Sean C. Capaaruccia
8 June 2025 – Pentecost
Preached at Trinity Methodist Church (GMC), Magnolia, NC
Psalm 104:24-34; Romans 8:12-17; John 16:12-15; Acts 2:1-21
Even though this is the third greatest festival of the Christian year, somehow it just doesn’t get the recognition shared by the other two. Christmas is “merry,” and Easter is “happy,” but Pentecost is just… well, Pentecost. Some people celebrate it with more zeal than others, making a cake for the “birthday of the Church” and such, but we certainly don’t see the churches filling up on Pentecost like they do for Christmas and Easter, do we? And yet Pentecost commemorates the complete culmination of everything the Law and the Prophets pointed to; everything that Jesus came to do. Really, if anything, we ought to be celebrating this Sunday more than any other. I like movements; maybe I’m a bit of a revolutionary. Yes, we should start a movement. But I digress…
Let’s start with what Pentecost is. The word “Pentecost” literally means “50 days.” In the Old Testament it is the “Feast of Weeks” or, in Hebrew, “Shavuot,” (sha-voo-ot” meaning “seven weeks” for it was observed exactly seven weeks, or 50 days from Passover.[1] The Feast of Weeks, then, is wholly connected to Passover. Remember that Passover commemorated God freeing captive Isarel from slavery in Egypt, after the final plague of the death of the first-born. Shavuot commemorated the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. It was an agricultural festival wherein the Jews were to give of their first-fruits of the harvest to the Lord. Some of this was given to God as a sacrifice to be burned, but most of it was given to the priests as a way to sustain them. But Shavuot was not merely giving the first-fruits of the harvest, it also entailed giving the first-born son to the Lord (not sacrificed, of course, but redeemed; so basically a tax.) The thing to understand here is the Passover-Shavuot connection: At Passover God freed Israel at the cost of possibly half a million first-born sons of Egypt[2]; at Shavuot, God gave the Law with the condition to obey it, along with a redemption-price for every first-born son as a way to remember the sons that were lost in order to gain Isarael’s freedom. This was the covenant that God made. “I will do this, and you will do that.” Isn’t that a wonderful correlation?
That is the history of Shavuot, or Pentecost, in the Old Testament. Now let’s move on to the New Testament. As I mentioned at the outset, Pentecost is not such a grand holiday anymore. There are several factors as to why, perhaps, but here are some thoughts.
1. Pentecost usually falls right about the time schools get out for the summer and everyone heads to the beach or other places, so having a grand church festival is rather inconvenient.
2. Most people still haven’t recovered from paying their taxes a month ago so it’s not a good time for buying gifts.
3. When we hear the word Pentecost, or at least when the average person hears the word Pentecost, they may think “Pentecostal.” And if you’re not a Pentecostal, then Pentecostals are maybe thought of as weird kind of people. And Pentecostalism didn’t even start until the early 1900’s. It might be a case of a “hijacked” name, then, like when you hear “catholic” you think “Roman Catholic” when, in fact, the word “catholic” includes all Christians. Or the word “episcopal,” which simply implies a hierarchical form of church government, of which we Methodists adhere to. So, even we are episcopal, though we aren’t Episcopalians. Even the word “presbyterian” is a form of government though we tend to think that all Calvinists are Presbyterian. They are not. Some are simply Reformed; some are Baptists; and some are even Methodists.[3]
4. But I think that the main reason for not giving Pentecost its due is because many of us simply don’t understand the Holy Spirit and that is what Pentecost is all about. When thinking about the Trinity, we all understand what a Father is; we all have one whether he be alive or deceased, whether he was a good man or not, whether or not you were close to him or even knew him – you still had a father. We understand what a Son is; you either are one, had one, or know one. But a Holy Spirit? Where does that fit into our biological or experiential context? I think this is why some have errantly called the Holy Spirit the “love of God,” or the “life force;” and some have made the Holy Spirit into the Holy “She” to balance the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is fully God just as the Father and the Son are – co-equal and co-eternal. He is a person, just as the Father and Son are. And he is referred to as a “He” not an “it.” And, as some will point out, the word “Trinity” is not even in the Bible.
But though the term “Trinity” is not in Scripture, per se, it goes without saying that it is evidenced throughout all of Scripture. So, who is the Holy Spirit, then? It is probably easiest to think of the Holy Spirit in terms of what He does. In a short poem for children, Christina Rosetti wrote,
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
The first work of the Holy Spirit is evidenced in creation. In Genesis 1:1 we read that “in the beginning, God – Elohim – created the heavens and the earth.” And verse 2, “…the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God [ruach Elohim] was moving over the surface of the waters.” Later in the week, God formed man and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The ruach of life.
