“Come, Holy Spirit!
Fill the hearts of the faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of Your love!”
Dear Saints of God filled with the Holy Spirit:
June 5th is the celebration of Pentecost. Pentecost means “The Fiftieth Day.” It was the Jewish Feast of Weeks, also called the Feast of the Harvest, or the Feast of First-Fruits as described in Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 16. “Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year” (Ex. 343:22), and “Count off seven week from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then celebrate the Feast of Week to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in the proportions to the blessings the LORD your God has given you. And rejoice before the LORD your God at the place He will choose as a dwelling for His Name” (Deut. 16:10-11a).
Pentecost was a time when the first fruits of the corn-harvest, the last crop to ripen, were formally dedicated to the LORD. Acts 2 describes how the Holy Spirit transformed this festival into the beginning of the Holy Christian Church. For it was on Pentecost, the Feast of First-Fruits – fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus – that the promised Holy Spirit of God came to His Church, ushering in the New Testament Era of God’s Holy Church.
The 3rd Article of the Nicene Creed is the Church’s confession of the Holy Spirit and of the Church that He calls into existence and still preserves. It confesses:
“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Christian and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sin, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
This Article of Faith is one of the most comforting parts of our confession as Christians – as it confesses that it is not we who are responsible for our salvation, but God alone, Who creates saving faith in us through the Holy Spirit given to us in Holy Baptism and sustained in us as we remain part of the holy catholic Church on earth. Consider these beautiful words that the Reformer, Dr. Martin Luther, wrote in his Explanation of the 3rd Article: “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 my by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith…”
We, who were dead in our trespasses and sins, could not somehow make ourselves alive. Someone had to come from outside of us to give us life. This is precisely what the Holy Spirit does in Holy Baptism – He comes and raises the dead. He gives us life in Christ where before there was only the death of sin. We confess about the Holy Spirit that He is: “the Lord and Giver of Life” (2 Cor. 3:17 and John 6:63). St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:17 declares, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.” Likewise, our Lord Jesus says in John 6:63, “The Spirit gives life…” This is the work of the Holy Spirit. He comes to you in your Baptism, giving you saving faith, and He continually comes to you in the Word of God and in the Holy Sacrament, keeping you in that saving faith. He is truly the very LORD and giver of Life.
What a joy it is to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost again this June 5th, as we rejoice in the Holy Spirit, Who always points the Church to Jesus Christ and keeps you in the one true Faith, giving you life. I pray that you are in the LORD’s House frequently this summer, receiving His life-giving Gifts, and being faithful to His command to hold His Word sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Let us joyfully confess the words of the great Pentecost Introit:
“Come Holy Spirit,
Fill the hearts of the faithful,
And kindle in them
The fire of Your love!”
In Christ,
Pastor Steven J. Anderson