Dreams and visions
Commentary
Ever since Freud, dreams have taken on new, but very important functions. There was a time when dreams and visions were a means of learning truth that transcends the reaches of ordinary human capacities. Now, however, dreams are most often understood as a source of knowledge about ourselves, and supremely of our deeper and subconscious recesses. Still, dreams remain a debated subject even among psychologists. Just think of the differences between Freud and Jung on dreams.
Dreams remain a mystery, and visions seem inscrutable. So, today the words of the prophet Joel sound strange and foreign: "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions" (Joel 2:28). Dreams, we think, are most often illusions and visions nothing more than projections of our own needs. What, then, can we make of Joel's words as Peter quotes them in his Pentecost sermon? Are the dreams and visions promised as part of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit nothing more than fragments of pre-scientific ignorance and misunderstanding? One of the routes through these three lessons on Pentecost Sunday asks us to consider how the Spirit operates in our Christian communities to implant dreams and project visions.
Acts 2:1-21
How can we enliven this ancient story so as to allow it to speak fresh messages? The quotation of the Septuagint version of Joel 2:28-32 (with some significant alterations) stands at the center of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, which stretches beyond the end of our lesson to verse 36. We might try reading the story through the lens of Joel's promise for the "last days."
Pentecost marked the end of the grain harvest and literally means fifty, because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day (after seven weeks) following Passover. The occasion is then a time when pilgrims crowded into Jerusalem from all parts of the world, as verses 9-11 suggest. Hence the giving of the Spirit is associated in Luke's story with the universal mission of the church that will soon emerge. The antecedent of "they" in verse 1 would seem to be the group of 150 believers mentioned in 1:15, but the story clearly implies the crowd that experienced the wind and tongues of fire included unbelievers as well.
Four extraordinary events comprise the substance of the group's experience: a powerful wind, tongues of fire, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and speaking in tongues. That God's Spirit should be related to "wind" is not surprising since the Greek word for spirit, like its Hebrew antecedent (ruach), could mean wind or breath as well as spirit (see Genesis 1:2 and John 3:5-8). Wind represents divine presence in a number of Old Testament stories such as Job 38:1. "Fire" is traditionally associated with divine judgment (for example, Matthew 3:11) or more simply God's presence (for example, Exodus 19:18), and "tongues of fire" is an image Isaiah uses (5:24) for the devouring judgment of God.
The third component of the Pentecost experience is the Holy Spirit itself. Often used as a synonym for God's self, the Spirit is most clearly associated with prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures. The withdrawal of the Spirit, for instance, accounts for what seemed to the Jewish people an end to prophecy (Psalm 74:9), and the Spirit's return would signal the advent of the final days, as the quotation of Joel 2:28-32 shows. Since the Jewish people believed that the spirit of prophecy had ended with the last of the biblical prophets (for example, Malachi), the preaching of John the Baptist and the promise of the Spirit excited hope for the imminent coming of God's reign in the world. The bestowal of the Spirit was understood by the early Christians as a sign of God's final and decisive act for the redemption of creation. In Luke-Acts the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit is Jesus' last words to his disciples before his ascension (Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8).
Finally, because of the Spirit's presence, Galilean members of the crowd begin to speak in foreign languages, that is, languages other than their native tongue (v. 7 -- compare 1 Corinthians 14:1-25). This enabled people from a vast variety of nations and regions (vv. 9-11) to hear in their own language (v. 8) what is called "God's deeds of power" (v. 11b).
However, like most expressions of divine presence, this one too is ambiguous. What causes the speech? Some think that the disciples are intoxicated (v. 13), and Peter has to defend them by claiming it is too early in the day to be drunk (as if later on it might be a reasonable conclusion!). Peter's sermon is comprised of several parts, not all of which are included in the lesson for this day. First, Peter claims that the crowd is experiencing the fulfillment of the promise God made through Joel years ago, and he quotes Joel 2:28-32. The book of Joel remains something of a mystery to scholars, but it pictures an invasion of the nation that commences the "day of the Lord." However, after announcing God's punishment of the people, Joel speaks of the gift of the Spirit and a new future for Israel. The quotation serves to proclaim that the outpouring of the Spirit means the day of God's restoration of humanity has come. The remainder of Peter's sermon (vv. 22-38) argues that Jesus was God's Messiah and that the Israelites should join the circle of believers.
The bestowal of the Spirit on the church brought the advent of new experiences including visions and dreams. The Spirit's presence evokes the vision of how God will eventually transform our world and encourages us to believe that vision awaits us. The Spirit will continue to lead the church and implant visions and dreams of what Christian witness can do (for example, 16:6-10). Where the Spirit is, there God generates images of the future of the church and its ministry. Moreover, it is important that Peter quotes this passage in Joel, which emphasizes that God's Spirit is poured out on all people and that young and old will dream dreams and visualize possibilities for the future. That is a model of the way the Spirit continues to stir and evoke mission in the church today and does so without regard to human status.
