Here’s the situation: You’re sitting with a friend who knows that you’re a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church. This friend has never been much of a church-goer – has never actually belonged to any church, for that matter – and out of the blue your friend starts asking you about God. Asks you about God the Father. Asks you about Jesus Christ. And asks you about the Holy Spirit.
You try to do a quick mental review of everything you learned in Catechism class all those years ago and you try to remember something – anything – that your Pastor might have said in Church last Sunday. If you’re like most Christians, you will probably do a good job of describing God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth. You’ll probably do a really good job of describing Jesus, the Son of God who suffered and died for our sins, rose from the dead – and as we heard last Sunday, ascended into heaven.
But then you get to the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden you’re at a loss for words. You may remember that the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove at His baptism, and you may also recall the story of the first Pentecost – the one recounted in today’s reading from Acts chapter 2 – of a “rushing wind” and “tongues of fire” that appeared on the heads of the disciples. If you’re really good – and I suspect this is true of more than a few of you who are here today – you may even remember Luther’s “what does this mean?” in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed, where he explains: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”
But even after all that, you still feel a little uneasy. Describing God the Father and Jesus the Son of God is pretty simple. But describing the Holy Spirit is a whole different matter. If you’re like many Christians, you’re probably a bit fuzzy on a complete understanding of who, exactly, the Holy Spirit is and what, exactly, it is that He does. The Holy Spirit was once described by a distinguished Lutheran writer as “the half-known God” – and that’s a really good description. We feel that we know a lot about God the Father and God the Son. But many feel that they just don’t know a lot about God the Holy Spirit.
Our confusion about the Holy Spirit begins with His name. Many of us who grew up with the King James Version of the Bible and the beloved old Lutheran Hymnal still refer to the third person of the Trinity as the Holy Ghost. Whenever I give communion to our shut-ins and we confess the Apostles’ Creed, I always make sure to say “Holy Ghost” rather than “Holy Spirit” because that’s how they’ve said it for all of their lives. But actually, the word “spirit” is probably the better translation of the original Greek word πνεῦμα. “Ghost” is simply the word that translators used when the King James Version was first published in 1604. It’s not wrong, but shows how much how English language usage has changed over the past 400 years. So if you want to call the third person of the Trinity the “Holy Ghost” rather than the “Holy Spirit,” that’s perfectly fine
But we tend to be visual creatures, and it’s difficult to describe something or someone we can’t easily visualize. In the Old Testament it was not possible to see God face-to-face, but the Children of Israel did see the Glory of the Lord – God Almighty hidden within a towering cloud of thunder and fire and lightning, a cloud that led them from Egypt, that covered the top of Mt. Sinai, that filled the Tabernacle and later filled the great temple in Jerusalem. In the New Testament, untold thousands of people actually saw Jesus, the Son of God, during the 33 years of His life on earth. We don’t know exactly what Jesus looked like, but we do know that he was a man of Jewish descent who probably looked a lot like most other Jewish men who lived 2,000 years ago.
But the Holy Spirit? Well, here we run into that same old problem. We’ve already mentioned the form of the dove at Jesus’ baptism and the tongues of fire on Pentecost – but that’s pretty much all we have. The word πνεῦμα that we translate as “spirit” can also be translated as “breath” or “breathing.” You can’t see a breath. When someone breathes, you can see the movement of the rib cage as air enters and leaves the lungs, but you can‘t see the actual breathing itself. So how do you describe something – someone – you can’t see?
The answer is that we turn to Scripture. We turn to Scripture to find how God’s word – inspired by the Holy Spirit – describes the work of the Holy Spirit.
You know, it is no mere accident or coincidence that the Gospels conclude the story of Jesus’ life on earth with the sending of the disciples to proclaim Jesus to all nations after first receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. The story of Jesus’ life on earth is over, but the story of Jesus is most definitely not over. By His resurrection, Jesus now lives; by His ascension into heaven, Jesus lives as Lord. Jesus lives as the one who rules us, who guides us, who continues to forgive our sins. And all this He does through the work of the Holy Spirit.
The work of the Holy Spirit takes place when the disciples are sent throughout the world to preach about Jesus, to baptize and to forgive sins. When the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples on Pentecost, Peter immediately begins to preach about Jesus, to preach about His death, to preach about His resurrection. No sooner does Peter preach about Jesus than people from all nations – people of all languages – are moved by the Holy Spirit to repent. On that day, 3,000 souls were brought to faith by the work of the Holy Spirit. Three thousand people were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. Many consider that day as the beginning of the Christian Church on earth. And it has grown, and grown, and grown ever since. All because the Holy Spirit continues to bring people to faith.
The Holy Spirit continues His holy and blessed work wherever and whenever the forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ death and resurrection is proclaimed. The Holy Spirit works through pastors whose sermons proclaim Jesus Christ as our crucified and risen Savior. The Holy Spirit works through absolution, where the pastor – “as a called and ordained servant of the Word … and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ” – announces that your sins have been forgiven. The Holy Spirit works through baptism, which St. Paul describes as being buried with Christ and rising again with Him. The Holy Spirit works through the Lord’s Supper, where we eat Christ’s true body and drink Christ’s true blood given for us – for you – for the forgiveness of sins.
Without the work of the Holy Spirit, we wouldn’t be here today. Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter 3: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Without the work of the Holy Spirit, you would not be here today. St. Paul told the Christians in Corinth, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” And he also told them: “Therefore I want you to understand that … no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”
So if a friend asks you about the Holy Spirit, what do you say? Well, you can say that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity, the third person of the Triune God. You can say that the Holy Spirit brought you to faith and keeps you firmly entrenched in the one true faith. And you can offer to help that friend look at what the Bible really says about the Holy Spirit. Don’t worry about your words – just share God’s words. And the Holy Spirit will take care of everything else.
Note: some sections of this sermon are freely adapted from a text that originally appeared in Concordia Pulpit Resources.
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