Search Results: pentecost

John 20:19-23

Pentecost A

[…] the room exhaling into everyone’s faces as he re-enacts Jesus’ breathing out of the Holy Spirit onto the disciples! This is in some ways John’s version of Pentecost (see the “Questions to Ask / Issues to Address” part of this sermon commentary to wonder how this fits with Acts 2) and it is indeed […]

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John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Pentecost B

[…] the One who was to come, or should we be on the lookout for somebody else?”  John was looking for more Spirit, more fire. But in this Pentecost Year B lection from John 16 we encounter what is hands-down the longest single section about the Holy Spirit in all the gospels.  Here we discover […]

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Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Pentecost B

Psalm 104 is the perennial choice for Pentecost Sunday in the Lectionary, because of verse 30, which mentions “your Spirit.”  Though there is much plausible controversy about whether that should be translated with a capital “S” as a reference to the third Person of the Trinity, the church has taken it that way for […]

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John 14:8-17 (25-27)

Pentecost C

This is our Pentecost text, of course, but the setting in John 14 takes us back to that last night before Jesus died. What that means is that even though this text ends up talking about peace and of Jesus telling the disciples “do not be afraid” (Jn. 14:27), let’s just state the merely […]

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Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost C

[…] of the quietest, most retiring persons you’ve ever met suddenly cheering and fist-pumping like a maniac.  And you wonder: how did THAT happen to quiet old George!!??) Pentecost is the day the Holy Spirit of God came upon the church in power for the very first time.  And like the breath in your lungs […]

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Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost B

[…] in another language quite simply is not one of them.  (Mostly they lose their ability to speak their native language coherently!) So when some onlookers that first Pentecost concluded that the suddenly polyglot disciples were drunk, I wonder who was really doing the drinking!  When you hear the testimony of people from Pamphylia and […]

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Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost C

[…] is fascinating to me that our exit from Dr. Luke’s account of the spread of Easter faith is the on ramp to that whole story.  With this Pentecost story, we loop back to where it all began.  Even as Luke tells us that Jesus ministry began with that announcement of the Spirit’s empowerment (Luke […]

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Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost A

[…] on our knees asking God to send us a windstorm, they may wonder if we have lost our sanity.  But, of course, we are referring to this Pentecost story, in which the coming of the Holy Spirit into the church and into the world was announced by “a sound like the blowing of a […]

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John 20:19-23

Pentecost A

[…] of halitosis?  Perhaps not.  And even now: someday it may be safe to breathe on each other again too!) This is in some ways John’s version of Pentecost and it is indeed noteworthy to see Jesus literally exhaling the Spirit onto the disciples. But it’s also what comes next that is quite remarkable.  After […]

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Romans 8:14-17

Pentecost C

[…] well, we’re actually just not sure what to call it or how to identify it and so “spirit” sometimes is the word we reach for. For its Pentecost Epistle reading the Common Lectionary has carved out four verses from the landmark chapter of Romans 8, the first of which (in many translations at least) […]

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