Romans 8:22-27
In his argument in Romans 8, Paul states how the Spirit stirs and evokes dreams and visions. In particular, he understands that the Spirit arouses our hope for what God can do in the future. This chapter begins by claiming that Christian life includes life in the Spirit (8:1-11) and that the Spirit implants our sense of being God's children (8:12-17). In verse 18 Paul focuses on the future hope Christians have in the Spirit and sets that hope in the context of the redemption of the whole of creation, which "was subjected to futility ..." and "... will be set free from bondage to decay ... " (vv. 20-21). The reading begins at this point in the chapter's argument and has two major parts. The first is the conclusion of the discussion of the future redemption of creation and how our own redemption is tied up with God's cosmic restoration (vv. 22-25). The second part (vv. 26-27) speaks of how the Spirit helps us in the period before that final redemption.
The apostle visualizes the whole of creation laboring to produce a new being. In the New Testament we often find the metaphor of childbirth used to speak of the eschatological days (for example, Mark 13:8); however, Paul ties our own struggles with this cosmic process of giving birth. Like creation itself, we "groan" amid the difficulties of this interim time during which we await our "adoption" as children of God. This pain, the apostle claims, is due to the fact that we are the "first fruits" of the Spirit. Life in the Spirit actually produces the labor of birth rather than immunizing us against hardships; yet our lives in the Spirit are the evidence that God will eventually fulfill the divine promises. (See 2 Corinthians 5:5 where Paul speaks of the Spirit as the "guarantee" of God's future work.)
However, Paul speaks here of "adoption" and the "redemption of our bodies" as something we "wait for" (v. 23). He can talk about these in both the past (for example, Romans 5:9) and the future sense, apparently because he understands them as a process in which the beginning (the now) already contains within itself the completion (the future). Similarly, we can say that we are already saved by grace (for example, Romans 3:24) as well as "in hope we are saved." The process by which God claims us as children is dynamic and entails the past, present, and future in such a way that Paul and other New Testament writers can speak of it in all three periods (and tenses of the verbs). We humans live suspended in the present between the past and future, so the process by which we become God's children also encompasses all three of these.
In verses 24 and 25 Paul nails down exactly what he means here by "hope." Hope always entails grasping some reality that is beyond our vision, and that which we can see is not that in which we hope. To hope for something you already see is ridiculous, for we don't have to hope for it. Hoping for something that is yet to materialize, however, requires vision and a patient waiting. Maybe it is like awaiting the arrival of a child. We cannot yet see the child, but we know it's there. So, we have to wait for its arrival.
The second part of the lesson (vv. 26-27) averts our attention to what the Spirit is doing for us right now, as we patiently await God's future. Amid our "weakness," groaning in the process of our adoption, the Spirit comes to our aid. What exactly are we to pray for in this interim period? By implication, Paul suggest that the Spirit leads our prayers, but it is more important to know that the Spirit "intercedes" for us. We are not left alone in our efforts to survive the period before we and the creation are redeemed. God's own Spirit does not have to hope as we do, but is fully identified with our groaning so that the Spirit too "groans with sighs too deep for words." Paul is saying that the Spirit joins us in our condition and prays for us and that genuine prayer arises from the Spirit's participation in our condition. This is the only passage in the New Testament that claims the Spirit intercedes to God on our behalf (but see the Gospel lesson below). In this case, intercession is not necessitated by the distance between us and God, but it makes up for our own inability to articulate our needs to God. God, of course, knows our hearts (see Psalm 7:11 and 17:3) and the mind of the Spirit which is identical to God's own will.
Paul complicates the role of the Spirit in prayer but clearly makes the point that the Spirit identifies with us in our weaknesses. Hence, the Spirit enables our hope and increases our patience. Because we are given the Spirit ("the first fruits of the Spirit"), we can dream (but not see) what God has in mind for us. It is a vision of life that is very different from the turmoil and confusion we often experience because it envisions our lives as children of God. The world today needs a vision of the future in which both humans and the whole creation are freed of our weaknesses. We need to be able to dream dreams and see visions of what God has in mind for us and the world, even though what we dream and what we see in those visions is beyond anything that we can perceive with ordinary vision.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
The words of the Gospel lesson also assume our state of weakness and groaning and invite us to dream. The four Paraclete (or "Advocate,") passages (14:15-17, 25-26; 15:26-27; and 16:7-15) are integrated into Jesus' final teachings before his passion, called "the farewell discourses" (13:1--17:26). The use of the word Paraclete to speak of the Holy Spirit is unique to the fourth Gospel (but see 1 John 2:1) and is difficult to translate, since it has so many different meanings, each of which seems appropriate to the Holy Spirit. A paraclete is one who comes to the aid of those charged with a crime and intercedes for them, but the word also identified proclamation of comforting news of what God will do in the future. Each of the usual translations of this complex word (Advocate, Counselor, and Comforter) loses something implied in the Greek word, and with this complexity the fourth evangelist extends and expands the meaning of the Spirit.
