"HAPPY # 1978"
Rev. Jim Petersen
 First Congregational UCC- Great Falls, Montana
MAY 27, 2007
Text: Psalms 104:24-34; Acts 2:1-8, 12-21

 

Let's do the math.  This is 2007.  Jesus was born in 4-6 B.C.  Not 1 A.D. as you may know, for Dionysius Exiguus, the priest assigned by Pope John 1, in 531 A.D., to recalculate our calendar according to the birth of Christ, made a mistake, and dated Jesus' birth 4-6 years too late.

 

We know this for other sources tell us Herod the Great died in 4-6 B.C., and as we know he was still alive, slaughtering infants, when Jesus was born.  So if we use the later date, 4 B.C., for Jesus birth, and say Jesus lived 33 years, only a guess, mind you, then he died and rose in 29 A.D.  Again, we don't really know, were just playing with numbers.

 

Nevertheless, 2007- 29 = 1978.  Making this the 1978^th birthday of the church.  For the church was born on Pentecost, fifty days following the first Easter of 29 A.D.  All of which is to say, happy birthday!  I hope you have come to celebrate.

 

Mind you, Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died a Jew.  Jesus did not create the Church nor was he the first Christian.  His disciples were.  His followers became the first Christians.  On Pentecost, as recorded in Acts 2.  The disciples were blessed by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and anointed the first apostles or missionaries of the Church.  Ergo, the Church was born.  We read about this and the other early acts of the apostles in the Book of Acts, written by Luke, who himself was not an original disciple, but a traveling companion of Paul, who himself never knew Jesus, but apparently knew his stuff.

 

So today on Pentecost Sunday we celebrate the birthday of an institution that has been around for nearly 2000 yrs.  Which is remarkable, if not incredible.  As in the hymn we just sang (#264, Pilgrim Hymnal): 

"Oh, where are kings and empires now,

  Of old that went and came?

  But Lord Thy Church is praying yet

  A thousand years the same."

(You can tell this is an old hymn.  Today we could sing, "two thousand years the same.")

 

At two thousand years old, we can say or sing, no empire, nor nation, nor kingdom has survived this long over this same time span.  Only the Church, as well as a few other religions, has such longevity.

 

The Church began, as Acts tells us, in the Upper Room where some fifty-three days earlier the same disciples had gathered for what turned out to be the Last Supper with Jesus.

 

Now they are gathered again to celebrate the Jewish festival called "Pentecost," a commemoration for the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses atop Mt. Sinai.  Remember, the disciples are Jewish, also.

 

They are waiting, hanging out in Jerusalem, as Jesus had instructed them.  For before making his heavenly ascent Jesus said, "Wait here in Jerusalem until you receive the power from on high."  (Luke 24:49)

 

It is on this Day of Pentecost, in this same room, that something happens.  You know religious experiences.  They don't really translate into words. But as the author of Acts tells it, it is as if a rush of wind and tongues of fire touch each disciple.  A telling which makes sense to the biblical people, for in their Bible, the Old Testament, "wind" and "fire" are both sacred symbols.  The Hebrew word for "wind," ruah, also means "spirit." And "fire" was an ancient symbol for the presence of God, as in the burning bush before Moses.

 

So here the disciples sit, waiting in an Upper Room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, when suddenly a rush of spirit and the presence of God touches each of them.  It was as Jesus had said,  "Wait in the city until you receive the power from on high."  Boy, do they get it!

 

You know what happens?  They are empowered.  Transformed.  Filled with the spirit.  "Chosen" might be the better word, except we tend to misinterpret it.  The disciples are chosen, not in the sense of being better or even special, but chosen for a mission in the world.

  

In other words, God lays God's spiritual hand upon them, lifts them up, and sends them out.  No longer disciples, as in followers, but now apostles, as in missionaries, commissioned to go forth share the "good news."

 

Immediately the disciples go out into the streets of Jerusalem where there are Jews gathered from every nation of the world, come to celebrate their Hebrew holiday of Pentecost, you understand.  Miraculously the disciples, not a particularly learned bunch, begin to speak to the Jewish crowds, sharing the good news of God's love in Christ with the foreigners, each in his/her own native language, the illiterate disciples suddenly becoming multilingual.

 

This is the birth day of the church.  In this moment the reason for the church is born.  The church is born for mission, to go out into the streets, indeed, to all the world, to every highway and by- way, to embody in word and in deed the love of God for the world.  This is why church exists.  To be the body of Christ for others.

 

The Risen Lord does not say to the disciples, "Go and guard the gates of your inheritance."  He does not say, "Go and look out for your own kind."  Or, "Go and take care of yourself."  No, Christ commissions, "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  (Acts 1:8)

 

Boy, do they.  In one generation these self-sacrificing red hots go from Jerusalem as far west as Spain, as far east as India, as far north as Yugoslavia, and as far south as Ethiopia. 

 

Three hundred years later, the church, despite punishing persecution, is throughout the Roman Empire, such that when Emperor Constantine ascends the throne and wants to unite his Empire, which is rapidly falling apart, he does so by making the Church the official religion of the Empire.

 

The Church was the one institution, which could unite all the people of the Empire, "neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female..."

 

The Church will, of course, outlive the Empire, and every empire since.  For two thousand years, empires will come and go, rise and fall.  The Church will remain. 

 

And, in fact, today experiences unprecedented growth on other continents, such as Asia, Africa and South America, where the "good news" still sells well to the have-nots in crumbling kingdoms.  "Oh, where are kings and empires now

 Of old that went and came?

 But Lord Thy Church is praying yet

 A thousand years the same."

 

My point is not to glorify the church, but to get underneath the history of the church.  For it will reveal something to us.  If we try to account for the staying power of the church, I think we will be at a loss.  It is probably most accurate to say the Church has survived in spite of itself.  The Church has been historically, and quite obviously, a human institution, heir to all the foibles, follies and frailties of which human institutions are full.

 

There are tales sad and shocking about the Church.  Crusades to cover up poverty, sons succeeding their dads to the papacy in defiance to the laws of celibacy, missions more for gold than saving souls, the sale of admission tickets to heaven as a church fund raiser, and other corruptions, wars and abuses of power.

 

It's all there in the annals of church history.

 

Yet the Church is here.  Not to the glory of humanity.  But in testimony to a power which is greater than the membership of the Church.  This power was present as the "rushing wind and fire of tongues" at the birth of the church at Pentecost.  And it has never left the church.  Discernable to the faithful, it is known to us as the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

No matter how infirm the institution, no matter how meager the ministers, no matter how lukewarm the laity, the Holy Spirit is still able to empower, inspire and equip the Church to make God's presence known to the world.  Which is truly a miracle!

 

In every age people have looked at the Church, who was in it and who was running it, and concluded, this is the last gasp of the church.  C.S. Lewis said he stayed away from the Church because when he visited on Sunday morning, he ran into the very people he tried to avoid during week.  In every age the judgment has been the Church is out of date, old-fashioned and anachronistic.

 

Like the cartoon of the two cows standing in a pasture.  A milk truck drives by with a sign on the side saying,  "Our milk is pasteurized, homogenized and Vitamin D fortified."  Says one cow to the other, "It sort of makes you feel inadequate, doesn't it?"

 

The Church has always been inadequate.  My goodness, Jesus chose Peter to be the head of the church.  And we all know what a screw-up Peter was, missing the message and denying he knew Jesus three times before day break.