We might could think of it this way: God the Father thought to create; the logos, or Word, was spoken (which is the Son); and the Spirit, or ruach, brought it to fruition or breathed into it, gave it substance, or animated it.
Our Psalm this morning [Psalm104] was all about God’s work of creation. And not only did God create all that is but He sustains it. Mountains and valleys both have their boundaries; He waters the land and sustains the vegetation; He created everything to work together. In verse 21-22 it reads, “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God. When the sun rises they withdraw, and lie down in their dens.” Then man, in verse 23, awakes and “goes forth to his work and labors until evening.” All life “waits for Thee to give them their food in due season… Thou open Thy hand and they are satisfied with good. Thou hide Thy face and they are dismayed. Thou take away their spirit and they expire, and return to their dust.” These words are a firm rebuke to the deist who believes God made the world then left it to run its course. God is actively involved in all of creation. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians he writes that “by [Christ] all things were created… And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 2:15-17).
Ok…. So where’s the Holy Spirit here? Again, trinitarianism, though not explicitly expressed in Scripture, is undeniably inferred throughout. And I think maybe the way we refer to God adds some confusion. When we say “God” we usually mean the Father, don’t we? The “Man upstairs.” Yet God is three in one; but God is also any of the three individually, which they can’t be because they are, in fact, one. Does that help? But if we could isolate the members of the Godhead, we might think about them in terms of location. God the Father is in Heaven at the throne. John saw this in Revelation. He said, “I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance” (Rev. 4:2-3). This is where the Father is.
In the Old Testament we have many references to the Spirit of God, as we’ve already mentioned – the ruach Elohim – the one who carries out the will of God; this is God the Spirit. We also have the Angel of the Lord, the manifestation of God’s presence – this is God the Son; the One who would be manifested as Jesus. The One to Whom the whole Old Testament pointed in anticipation. We dare not tread too deeply into trying to understand the Trinity because it becomes dangerous to do that. No one understands it and, I think, to try to understand is to go beyond what God has given us to understand. Nevertheless, when you go too far you’re bound to start teaching heresies at some point. So I will stop there.
Now, in John’s gospel, Jesus, God in the flesh, told His disciples that He was leaving them but that there was still much more to tell them which they couldn’t understand just yet. “But,” He says in 16:7, “it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper (the Paraclete) shall not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.” And then in verse 13, which we read, “When He, the Spirit of Truth, comes He will guide you into all truth.” And thus the “Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.”
Jesus has left the earth; He is now, in His resurrected body, in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father, who is on the throne. His present role is to intercede for us before the Father. Now friends, I may be a big stick in the mud, but I think another reason why the Church doesn’t pay much attention to the Holy Spirit is because we were taught from infancy that Jesus lives in our heart. There are even songs based on that theme: Into my heart, lord Jesus, come in today, come in to stay…. or What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart… or The Savior is waiting to enter your heart, why don’t you let Him come in?
Semantics
Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Are you saying Jesus doesn’t live in our heart? After all He did say, “I will be with you always.” Well, what I am saying is that the Holy Spirit lives in your heart; Jesus resides in Heaven. Now, of course we can’t divide the Trinity – that would be heresy – so where the Spirit dwells, there dwells the Son and the Father as well, if you want to get technical. But let me ask you this, is Mary the mother of God? Think about that carefully. This is an essential doctrine of not only the Roman Catholic church, but the Anglo-Catholic and Orthodox churches as well. Is Mary the mother of God? On the one hand we can say that she is because Jesus is God. This was the rationale in the early centuries to combat serious Christological heresies that denied that Jesus’ divinity. So, if Jesus is God, which He is, then Mary is the mother of God. Ok. But using that same rationale we could ask, is Mary the mother of the Father? Or is she the mother of the Holy Spirit? Well, of course she isn’t, but we can’t divide the Trinity with them either. So, it’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it? We can at least all agree that Mary is the mother of Jesus who is God. But it just doesn’t have that same ring to it. Even so, Jesus is in heaven.
I am reminded of the verse from last week, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand there gazing at the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come [back] in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” In other words, Jesus is not here.
And so, we have arrived at Pentecost. The fulfillment of the promise of ages. The giving of the Spirit of God who will indwell His people and lead them into truth. “And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘that I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all mankind… and it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Thus were the words of the Prophet Joel and now recited by Peter to the crowd of pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem for Shavuot.