The lesson combines two of the Paraclete passages and includes the context for the second of them. In these final discourses, Jesus tells his followers of his impending departure and addresses the situation in which they will find themselves. John 15:26-27 comes at the end of Jesus' warning that the world will hate and persecute the disciples. The Spirit-Paraclete will be the divine presence among believers to take Jesus' place after his departure, and will empower and lead believers to testify to Jesus (vv. 26-27). By identifying this Spirit as the "Spirit of Truth," the author claims the Paraclete comes into being as a result of the revelation of God in Christ and leads believers into the truth of that revelation. In the fourth Gospel witness or testimony is very important, since it conveys and confirms truth. The Paraclete then witnesses to Christ in the community of believers and will empower believers to become witnesses even in the hostile world.
The second part of the reading (16:4b-15) includes the most difficult of the Paraclete passages. Jesus first acknowledges that what he is saying arises from the fact that his earthly ministry is about to end; Jesus' "going to the Father" is one of the several ways in which the fourth Gospel speaks of Christ's death and resurrection and refers to Jesus' return to his heavenly home from where God sent him into the world. Here Jesus claims that no one has asked him where he is going, even though Thomas has asked him that very question in 14:5. However one understands that anomaly, the point is that the disciples do not understand what is about to transpire. What they do know is that Jesus is going to leave them, and they are filled with "sorrow." In a sense, the whole of the farewell discourses is designed to prepare the group of believers for their lives and ministries after Jesus is no longer among them in a physical sense.
Only if Jesus undergoes death and resurrection will the Paraclete come among them, which is the Johannine version of the New Testament's claim that Christ's death and resurrection provide the conditions for the appearance of the Spirit in the church. Now Jesus claims the Paraclete will "prove the world wrong about" three things -- sin, righteousness, and judgment. As it does elsewhere in the Johannine writings, "world" designates the realm of unbelief and rejection of the revelation in Christ, and these words are a promise that the Spirit will demonstrate beyond doubt to the disciples that their faith is truth and that the world is in error.
Verses 9-11 are not clear, but here is one way of reading them. First, "sin" in the fourth Gospel is unbelief, so the Paraclete proves the world's disbelief to be erroneous. Second, "righteousness" is used here in its primitive sense of justice, and the Paraclete will expose the world's injustice by means of God's raising Christ and thereby reversing the injustice of his death. Third, in the world "judgment" is controlled by evil, and Christ overthrows the power of evil in his death and resurrection (see 16:33b).
The believers are not ready to hear all that Jesus has to say, because they have not yet experienced his death and resurrection. However, the function of the Paraclete is to lead them "into all truth" (that is, lead them to understand all the meaning and implications of God's revelation in Christ), including the future fulfillment of God's promises. Still, the Spirit-Paraclete is not interested in self-honor and will only honor Christ, for the Spirit will implant the full meaning of Christ's ministry in the believers' lives. Verse 15 claims that Christ shares in the divinity of the Father (see 1:1-18) and that he has transmitted the fullness of God to his followers. Christ shares God's being, and the Spirit passes the divine being on to the church.
The fourth evangelist turns the glistening gem of the Spirit another direction and enables us to see more than we had before. Christ's absence does not leave the church bereft of the benefits of his presence, since the Spirit conveys all that Christ has for us, and in that way, through the Spirit-Paraclete, Jesus' ministry continues in the community of believers. The Spirit ignites a vision within us that Christ is still our leader and that through this Spirit we can come to understand what it means to be people of the Word. As times change, as new situations arise, the Spirit leads the church to understand something new in God's revelation. We dream dreams and see visions because we believe the divine presence is alive and active within the church -- not our own visions and dreams but God's vision and God's dreams for us. This mysterious Advocate-Counselor bolsters our own wills and, by allowing us glimpses of the divine possibilities, stretches us out into the future to find what God has awaiting us.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 2:1-21
This passage formed the stated lesson from Acts also on Pentecost Sunday in Cycle A. The preacher may want to refer to that issue of Emphasis for another exposition of the passage.
