,) ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’ (Luke 1:35) … (What we find is,) The Spirit responsible for the birth of Jesus is also responsible for the birth of the church.

– (Also,) The gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 fulfills the prophecy of John the Baptist in Luke’s Gospel, (when he said,) ‘He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.’ (Luke 3:16)

– (What’s more,) The Spirit that fills the disciples in Acts 2 is the same Spirit that descended upon Jesus at his baptism (Luke 3:22).

– (Just as) Jesus began his ministry Spirit-filled (Luke 4:1), so does the church (Acts 2).

– (And finally,) Jesus told the disciples not to worry about what to say when brought before the authorities, because the Spirit would teach them (Luke 10:11-12) – a prophecy that we see fulfilled in (numerous places) in Acts. (For example, when Stephen spoke out against the elders who had arrested him, Luke writes, ‘They weren’t able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke’ (Acts 6:10)).

(SermonWriter, Pentecost, Year C, May 30, 2004)

Point by point, it’s clear: Luke wants us to see the connection – the same Spirit that filled Jesus and empowered him to usher in the Kingdom of God on earth was given to the disciples on the day of Pentecost that they might continue Jesus’ mission of reconciling the world to God.

“But you will receive power,” Jesus said, “when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Well, this is the gist of it all: We are Jesus’ disciples in the world today; we are the ones to whom the Spirit is bestowed. As such, we are charged and empowered to speak and act in Jesus’ name, bearing witness to God’s love and inviting others into fellowship with him.

And this is the point I’d like to emphasize in the sermon this morning: The gift of the Spirit is not to be taken lightly. It’s a stimulus for new life. It’s a catalyst for change. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the potential for transformation and renewal, often in the most unexpected and unpredictable ways.

When I was growing up, hearing the Pentecost story for the first time, I was intrigued by the way Luke describes the scene. Listen once more:

“Now when the day of Pentecost had come,
they were all with one accord in one place.
Suddenly there came from the sky a sound
like the rushing of a mighty wind,
and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
Tongues like fire appeared and were distributed to them,
and one sat on each of them.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
and began to speak with other languages,
as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak.” (Acts 2:1-4)

Like everyone else, I pictured these “tongues of fire” as little flames sitting on the disciples’ shoulders, much like the burning bush in the story of Moses –plain to see, but not doing any harm. This is how the day of Pentecost has traditionally been pictured in religious art through the ages – little tongues of fire dancing like the flames of a campfire. How quaint.

Then, one day, I had a vision. What if, instead of thinking of the Pentecost “tongues of fire” as docile little flames casting a glow and warming the heart, we thought of them as bolts of electricity setting the soul on fire with passion for the gospel? What if we thought of the whole room that day as electrically charged and filled with a surge of new vitality? And what if we thought of the disciples as shocked, then energized with the awesome power of the Holy Spirit?

Didn’t Peter speak boldly to the crowd? Didn’t the disciples go on to witness to the power of the resurrection and the promise of eternal life? Let’s think of Pentecost as high voltage energy sufficient to spark new faith in common, ordinary folks like us, to the end that the whole world is filled with the radiance of God’s presence.

High voltage energy: It’s something to think about. First, as we all know, electricity is conductive – if you touch someone who’s electrically charged, you’ll get shocked. It happens all the time, especially in winter. You slide your foot over the carpet, it produces static electricity, then you shake hands with someone, and you both feel the spark.

When I was growing up, we had the inner workings of an old-timey, wall-mounted telephone, the kind with the receiver on one side and a handle on the other with the speaker sticking out the front. The way it worked in the old days was, you cranked the handle a couple of times to get the operator, and she’d place your call for you.

Well, my Dad had taken the generator out of an old telephone and mounted it on a board.  For fun, we’d sit around the dining room table and take turns holding the wire while someone gently turned the handle. If they turned it slowly, you’d feel a little tingle, and, if they gave it a quick turn or two, it’d give you a real jolt. Sometimes, we’d get several kids sitting around the table holding hands. The one sitting next to the generator would hold the wire. The person turning the handle would start out slowly, then gradually get faster and faster until someone couldn’t stand it any more and broke the circuit. That someone was usually me!

Electricity is conductive – once the current gets generated, it flows out in every direction bringing energy and power to everything it touches.

Well, I like to think that the Holy Spirit, like electricity, has this conductive property – by God’s grace we are filled with the Spirit and, through our relationship with friends and family and co-workers and neighbors, it spreads to them and, through them, to others, until, before long, the whole community comes alive with the spark of God’s grace and love.

Electricity is conductive. That’s the first point, and the second is, it’s also versatile. It’ll cool your house and, at the same time, it’ll heat your oven. It’s not selective. As such, it plays a major role in just about everything we do. The same electrical current runs our appliances, keeps us comfortable and manages our information technology. Any more, when the electricity goes off, things come to a stand still.

