Sermon  2010 Pentecost Acts 2:1-21

There is nothing quite like having first hand experience for giving you credibility integrity, and truthfulness in telling a story. It helps enormously if it is your very own story,. You speak so much more effectively if you have a first hand experience to draw from.  We could all draw from many experiences of our lives, both wonderful and terrible. But the fact is some experiences we can only imagine, but others we know about because we have been there, felt and personally witnessed them.

Imagining the pain of childbirth apparently comes nowhere near the actual experience. And it is not until a person close to you dies that you can possibly experience the utter desolation and inconsolable grief that bears down on you heavily.. Death becomes more real than anything you have ever read or heard about or seen depicted on TV.

And so it was that day in the upper room for the apostles. The Jewish celebration of Pentecost always came 50 days after Passover, the time when God miraculously delivered the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage. Pentecost was the celebration that brought Jewish people from all over the then-known world. Luke, the author of the Book of Acts, names 17 national origins of people at that year's feast.

The extraordinary thing that happened on that occasion was that 120 people came down from an upstairs banquet hall acting unusually strangely. They were singing, shouting, embracing everyone excitedly, and acting as though they had been affected by mass hysteria or madness. So some observers judge them to be. Some said they were drunk. And as they commented on this strange behavior, Peter, a follower of Jesus Christ, felt compelled to come to their defense and explain what was happening. He might have addressed the stunned onlookers like this:

You probably think our behavior is rather strange. Well we've never acted like this before. We have been followers of the prophet Jesus for three years, witnessing him teach and perform miracles . We saw him restore sight to the blind, make lame people leap and run, cast out evil spirits from those possessed, feed multitudes of people from nothing. We even saw him raise people from the dead.

Then 50 days ago, he was crucified by Roman soldiers. And three days later God raised him from the dead. For 40 days we have witnessed His resurrection. affirming to all of us his aliveness. Then he told us to meet him on a hill near Bethany, and, we saw him raised up and ascend into the skies.

And tonight we were gathered for the Pentecostal feast waiting as Jesus had told us to, but  not quite sure what we were waiting for.  And, suddenly, it happened! While we were praying there  tongues of fire darted from the air , danced about the room and fell on all of us!  It seemed as if there was a  wind blowing,  and whooshing through the room.  It felt so powerful, when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ, came onto us and into us.   We couldn't just stay in that room - we had to come down.! It was quite overwhelming you can imagine!. Then I remembered the words of the prophet Joel. Who wrote that God had said, "In the last days I will give my Spirit freely to all kinds of people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. At that time I will give my Spirit, even to my servants, both men and women. And they will prophesy."

So this is it – happening to us right now! As God promised, the new age has come and God is visiting us with the power that Jesus promised. We can't control it. It is controlling us. This is it.

From that moment Peter never looked back.. Peter the loud mouth always blundering and getting it wrong when Jesus lived,  now spoke from first hand experience with purpose and conviction about the Lord Jesus. With remarkable new power Peter preached about Jesus so eloquently that at the end of his sermon more than 3,000 people responded to follow Jesus Christ completely. Those who had been merely curious were moved  to know the joy of lives yielded to God. And so the apostles went out into the world and started telling  their first hand story, with missionary zeal and power. They had experienced first hand the power of God, that raised Jesus from the dead, that filled and changed their lives

So, what does it mean to have a first hand experience with God and the Risen Christ? What does that mean for you and me, who were not there on that first Pentecost Sunday? What does it mean for us today to have this first hand experience with God and the Risen Christ and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit?

Apparently, 40% of Americans have experienced religious experiences where they  experienced  the power and presence of Christ.

For many, this first hand experience is close to home. It is nearer to them than they might expect or realize;

C.S. Lewis wrote about  knowing Christ first hand.  “When I was an undergraduate in Cambridge, if I were to say that Christ came to me, I should be using conventional words that would carry no precise meaning. For Christ comes to men and women in different ways. When I try to record the experience at that time, I use the imagery of the Vision of the Holy Grail. It seemed to me like that.  There was, however, no sensible vision.  There was just the room, with its shabby furniture and the fire burning in the grate, and the red shaded lamp on the table. But the room was filled by a presence that in a strange way was both about me and within me like a light or warmth. I was overwhelming possessed by someone who was not myself. And yet, I felt more myself than ever before. I was filled with intense happiness and almost unbearable joy as I had never known before or never known since. And overall, there was a deep sense of peace and security and certainty.” This was Pentecost for C.S. Lewis. It was a first hand experience for C.S. Lewis, one of the great  Christian pilgrims of the last century.

As C.S. Lewis said, it is different for everyone. For some of us, it is the truth in the bread and  wine and the words of Christ that we are forgiven. For others  it may be the words of hope in an AA meeting. Or it may be the wind rustling the spring leaves or dancing in the flowers in your garden.  Or it may be being alone and knowing that Life is stronger than death. A miracle occurs and you know; you know first hand of God’s goodness to you in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 We, all can know that power of belief . Surrendering to God's love and in return  receiving spiritual strength.  We may not experience an ecstasy quite so lively as at the gathering that day in the scriptures, but we most surely can come to know the joy of being in communion with Christ.

AMEN