The scene is familiar to us by this time. The disciples of Jesus "were all together in one place" in Jerusalem. The text does not say what they were doing. Suddenly there is the rush of a mighty wind from heaven that fills all the house where they are sitting, and a tongue of fire rests on each of them, signifying the gift of the Holy Spirit. By that Spirit, the disciples all begin to speak in foreign languages, so that other devout Jews who are present and who had come from all of the countries around the Mediterranean hear themselves addressed in their own language, as the inspired disciples tell them about God's mighty deeds. The crowd is amazed, wondering what it all means. Some even think the disciples are drunk. But the Apostle Peter explains to them what is happening, using a quotation from the prophet Joel (2:28-32) and pointing out that the prophecy is now being fulfilled.
The "last days," that is, the time of the inbreaking of the new age of God into human history is now immanent. Joel had prophesied in about the fourth century B.C. that before the Lord brought history to an end, gave a last judgment on the Day of the Lord, and established his rule over all the earth, he would give signs of his coming in heaven and on earth (cf. Mark 13 and Luke 21). One of those signs would be the pouring out of his Spirit upon all flesh. That is what is now happening in this story, and the disciples are the forerunners of that gift of the Spirit. In Joel's prophecy, the gift was intended for Judah. Here, given Acts' universal vision, the gift is to be granted to all peoples everywhere.
In Joel's prophecy, the emphasis was on the fact that Judah would enjoy a new, intimate relation with God like that granted to prophets. But as Acts uses Joel's words, the Spirit is now given to the disciples of Jesus in order to equip them for their task. As we read in Acts 1, the disciples were to wait in Jerusalem after Christ's ascension until the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them. Then they were to be Christ's witnesses to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth (1:8). Now, in our text, the Spirit comes, and the disciples are given the power to go into all the known world and to preach the gospel.
What is the purpose of their mission? Salvation. God is bringing human history to its end. The Day of the Lord, when he will judge all flesh, is coming. But the Lord God wishes to save humanity. He has sent his Son to be the Savior of all peoples (Luke 2:10). Now the disciples' task is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world, because as verse 21 in our text says, "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (cf. Romans 10:9-13).
If we look at other passages in the Bible where that phrase, "to call on the name of the Lord," is used, it is clear that it has multiple meanings. It means to worship God (Genesis 12:8), to acknowledge that we belong to him alone (Isaiah 12:2-4; 44:5; Psalm 105:1; Zechariah 13:9), and to depend on him for all life and good (cf. Proverbs 18:10; Zechariah 2:5). Thus, calling on God is not a matter of suddenly turning to him to get us out of trouble, but rather of commitment to his will and way every day. Our text is telling us, therefore, that our surrender to God in Jesus Christ is our means of salvation in the day of judgment and our entrance into the eternal life of the kingdom.
Additionally, however, to call on the name of the Lord means to tell others what God has done (Isaiah 12:4), and that is the mission for which the disciples are empowered in our text. But that is also our mission, isn't it? This text from Acts 2 has often been called the account of "the birthday of the church," because not only were the original disciples given the Spirit on that first Pentecost, but we also have received that Spirit in our baptisms and at the Lord's Supper. So we have a mission, don't we? To tell the world what God has done in Jesus Christ, because you see, God loves his world, and he wants to save all people from both their sin and death.
Lutheran Option -- Ezekiel 37:1-14
This was the stated Old Testament text also for the fifth Sunday in Lent in Cycle A, and a portion of it (vv. 7-11) was designated for the fifteenth Sunday in Pentecost A. The preacher may want to refer back to those expositions.
The prophet Ezekiel probably received this charismatic vision shortly after the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Ezekiel is in Babylonia, a victim himself of the 597 B.C. deportation, but here, by the action of the Spirit, he is granted hope for Israel's future.
Israel is as good as dead in Babylonian exile, a valley of very dry bones, with no life in them, cut off from her God who is the source of life, and all hope for the future lost. Or so she thinks. But of course, such a view leaves out the love of God, and with him, there is always hope and a future. Ezekiel is therefore told that God will once again raise up his people from living death and bring them home to the land of Israel and fill them with his lifegiving Spirit. As symbol of that promise, the prophet is told to prophesy to the Spirit, which animates the dry bones and restores them to life as a great host.
Two emphases are especially to be noted. First, it is the Word of God, spoken by the prophet, that brings the Spirit and restores dead Israel to life. In short, the Word of God is the instrument by which we may be resurrected from our deadly ways to new life. The word gives life, abundant life in Christ Jesus.
Second, when Israel is restored to life -- and the promise is still for the future in Ezekiel -- she will know that God is the Lord (vv. 13-14). The final goal of Ezekiel's preaching and ours, the final point of mission, of the church, of the work of spreading the gospel in the power of the Spirit, is to bring all peoples to the confession that God in Jesus Christ is the Lord. That is the purpose of our Christian living -- as the Westminster Confession has it, "to glorify God and enjoy him forever." For that means abundant life for the world, and joy, and peace, and the fulfillment of all that we and our world were meant to be.