For millennia they waited for the Savior to appear with hundreds of prophecies saying that it would happen. And when it did happen, what did they do? They killed him. As Peter goes on with his sermon here he says just that. “Jesus the Nazarene… who did miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him… you nailed to a cross and put Him to death.” There are at least two things to note here. It says that “there were devout Jews from every nation.” I don’t think it is saying that every person there was devout, but among the throng, there were some who were devout, they were there not just for the festival’s obligatory nature or the ritual, but were there because they loved God and wanted to obey His Law.
Tongues
Another thing is that when the disciples spoke, they heard them “in their own language.” There is something to be said for hearing something in your own language – your heart language. It doesn’t need to be translated. I would love to be fluent in Spanish and I can speak enough to get by but I find myself having to translate what I hear into English before I respond, wherein I need to translate my English response back into Spanish. I can’t just understand it in Spanish. Ah, maybe someday. But God wanted these people to hear and to understand what was being said. And note that “tongues” here means “languages.” Here was the reversal, but for a moment, of the curse of Babel. Even today there are instances of people speaking in other tongues, as directed by the Holy Spirit, but it is a language, not a babbling. Even more prevalent are instances of some people being given to learning new languages quickly.
No, these devout Jews heard and understood what was being said. Indeed, it was sin that nailed Him to that cross. And brothers and sisters, that includes my sin. And it includes your sin as well. All of humanity which has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God has taken part in nailing this man Jesus to the cross.
Now there are many who don’t believe that. And there also many that do. How do we know if it’s true? After Peter addressed the crowd of thousands, 3,000 became believers that very day. 3,000 people heard the words of Peter and said, “Yes, I am a sinner, and my sin nailed this Nazarene to the cross.” I’ve talked to a lot of people about Jesus and most of them, at the end of the conversation say, “Yeah, well, that’s what you believe.” What causes someone to hear the Gospel and respond with an open and willing heart to do what the Lord wills?
Well, the answer is simple, isn’t it?
The Holy Spirit gets breathed into that person;
The Holy Spirit animates that person;
The Holy Spirit brings that person from spiritual death to life; “For we were dead in our trespasses and sins, in which we formerly walked according to the course of this world… but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgression, made us alive together with Christ (for by grace we have been saved…)” (Eph. 2:1-5).
This is what Jesus meant when He told Nicodemus that one must be born again to see the Kingdom of Heaven. The Greek is actually “born ανωθεν,” born from above; a birth that originates with God; born of the Spirit. And furthermore, He says, “The wind [the ruach] blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” No one asks to be born, and no one asks to be born again. As Christ came to redeem His people – to be the sacrifice for their salvation, the Spirit enables the redeemed to come to that saving faith. The Holy Spirit, the Divine Animator, applies the faith.
Recall that the prophet Joel said that God’s spirit “would be poured out on all flesh,” or on all mankind. Is all mankind born again? Obviously not. It is the same idea Jesus was telling Nicodemus when He said that “God so loved the world.” Remember that the Jews were God’s chosen people. For centuries God reserved His covenant of salvation with them only. So the terms “all flesh” and “the world” simply mean that when the Spirit is poured out, it will not be restricted to Jews alone. God would save men, women, boys and girls from all nations.
Regarding the saved, then, Paul says, also in Ephesians, that “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (4:4-6). By the one Spirit, there is only one body, one Church – Christ’s Church, who all have the same one hope. There is only one faith – the Christian faith; there is only one baptism – the baptism of the Holy Spirit; and there is only one God. I don’t know about you but I find that exciting! I think all these people who are down on Christianity because of all the supposed “division” have been quite misled. Jesus prayed “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You gave Me, that they may be one, even as We are one… Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” Jesus never fails! His people are one. And not only are they one with each other – one Church – but one with Him! Just as a husband and wife become one flesh, Christ and His Church become one in spirit.
The Spirit will lead you into all truth.
Now for a little bit of practical application.
There was an article a couple of years ago about an abortion clinic in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. After reading it I really got to thinking about the Holy Spirit. Let me quote from the article: “The [abortion] clinic’s staff of 11 – most of them… deeply faithful Chirstian women – have no trouble at all reconciling their work with their religion…. And as the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to dismantle the constitutional right to an abortion, they draw on their faith that they will somehow continue. ‘God is on our side,’ they tell each other.” One of the women stated, “We know that Christianity supports freedom, and inherent in freedom is bodily autonomy. Inherent in Christianity is free will.” Regarding those who protest abortion, another said, “I don’t know what Bible they’re reading, ‘cause it’s not the one that I read.”[4]
Now, I’ll not dwell on the topic of abortion, although I won’t shy away from it, either. And as this article points out, it is not just a political issue, it is a moral issue that affects the Christian Church. But I want you hear what was just said. This article was obviously a polemic against those Christians who do not support abortion; they may even call it evil, or unbiblical. So, you’ve got these Christians over here who say that abortion is wrong; it is the murder of a child, a human life; and God, the Author of life does not condone the ending of life. On the other hand, you’ve got these other Christians who say abortion is ok; it’s a choice based upon the lifestyle a woman wants to lead; if a child would hinder that lifestyle; or if she was raped, God forbid; then God has no qualm with her ending the life of her child because God, the Author of life, would not want us living an unhappy one. I tell you, both cannot be right. Either God condones the ending of a child’s life or He does not, or He doesn’t care either way. Who is right? Again, that in itself is another day’s topic. I am concerned with how do we know who is right on an issue like this.
