✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Numbers 11,11-12.14-17.24-25 2913
Pfingstsonntag 043
Pudentiana, Virgin at Rome, 1st c.
19. May 2013
1. O God, Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom, most heartily do we thank You that in these evil times You enlighten Your Church and work in us through Your Holy Word and the Blessed Sacraments and keep us from despairing of Your Divine mercy and favor. Preserve us from Satan, our old bitter foe, and enable us to rightly use Your Word, so that we may fight valiantly against all evil (Löhe 145-46).
2. Moses said to Yahweh: „Why have You dealt ill with Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, so that You lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, so that You should say to me: „Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,“ to the land that You swore to give their fathers? I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If You will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in Your sight, so that I may not see my wretchedness.“ Then Yahweh said to Moses: „Gather for Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.“ So Moses went out and told the people the words of Yahweh. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then Yahweh came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.
3. The promise of Pentecost is that Yahweh will pour out the Holy Spirit upon His people; this event had been promised throughout the Holy Scriptures. The seventy elders of Israel received the Spirit and prophesied for a time (Numbers 11). The Prophet Joel prophesied that one day Yahweh would send the Holy Spirit upon all people, including: sons and daughters, old men and young, male and female slaves (Joel 2,28-29). Jesus promised that His Heavenly Father would fulfill this promise and send the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and disciples. He would teach them and bring to remembrance all that Jesus had said (John 14,26). St. Luke records the Pentecost event, saying: »When the day of Pentecost arrived, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting« (Acts 2,1-2).
4. The Feast of Pentecost is the third of the three great feasts celebrated in the Church. Christmas and Easter round out our festive liturgical season. Pentecost is also the transition from the first half of the Church year to the second. Following Pentecost, we enter the season of the Trinity.
5. The seventy elders in Numbers 11 prophesied for a brief time. To prophesy is to preach and proclaim the Word of Yahweh. In the Old Testament, the prophets spoke God’s Word. This was a word of law and gospel. Many times the prophets exhorted the people to acknowledge their sin, repent and return to Yahweh. They promised that God would be loving and merciful; He would forgive them. Sometimes Israel listened and returned to Yahweh. Many times, however, they refused to listen to the prophets. Such is the way of sinners. We are prone to ignore God and go our own way. We hear His promises, but forget them due to sinful human frailty. Israel could not live up to Yahweh’s covenant; time and again they walked away from God and His Word. God, however, always remained faithful to His word and covenant with His people. He promised them a messiah who would be His very own Son. The Prophets often spoke about this promise and gave details of its unfolding, for the old testament was about Jesus.
6. It comes as no surprise to us then that the Gospels open with the words: »The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham« (Matthew 1,1). »The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God« (Mark 1,1). »And the angel said to Mary: „Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His reign there will be no end“ (Luke 1,30-33). »In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1,1.14 ESV).
7. The Gospels declare that Jesus is the fulfillment of the old testament promises. In his Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke’s unfolds how the apostles proclaimed Jesus as the promised Messiah and Christ. On the Feast of Pentecost the Apostle Peter proclaimed: »„Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know – this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised Him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified“« (Acts 2,22-24.32-36).
8. Thus, the apostles proclaim that Jesus is the fulfillment of the old testament. The first to hear this proclamation were the Jews in Jerusalem celebrating Pentecost. The apostles laid the blame on the guilty: the Jews had conspired to kill Jesus. The old testament punishment for murder is death, but the apostles give the promise of life. Many of the Jews repented of their guilt, believed the preaching of the apostles and were baptized into the Christian faith. Throughout the rest of the book of Acts, Luke recounts how the apostles and disciples spread the gospel of the crucified and risen Jesus in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1,8).
9. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit continues to this day throughout the world. We are descendants of the apostolic preaching. The gospel has reached our shores and touched our hearts. The Holy Spirit has created faith in us, and we continue the proclamation of the gospel in our borough and to our neighbors.
10. Yahweh has made a new covenant with us; it is a testament grounded upon Jesus’ death and resurrection. God is faithful to His covenant and His people. We might forget His promise or preach a different gospel, but Jesus is remembers His promise and establishes the true gospel upon His death and resurrection. The task of the Holy Spirit is to remind us of His promise when we forget; He draws His Church back to the pure gospel where true repentance and forgiveness are found. The message is about Jesus, and the Holy Spirit works to get the Church grounded upon Jesus.
11. We are living in the last days foreseen by the Prophet Joel. The Apostle Peter proclaims that these last days began at Pentecost when the gospel was preached by the apostles. This gospel is still being preached in a multitude of languages and people from all nations hear and believe the Word of God. We see the promise of God fulfilled in our midst, and it is a promise that assures us that God is faithful to His people, now and always. Whoever calls upon Christ will be saved. No doubts. No in-betweens. Just pure and complete salvation. The Holy Spirit sent the apostles out to preach this life-giving gospel, and He continues to send preachers out with this gospel. You are freed by the Holy Spirit from your debt of sin through the preaching of the gospel. Through the preaching of the gospel, you are called back into fellowship with God the Father through Jesus Christ and unto everlasting life by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
12. Let us pray. You send forth Your Spirit, so they are created, and You renew the face of the ground. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and ignite in them the fire of Your Divine love. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
Löhe, Wilhelm. Liturgy for Christian Congregations of the Lutheran Faith. Copyright © 1902 Frank Carroll Longaker.
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