Dreams remain a mystery, and visions seem inscrutable. So, today the words of the prophet Joel sound strange and foreign: "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions" (Joel 2:28). Dreams, we think, are most often illusions and visions nothing more than projections of our own needs. What, then, can we make of Joel's words as Peter quotes them in his Pentecost sermon? Are the dreams and visions promised as part of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit nothing more than fragments of pre-scientific ignorance and misunderstanding? One of the routes through these three lessons on Pentecost Sunday asks us to consider how the Spirit operates in our Christian communities to implant dreams and project visions.
Acts 2:1-21
How can we enliven this ancient story so as to allow it to speak fresh messages? The quotation of the Septuagint version of Joel 2:28-32 (with some significant alterations) stands at the center of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, which stretches beyond the end of our lesson to verse 36. We might try reading the story through the lens of Joel's promise for the "last days."
Pentecost marked the end of the grain harvest and literally means fifty, because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day (after seven weeks) following Passover. The occasion is then a time when pilgrims crowded into Jerusalem from all parts of the world, as verses 9-11 suggest. Hence the giving of the Spirit is associated in Luke's story with the universal mission of the church that will soon emerge. The antecedent of "they" in verse 1 would seem to be the group of 150 believers mentioned in 1:15, but the story clearly implies the crowd that experienced the wind and tongues of fire included unbelievers as well.
Four extraordinary events comprise the substance of the group's experience: a powerful wind, tongues of fire, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and speaking in tongues. That God's Spirit should be related to "wind" is not surprising since the Greek word for spirit, like its Hebrew antecedent (ruach), could mean wind or breath as well as spirit (see Genesis 1:2 and John 3:5-8). Wind represents divine presence in a number of Old Testament stories such as Job 38:1. "Fire" is traditionally associated with divine judgment (for example, Matthew 3:11) or more simply God's presence (for example, Exodus 19:18), and "tongues of fire" is an image Isaiah uses (5:24) for the devouring judgment of God.
The third component of the Pentecost experience is the Holy Spirit itself. Often used as a synonym for God's self, the Spirit is most clearly associated with prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures. The withdrawal of the Spirit, for instance, accounts for what seemed to the Jewish people an end to prophecy (Psalm 74:9), and the Spirit's return would signal the advent of the final days, as the quotation of Joel 2:28-32 shows. Since the Jewish people believed that the spirit of prophecy had ended with the last of the biblical prophets (for example, Malachi), the preaching of John the Baptist and the promise of the Spirit excited hope for the imminent coming of God's reign in the world. The bestowal of the Spirit was understood by the early Christians as a sign of God's final and decisive act for the redemption of creation. In Luke-Acts the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit is Jesus' last words to his disciples before his ascension (Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8).
Finally, because of the Spirit's presence, Galilean members of the crowd begin to speak in foreign languages, that is, languages other than their native tongue (v. 7 -- compare 1 Corinthians 14:1-25). This enabled people from a vast variety of nations and regions (vv. 9-11) to hear in their own language (v. 8) what is called "God's deeds of power" (v. 11b).
However, like most expressions of divine presence, this one too is ambiguous. What causes the speech? Some think that the disciples are intoxicated (v. 13), and Peter has to defend them by claiming it is too early in the day to be drunk (as if later on it might be a reasonable conclusion!). Peter's sermon is comprised of several parts, not all of which are included in the lesson for this day. First, Peter claims that the crowd is experiencing the fulfillment of the promise God made through Joel years ago, and he quotes Joel 2:28-32. The book of Joel remains something of a mystery to scholars, but it pictures an invasion of the nation that commences the "day of the Lord." However, after announcing God's punishment of the people, Joel speaks of the gift of the Spirit and a new future for Israel. The quotation serves to proclaim that the outpouring of the Spirit means the day of God's restoration of humanity has come. The remainder of Peter's sermon (vv. 22-38) argues that Jesus was God's Messiah and that the Israelites should join the circle of believers.
The bestowal of the Spirit on the church brought the advent of new experiences including visions and dreams. The Spirit's presence evokes the vision of how God will eventually transform our world and encourages us to believe that vision awaits us. The Spirit will continue to lead the church and implant visions and dreams of what Christian witness can do (for example, 16:6-10). Where the Spirit is, there God generates images of the future of the church and its ministry. Moreover, it is important that Peter quotes this passage in Joel, which emphasizes that God's Spirit is poured out on all people and that young and old will dream dreams and visualize possibilities for the future. That is a model of the way the Spirit continues to stir and evoke mission in the church today and does so without regard to human status.
