Coming to Christ through the Back Door

A Sermon about the Holy Spirit and the Church
Preached by Dr. Peter James Flamming,
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va.

May 19, 2002

Text: Acts 2

When the festival of Pentecost came around every late spring in Jerusalem, people were there from everywhere. It was like race week here in Richmond. Everything booked up months ahead. No motel rooms, hotel rooms, no vacancies anywhere. Restaurants booked, caterers in a frenzy, the tourist traffic at its height.  

Of the three major festivals of the Jewish year, this was the happy one. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was solemn and serious. It was about the forgiveness of past sins. The Festival of the Passover was about the past also, remembering the great things God did at the Exodus when he brought the Hebrew nation out of bondage in Egypt. But the Festival or Feast of Pentecost was like a celebration of the now. It was about what was happening now. Harvest festival it was. It was celebrating the good things. So people came and came and came.

An International Audience

Listen to the list that Luke gives us. Parthians, Medes and Elamites; (no mention here of termites!); residens of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs.

Well, you get the idea. This was an international celebration. Why would all of these guys come to Jerusalem for a festival? It is like asking why Muslims make their pilgrimage to Mecca each year. For some, religious place is the big item. For Christians, place is wherever the Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of believers. If you were going to put up a monument for every place a Holy Spirit breakthrough happened, you would bang your chin bone on marble time and again in every nation across the globe.

Why Did They Come?

Maybe these pilgrims were like most everybody. We spent most of our lives wanting, and getting, and achieving, and protecting. To be human is to do those things. We want, we get, we achieve, we protect. But that can wear thin. “What is the meaning of all of this?” we ask.

Maybe all of us want an altar upon which we can place our wanting, our getting, our achieving and our protecting. We long for deeper spiritual meanings. The Jews traveled all of the way to Jerusalem to find it. And on that day what they were looking for found them.

When the Holy Spirit broke loose on that first Pentecost celebration, the disciples were together in one place. The Holy Spirit has an affinity for togetherness. Their senses came alive. The Spirit came like a mighty wind. In Hebrew, Spirit and the wind are the same word. Tongues of fire seemed to rest on all of them and they were speaking in such a way that all languages were able to understand.

The Holy Spirit so embraced them and changed them, that 3000 were baptized on that day.

Incredible. I read once where crusades, such as Billy Graham crusades, that of those who respond, less than 10% ever are baptized and become active disciples. But on that day, 3,000.

When they went home they carried the good news with them. That is why when the early apostles did missionary work, almost everywhere they went they found Christians already there.

The Sermon

The focus was a sermon. Simon Peter, of all people. The great betrayal behind him, he had new courage. He told them what they had done by putting Jesus on the tree. It was still so real to him and to all of the disciples. The horrific sights, sounds, and sounds still lingered in their memories and would for as long as they lived.

Barbara Brown Taylor speaks of a church that each Palm Sunday reenacted the events of the final week of our Lord before he died on the cross. We do much the same thing on Thursday of Holy Week, but we do it through music and Scripture. They did it through drama.

The only prop was a cross in the center of the chancel area with a blood red cloth draped around it. The actors were scattered throughout the congregation. The one playing Jesus stood in front of the cross.

As the lights dimmed, the drama built steadily toward its dreaded conclusions. Jesus, with his head bowed, heard Pilate ask “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” he asked us. Players, scattered throughout the congregation, leapt to their feet in the dark pews. “Crucify him!” they shrieked, one after the other. “The impact was immense as wave after wave of “Crucify him!” swept over the people.

However many times we have been through the story we cringe when we realize what was done to the Savior. On that night the congregation was hunched down waiting for the end when a strange, new voice began to make itself heard over the din. “Oh my Lord, no!” wailed an unrehearsed woman’s voice. “Don’t kill my sweet Jesus! You’ve got to stop. You can’t kill my sweet Jesus! Lord, make them stop!”