“When He, the Spirit of Truth, comes He will guide you into all truth.” All born-again believers can hear the Truth. This is truly what free will is. The ability to hear the Truth and to respond accordingly. The woman I just quoted was correct in that: “inherent in Christianity is free will.” Slaves in Egypt were bought at a price at the Passover and the Law was poured out at Shavuot which gave the ancient Old Testament Church freedom to act according to the Law; Slaves to sin and death were bought at a price at Calvary and the Sprit was poured out at Pentecost which gives the New Testament Church freedom to act according to the Spirit. It is no coincidence that Christ died at Passover and the Spirit was given at Pentecost. Our God is an utterly sovereign God who truly holds all things and all people in His hands.
There is one faith and there is one Spirit. Now I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to say that this one Spirit is consistent with Himself. I do not believe that He tells one believer one thing and another believer something completely different. And we know that if God is God, then He does not lead His people to sin. God never told a pastor that he needed to divorce his wife and run off with the secretary as more than one has claimed. In fact, God has never told anyone to do that.
Of course, all believers can still sin, and we do… well at least I know I do. But I can’t think of a single sin which I have committed that the Lord led me to commit. As we grow in our faith, the Spirit convicts us along the way; perfecting us unto the final day.
Before we break for lunch, I have one final thought which I’ve been pondering for a while. We all want revival. We would all love to see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And when it happens I hope I get to speak Gaelic. That would be kinda cool. I would love to see this church grow because I believe in this church. Hopefully, we’re all growing deeper spiritually, of course, but to take the devotion to the Lord of this church and let it spread to other people would be nice. Before the Holy Spirit came, what were the disciples doing? This was in last week’s reading and sermon. They were praying. Acts 1:14 says, “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer.” Then Whoosh! it happened!
Maybe you do do this but I would encourage you, as a small church family, to devote yourselves to prayer, together, on a regular basis, with one mind concerning the future of this church. Maybe get together once a week, everybody. Not praying for the nation, or for Republican policies, or the war in Ukraine. But simply praying for this church, its people, and its mission in this community. Within a 6-mile radius of this church there are 2,788 people, the majority of whom do not attend church, and more importantly, do not know Christ.[5] Jesus said, “Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35). James says, “In the exercise of God’s will, He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures.” Every one who is born again is a first fruit and it is we ourselves that we bring to the altar at Shavuot, at Pentecost. And there are many more right here who need to be filled with God’s Spirit and then fill up this church.
On this Pentecost, may the Spirit of God breathe in us here, revive our hearts, and embolden us to proclaim the word of truth to those around us.
Let us pray:
Oh sovereign God, in the beginning, You breathed life into dust and made man; You breathed new life into your disciples and made a Church. Breathe on us now and awaken our weary eyes to see that You aren’t finished. As long as we have air to breathe, may we strive to see Your Spirit poured out on those around us that Your storehouses may be full of the first fruits of a redeemed and holy Church. Through Christ we pray, Amen.
And now may God the Father, through the Word of Christ His Son, pour out His Spirit upon you and fill you for the tasks of the week ahead. Go in peace.
Addendum:
Spurgeon writes, “One can remove his body from the turmoil, but his heart is in it still. Never forget that the church is the helpmeet of Christ. She is the chosen Bride, and she is, therefore, to unite with Him in His great enterprise among the sons of men. The work is salvation; and that work is to be wrought by means of divine truth, carried to men externally by human hands, and internally through the Spirit of God.” The truth of Christ will go on. It must go on because the gates of hell will not, cannot, prevail against it.
[1] Exodus 23:16; 34:22.
[2] Math: there were about 600,000 Jews, women and children besides, which were “outnumbering the Egyptians” (Ex. 1:9). We can assume, then, half a million Egyptian men, at least, many of whom were likely first-borns.
[3] George Whitfield, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, etc.
[4] www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-20/religious-backers-of-abortion-rights-say-gods-on-their-side?context=amp. Accessed 24 October, 2024.
[5] This is based on a demographic study of Trinity area done in February, 2025.
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