Romans 8:22-27
In his argument in Romans 8, Paul states how the Spirit stirs and evokes dreams and visions. In particular, he understands that the Spirit arouses our hope for what God can do in the future. This chapter begins by claiming that Christian life includes life in the Spirit (8:1-11) and that the Spirit implants our sense of being God's children (8:12-17). In verse 18 Paul focuses on the future hope Christians have in the Spirit and sets that hope in the context of the redemption of the whole of creation, which "was subjected to futility ..." and "... will be set free from bondage to decay ... " (vv. 20-21). The reading begins at this point in the chapter's argument and has two major parts. The first is the conclusion of the discussion of the future redemption of creation and how our own redemption is tied up with God's cosmic restoration (vv. 22-25). The second part (vv. 26-27) speaks of how the Spirit helps us in the period before that final redemption.
The apostle visualizes the whole of creation laboring to produce a new being. In the New Testament we often find the metaphor of childbirth used to speak of the eschatological days (for example, Mark 13:8); however, Paul ties our own struggles with this cosmic process of giving birth. Like creation itself, we "groan" amid the difficulties of this interim time during which we await our "adoption" as children of God. This pain, the apostle claims, is due to the fact that we are the "first fruits" of the Spirit. Life in the Spirit actually produces the labor of birth rather than immunizing us against hardships; yet our lives in the Spirit are the evidence that God will eventually fulfill the divine promises. (See 2 Corinthians 5:5 where Paul speaks of the Spirit as the "guarantee" of God's future work.)
However, Paul speaks here of "adoption" and the "redemption of our bodies" as something we "wait for" (v. 23). He can talk about these in both the past (for example, Romans 5:9) and the future sense, apparently because he understands them as a process in which the beginning (the now) already contains within itself the completion (the future). Similarly, we can say that we are already saved by grace (for example, Romans 3:24) as well as "in hope we are saved." The process by which God claims us as children is dynamic and entails the past, present, and future in such a way that Paul and other New Testament writers can speak of it in all three periods (and tenses of the verbs). We humans live suspended in the present between the past and future, so the process by which we become God's children also encompasses all three of these.
In verses 24 and 25 Paul nails down exactly what he means here by "hope." Hope always entails grasping some reality that is beyond our vision, and that which we can see is not that in which we hope. To hope for something you already see is ridiculous, for we don't have to hope for it. Hoping for something that is yet to materialize, however, requires vision and a patient waiting. Maybe it is like awaiting the arrival of a child. We cannot yet see the child, but we know it's there. So, we have to wait for its arrival.
The second part of the lesson (vv. 26-27) averts our attention to what the Spirit is doing for us right now, as we patiently await God's future. Amid our "weakness," groaning in the process of our adoption, the Spirit comes to our aid. What exactly are we to pray for in this interim period? By implication, Paul suggest that the Spirit leads our prayers, but it is more important to know that the Spirit "intercedes" for us. We are not left alone in our efforts to survive the period before we and the creation are redeemed. God's own Spirit does not have to hope as we do, but is fully identified with our groaning so that the Spirit too "groans with sighs too deep for words." Paul is saying that the Spirit joins us in our condition and prays for us and that genuine prayer arises from the Spirit's participation in our condition. This is the only passage in the New Testament that claims the Spirit intercedes to God on our behalf (but see the Gospel lesson below). In this case, intercession is not necessitated by the distance between us and God, but it makes up for our own inability to articulate our needs to God. God, of course, knows our hearts (see Psalm 7:11 and 17:3) and the mind of the Spirit which is identical to God's own will.
Paul complicates the role of the Spirit in prayer but clearly makes the point that the Spirit identifies with us in our weaknesses. Hence, the Spirit enables our hope and increases our patience. Because we are given the Spirit ("the first fruits of the Spirit"), we can dream (but not see) what God has in mind for us. It is a vision of life that is very different from the turmoil and confusion we often experience because it envisions our lives as children of God. The world today needs a vision of the future in which both humans and the whole creation are freed of our weaknesses. We need to be able to dream dreams and see visions of what God has in mind for us and the world, even though what we dream and what we see in those visions is beyond anything that we can perceive with ordinary vision.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
The words of the Gospel lesson also assume our state of weakness and groaning and invite us to dream. The four Paraclete (or "Advocate,") passages (14:15-17, 25-26; 15:26-27; and 16:7-15) are integrated into Jesus' final teachings before his passion, called "the farewell discourses" (13:1--17:26). The use of the word Paraclete to speak of the Holy Spirit is unique to the fourth Gospel (but see 1 John 2:1) and is difficult to translate, since it has so many different meanings, each of which seems appropriate to the Holy Spirit. A paraclete is one who comes to the aid of those charged with a crime and intercedes for them, but the word also identified proclamation of comforting news of what God will do in the future. Each of the usual translations of this complex word (Advocate, Counselor, and Comforter) loses something implied in the Greek word, and with this complexity the fourth evangelist extends and expands the meaning of the Spirit.
