Trinity Lutheran Church

Acts 2:1-21

June 9, 2019

Day of Pentecost

  

In the last days…

I admit to reading and having too many books. It’s the problem of being a librarian’s son, in a family where six people sat in the living room many nights with their heads in books, and becoming a pastor with a call to read and proclaim the message of the book, the Bible. Consequently when in Great Falls my predecessor at St. John’s, experiencing Alzheimers, decided to get rid of his theological library, I was all in. I read one of his books in the winter of 2016-17, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic by D. S. Russell, written in 1964. Mostly it was a slow dull slog through 390 pages. But along the way there were insights into the story of faith. I took note. Among them was a bit related to the Pentecost story of Acts and Peter’s reading of the prophet Joel.

In the last days it will be…

Last days visions, apocalyptic writings are laced with foreboding and frightening images: Destruction, suffering, bloodshed, wickedness, lawlessness, calamity, famine, tribulation, upheavals of nature, and the destruction of the earth via war and the hand of God. These visions and writings acted as warnings more than predictions. They were descriptive of what the seer saw happening in the world rather than predictive of what would happen. A kind of prophetic ‘shape up or else.’ Let me just repeat that: visions and writings of the last days tell us more about how bad things are more than about how bad things will be. In the Bible we hear the warnings in the writings of Daniel, some sayings of Jesus and the book of Revelation. The church, people of faith, in every generation have been at some level fascinated by these texts which are so full of strange images and so much judgement, fire and brimstone, and righteous condemnation of the wicked. Every generation, indeed, not a century or decade of the Christian church has passed without someone predicting or wondering if the end, the last days were now upon us. That is to say every generation has seen the troubles, felt the suffering, observed varieties of unrighteous acts and people, observed strange portents in the heavens, and longed with hope for the ending of this and the coming of the final reign of God.  

In the midst of the slow dull slog through Russell’s book he quotes a passage from The Book of Jubilees, a writing from around 100 years before the time of Jesus during a time of increasing expectations that the last days were on the way. What caught my attention were these lines:

Behold the earth will be destroyed on account of all their works, and there will be no seed of the the vine, and no oil; for their works are altogether faithless, and they will all perish together, beasts and cattle, and birds, and all the fish of the sea, on account of the children of men. And they will

strive one with another, the young with the old, and the old with the young, the poor with the richand the lowly with the great, the beggar with the prince, on account of the law and the covenant; for they have forgotten…

And they will strive with one another, the young with the old … I read those words and wrote in the margin: Contrast to Acts 2! We think that the last days are going to be horrible. It is what we have always been taught and the way these passages have always been read. I don’t believe it anymore. Acts 2 presents a different. Better, more hopeful vision of

In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh...

Where God pours out God’s Spirit will there be doom and gloom? Where God pours out God’s Spirit will there rather be hope and love? The last days of Acts 2 are the first days of the followers of Jesus, us, the church upon whom God has poured out the Holy Spirit. In these last days first days the vision shifts. Contrast Jubilees vision of division and striving with one another, young and old, poor and rich, lowly and great, beggar and prince, because people have forgotten the way of God. Division and striving against one another pretty well describes the world we live in. But Peter, citing the prophet Joel says that sons and daughters, young and old, slaves, men and women will proclaim the coming of God’s great and glorious day, they will have visions and dreams that are not nightmares of striving, and the lowliest among us as well as the rest of all of us will have the Spirit of God poured out upon us. And all those wild and wondrous signs in the heavens are simply the way all creation announces the coming of God in this outpouring of Spirit upon all flesh. In the Spirit of God sons and daughters, young and old, slaves and men and women bring love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control to the world we live in, the people we meet along the way of living. In the last days first days of Jesus leading us, of the church bearing the cross, and of the Spirit of God hovering over us, speaking through us, and giving us a vision of the way of God with us we the church are hope for a terrified and divided world.

Many people, even churches will keep warning that these are the days of gloom and doom, fear and warning or else. That’s a vision they have caught. But that’s not a dream I will proclaim. People of God, people of Spirit, God’s great and glorious day is here with salvation, grace and forgiveness, faith, hope and love as the signs of our times, our last days first days, and dreams and visions of God’s church. May the Spirit of God poured out on your life splash all over the place until the whole world is full of God and full hope and full of love.

Amen.