The ushers at the back of the church peered into the darkness trying to find where the voice was coming from. The one nearest her finally located her and sat down beside her, as all around her patted her and whispered to here. Accepting their offer of a cup of coffee, she let them lead her out of the church just as Jesus gave up his Spirit with a heart-splitting cry.

She had wandered in from the street, as it turned out. She had never been through a drama like that and was unaware of what was occuring. A teenaged girl who was sitting next to her said later, “I tried to tell her it wasn’t real, but I realized that for her it was.”

For the disciples the cross was so real. Unlike us, they didn’t know how the story was going to turn out. Completely devastated, they huddled fear-bound wondering if they would be next.

Then two things happened;

      two things happened;  

            two things, not just one,

that turned everything around and changed the topography of faith forever. The first was the resurrection of Jesus, which was and is mind-boggling, even unthinkable victory. It was victory over defeat, over sin, over death, over despair, and over the grave. Victory. Victory. Victory

Then came Pentecost when the Holy Spirit connected our Lord’s victory with us. What happened 2000 years ago is as pertinent and relevant today as it was then. It is now. It is us. The Spirit is the same for every age.

The Holy Spirit takes Bethlehem and makes it ours, with our name on it, Christ is born within us.

Nazareth, Galilee, and the life and work of our Lord, becomes our standard, our guide, our reason for living, and the Holy Spirit connects us with what happened in Galilee so that it can happen in Richmond.

Then the cross, victory over sin, pardon over the past, a new start, his blood shed for our sins, his life was heaven’s deposit for our souls.

Then the resurrection, victory, victory over the challenges of every day.

What the Holy Spirit does to all of us is so deeply personal and impossible to explain that I long for words I don’t have.

The Core

But the Core of what the Apostle is threw at the people on that Pentecost day is Acts 2:38. The people listening are pierced at their deepest level. The Holy Spirit is at work and conviction is high. They say, “What shall we do?”

The first word is repent. The word repent is often misunderstood. During its voyage through the last 2000 years it has picked up some barnacles. Translate it, change. It means change, be willing to change in the name of the Lord Christ.

If you are not interested in changing I would not come to Jesus Christ. Because the Lord is a changer, not a freezer.

If all you want is a religious sticker to paste on your life’s baggage, forget it. The Lord won’t pay any attention to stickers, but he is apt to look at your baggage. He is going to start working with you on that unforgiven sin, on that hate, on that bitterness, on that need to control, on that bad attitude.  And he is apt to show you some new directions and walk you in some new paths.  Oh, and you are apt to meet some new companions for your life’s journey.

So, my friend, if you don’t want to change, forget Christ.

Let’s put it another way.

If all you want in coming to Christ is a number change on your mailbox you are apt to misunderstand. The Lord Christ comes in and the first thing he does is to kick out some walls, like walls of behavior patterns, and walls of prejudice, and walls of neglect. And he is going to put windows everywhere so that the light of truth, and heaven, and grace can show through. Oh, and the front door. It is going to be wider and more open to some people you haven’t wanted much to do with before - people of different color, and economic bracket, and language, and from different parts of the world.

There is one more change you need to get ready for. The Lord is going to take your triumphs and tragedies and change them from your story to his story.

I think of Charles Colson. Part of Nixon’s group in Washington when the Watergate scandal hit. Eventually convicted he spent time in prison where he found the Lord. You say, everybody gets religion in prison. Nope. That is not true. But with Charles Colson it changed his life. When he got out God took his little story of a tangled, life in shambles spent in prison, and made it part of the Kingdom’s story. He knew what it was to be behind bars. And he set up a prison ministry that has reached hundreds and even thousands. His story has become God’s story.

Be baptized. It is the outward way of saying, Christ is my Lord, and I am willing to let him change me, as the water has changed the way I look. I willing to be drenched by his spirit, dunked in his love, and risen to walk with him day by day.

Now its time for you to decide.