The lesson combines two of the Paraclete passages and includes the context for the second of them. In these final discourses, Jesus tells his followers of his impending departure and addresses the situation in which they will find themselves. John 15:26-27 comes at the end of Jesus' warning that the world will hate and persecute the disciples. The Spirit-Paraclete will be the divine presence among believers to take Jesus' place after his departure, and will empower and lead believers to testify to Jesus (vv. 26-27). By identifying this Spirit as the "Spirit of Truth," the author claims the Paraclete comes into being as a result of the revelation of God in Christ and leads believers into the truth of that revelation. In the fourth Gospel witness or testimony is very important, since it conveys and confirms truth. The Paraclete then witnesses to Christ in the community of believers and will empower believers to become witnesses even in the hostile world.
The second part of the reading (16:4b-15) includes the most difficult of the Paraclete passages. Jesus first acknowledges that what he is saying arises from the fact that his earthly ministry is about to end; Jesus' "going to the Father" is one of the several ways in which the fourth Gospel speaks of Christ's death and resurrection and refers to Jesus' return to his heavenly home from where God sent him into the world. Here Jesus claims that no one has asked him where he is going, even though Thomas has asked him that very question in 14:5. However one understands that anomaly, the point is that the disciples do not understand what is about to transpire. What they do know is that Jesus is going to leave them, and they are filled with "sorrow." In a sense, the whole of the farewell discourses is designed to prepare the group of believers for their lives and ministries after Jesus is no longer among them in a physical sense.
Only if Jesus undergoes death and resurrection will the Paraclete come among them, which is the Johannine version of the New Testament's claim that Christ's death and resurrection provide the conditions for the appearance of the Spirit in the church. Now Jesus claims the Paraclete will "prove the world wrong about" three things -- sin, righteousness, and judgment. As it does elsewhere in the Johannine writings, "world" designates the realm of unbelief and rejection of the revelation in Christ, and these words are a promise that the Spirit will demonstrate beyond doubt to the disciples that their faith is truth and that the world is in error.
Verses 9-11 are not clear, but here is one way of reading them. First, "sin" in the fourth Gospel is unbelief, so the Paraclete proves the world's disbelief to be erroneous. Second, "righteousness" is used here in its primitive sense of justice, and the Paraclete will expose the world's injustice by means of God's raising Christ and thereby reversing the injustice of his death. Third, in the world "judgment" is controlled by evil, and Christ overthrows the power of evil in his death and resurrection (see 16:33b).
The believers are not ready to hear all that Jesus has to say, because they have not yet experienced his death and resurrection. However, the function of the Paraclete is to lead them "into all truth" (that is, lead them to understand all the meaning and implications of God's revelation in Christ), including the future fulfillment of God's promises. Still, the Spirit-Paraclete is not interested in self-honor and will only honor Christ, for the Spirit will implant the full meaning of Christ's ministry in the believers' lives. Verse 15 claims that Christ shares in the divinity of the Father (see 1:1-18) and that he has transmitted the fullness of God to his followers. Christ shares God's being, and the Spirit passes the divine being on to the church.
The fourth evangelist turns the glistening gem of the Spirit another direction and enables us to see more than we had before. Christ's absence does not leave the church bereft of the benefits of his presence, since the Spirit conveys all that Christ has for us, and in that way, through the Spirit-Paraclete, Jesus' ministry continues in the community of believers. The Spirit ignites a vision within us that Christ is still our leader and that through this Spirit we can come to understand what it means to be people of the Word. As times change, as new situations arise, the Spirit leads the church to understand something new in God's revelation. We dream dreams and see visions because we believe the divine presence is alive and active within the church -- not our own visions and dreams but God's vision and God's dreams for us. This mysterious Advocate-Counselor bolsters our own wills and, by allowing us glimpses of the divine possibilities, stretches us out into the future to find what God has awaiting us.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 2:1-21
This passage formed the stated lesson from Acts also on Pentecost Sunday in Cycle A. The preacher may want to refer to that issue of Emphasis for another exposition of the passage.