When was it, last year, one of the sub-stations around here went off-line and shut down power to most of Bryan-College Station? Not only did the lights go off, it knocked out our computers, traffic lights, refrigerators, freezers, and so forth. What’s worse, unless you had a battery operated radio, you couldn’t get the news to find out what was going on. Had terrorists struck? Were we under attack? It took a while to figure out what had happened.

Electricity is at the heart of so much of what we do. It’s what makes possible so many of the inventions and gadgets we’ve come to depend on. It’s so versatile. Again, I see a correlation with the Holy Spirit. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul says,

“Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
There are various kinds of service, and the same Lord.
There are various kinds of workings,
but the same God, who works all things in all.
But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all.”
(1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

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Paul goes on to say how the Spirit inspires some to be teachers and preachers and prophets and healers. The point is, it’s the Holy Spirit that inspires us to get up and do something with our lives, to be somebody, to make a difference. We all have different gifts, different abilities, a different sense of calling, but it’s the same Spirit at work in each of us.

As some of you may have heard, I recently participated in the Bryan Citizen Police Academy. There were twenty-two of us in all. We learned a lot about the complexities of law enforcement, and we got some hands-on experience, as well – driving the squad car simulator, making would-be traffic stops, conducting a building search with armed robbers hiding in the shadows. It was great fun. It was also an eye-opening experience, especially riding with an officer on patrol on a Saturday night in north Bryan.

Well, I can tell you this: I’m thankful God didn’t call me to be a police officer. I can’t imagine doing what they do, day in and day out. I’m just grateful there are those who are willing to serve us in this way.

We all have a calling in life. We all have different gifts and abilities. What we need to remember is that our calling is a gift of the Spirit. As the Litany for Pentecost this morning puts it, “without you, (O Spirit,) life turns to dust.” Apart from the Holy Spirit, we’re as useless as an electric clock without a plug.

The Spirit is versatile. That’s the second point. It empowers us to be the men and women God calls us to be, and it inspires us to serve the common good – not just take care of our own needs, but to help others along the way.

So, let’s see: Electricity is conductive, it’s versatile; it also can be dangerous. Once generated, electricity has the potential of doing a lot of good. It also has the potential of doing a lot of damage.

We all know the hazards of downed power lines after a storm. If you step on a fallen wire, you might get electrocuted. If you have a short circuit in your home, your house might catch on fire. And, of course, as our weatherman, Bob French, constantly warns us, if you’re caught out in a storm, you might get struck by lightning.

Once electricity is unleashed, there is a sense in which we’re no longer in control. I like to think this is also true of the Holy Spirit. Once the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, there was no holding it back. Literally, all hell broke loose:

• Peter stood up and spoke to the crowd, and, according to Luke, 3,000 were added to the number of Jesus’ followers! 3,000! Can you imagine what that does to your group dynamics?

• Then, before anyone knew what was happening, the church spread to Samaria, of all places! Why, up to this point, Jews and Samaritans wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. They hated each other. Remember the Parable of the Good Samaritan?

• If that weren’t enough, the Spirit then led Peter to go to Caesarea, to the home of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion. Peter went against his better judgment. And when the Holy Spirit descended upon Cornelius and his household, Peter was as surprised as the rest. He said, “Can any man forbid the water, that these who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we should not be baptized?” (Acts 10:47) All of a sudden, the door was open for the Gentiles to be received into the kingdom of God.

• Well, the rest is history. Through Paul’s preaching the gospel spread into Asia Minor, then into southern Europe and finally to Rome and beyond. The old boundaries were gone forever. In Paul’s words, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  (Galatians 3:28)

Since the day of Pentecost, the Spirit has been on the loose shaking the foundations of the church, unseating those in positions of power and embracing those who had previously been excluded from the faith.

And this is the danger of the coming of the Holy Spirit: It upsets the apple cart. It causes us to think and act differently. It transforms us from who we were to the people God calls us to be. It turns our cozy little worlds upside down. It disrupts our lives and sets us on fire with a passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so, I’d like to end the sermon with a note of warning: “Danger, High Voltage.” The Spirit is nothing less than power from on high, and, once it gets hold of us, individually or as a congregation, we’ll never be the same. Even so, let us pray:

“Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire,
and lighten with celestial fire;

Thou the anointing Spirit art,
who dost Thy seven-fold gifts impart.

Praise to Thine eternal merit,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Amen.
(Hymn:  “Come, Holy Spirit, Our Souls Inspire)

Copyright 2004, Philip W. McLarty.  Used by permission.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), a public domain (no copyright) modern English translation of the Holy Bible.