The scene is familiar to us by this time. The disciples of Jesus "were all together in one place" in Jerusalem. The text does not say what they were doing. Suddenly there is the rush of a mighty wind from heaven that fills all the house where they are sitting, and a tongue of fire rests on each of them, signifying the gift of the Holy Spirit. By that Spirit, the disciples all begin to speak in foreign languages, so that other devout Jews who are present and who had come from all of the countries around the Mediterranean hear themselves addressed in their own language, as the inspired disciples tell them about God's mighty deeds. The crowd is amazed, wondering what it all means. Some even think the disciples are drunk. But the Apostle Peter explains to them what is happening, using a quotation from the prophet Joel (2:28-32) and pointing out that the prophecy is now being fulfilled.
The "last days," that is, the time of the inbreaking of the new age of God into human history is now immanent. Joel had prophesied in about the fourth century B.C. that before the Lord brought history to an end, gave a last judgment on the Day of the Lord, and established his rule over all the earth, he would give signs of his coming in heaven and on earth (cf. Mark 13 and Luke 21). One of those signs would be the pouring out of his Spirit upon all flesh. That is what is now happening in this story, and the disciples are the forerunners of that gift of the Spirit. In Joel's prophecy, the gift was intended for Judah. Here, given Acts' universal vision, the gift is to be granted to all peoples everywhere.
In Joel's prophecy, the emphasis was on the fact that Judah would enjoy a new, intimate relation with God like that granted to prophets. But as Acts uses Joel's words, the Spirit is now given to the disciples of Jesus in order to equip them for their task. As we read in Acts 1, the disciples were to wait in Jerusalem after Christ's ascension until the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them. Then they were to be Christ's witnesses to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth (1:8). Now, in our text, the Spirit comes, and the disciples are given the power to go into all the known world and to preach the gospel.
What is the purpose of their mission? Salvation. God is bringing human history to its end. The Day of the Lord, when he will judge all flesh, is coming. But the Lord God wishes to save humanity. He has sent his Son to be the Savior of all peoples (Luke 2:10). Now the disciples' task is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world, because as verse 21 in our text says, "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (cf. Romans 10:9-13).
If we look at other passages in the Bible where that phrase, "to call on the name of the Lord," is used, it is clear that it has multiple meanings. It means to worship God (Genesis 12:8), to acknowledge that we belong to him alone (Isaiah 12:2-4; 44:5; Psalm 105:1; Zechariah 13:9), and to depend on him for all life and good (cf. Proverbs 18:10; Zechariah 2:5). Thus, calling on God is not a matter of suddenly turning to him to get us out of trouble, but rather of commitment to his will and way every day. Our text is telling us, therefore, that our surrender to God in Jesus Christ is our means of salvation in the day of judgment and our entrance into the eternal life of the kingdom.
Additionally, however, to call on the name of the Lord means to tell others what God has done (Isaiah 12:4), and that is the mission for which the disciples are empowered in our text. But that is also our mission, isn't it? This text from Acts 2 has often been called the account of "the birthday of the church," because not only were the original disciples given the Spirit on that first Pentecost, but we also have received that Spirit in our baptisms and at the Lord's Supper. So we have a mission, don't we? To tell the world what God has done in Jesus Christ, because you see, God loves his world, and he wants to save all people from both their sin and death.
Lutheran Option -- Ezekiel 37:1-14
This was the stated Old Testament text also for the fifth Sunday in Lent in Cycle A, and a portion of it (vv. 7-11) was designated for the fifteenth Sunday in Pentecost A. The preacher may want to refer back to those expositions.
The prophet Ezekiel probably received this charismatic vision shortly after the defeat and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Ezekiel is in Babylonia, a victim himself of the 597 B.C. deportation, but here, by the action of the Spirit, he is granted hope for Israel's future.
Israel is as good as dead in Babylonian exile, a valley of very dry bones, with no life in them, cut off from her God who is the source of life, and all hope for the future lost. Or so she thinks. But of course, such a view leaves out the love of God, and with him, there is always hope and a future. Ezekiel is therefore told that God will once again raise up his people from living death and bring them home to the land of Israel and fill them with his lifegiving Spirit. As symbol of that promise, the prophet is told to prophesy to the Spirit, which animates the dry bones and restores them to life as a great host.
Two emphases are especially to be noted. First, it is the Word of God, spoken by the prophet, that brings the Spirit and restores dead Israel to life. In short, the Word of God is the instrument by which we may be resurrected from our deadly ways to new life. The word gives life, abundant life in Christ Jesus.
Second, when Israel is restored to life -- and the promise is still for the future in Ezekiel -- she will know that God is the Lord (vv. 13-14). The final goal of Ezekiel's preaching and ours, the final point of mission, of the church, of the work of spreading the gospel in the power of the Spirit, is to bring all peoples to the confession that God in Jesus Christ is the Lord. That is the purpose of our Christian living -- as the Westminster Confession has it, "to glorify God and enjoy him forever." For that means abundant life for the world, and joy, and peace, and the fulfillment of all that we and our world were meant to be.
