Pentecost: Filled with New Wine

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. Right. At the end of that ax, reading today, that Leanne read we had Some people, some of the people mocking, right? We had people mocking right at the end of it. This is totally normal and expected when there's a move of God by the way uh that that some people will mock That after an incredible outpouring of God's revelation and miraculous power, some people will respond to this In faith and some won't.

This was always the case. So like sometimes we like believe like, hey if if I could just like Do the magic tricks that. That I I saw some of the Apostles doing if I could see some of those miracles, you can, by the way, but but if I could see some of those miracles.

And if if those things would happen, everyone would just believe, of course. Nope, not true. And even in the scriptures when you see these, I mean think about it. These people just heard The good news of the Lord proclaimed in all their languages, all their native languages that just happened, right?

And some of them didn't believe. I can you imagine Like wow, I'm hearing these people speak a bunch of different languages at the same time that they haven't studied and still. I don't believe you know, it's I I think that they're filled with new wines. I mean the commitment to blindness is maybe almost mind-boggling, right?

Something really cool happens though. God used their very mocking to Bear. Witness to the truth. Remember what he said about new wine needing new wine skins. Right, you might remember Jesus talking about that? In response to the critique of the Pharisees for his challenges to their interpretation of the law, Jesus tells them that the new work God is doing in the kingdom is like new wine.

And new wine skins are going to be needed. For the new wine that is being poured out. The old wine skins were being a reference to the current Jerusalem leadership, right? The current Jerusalem religious leadership and he's saying new wines. To be new wines are going to need new wine skins to hold them.

And here in this passage, we have a group of people mocking this miraculous work of God. And they say, they must be filled with new wine. How right? They were. They were filled with new wine. Saint bead said this, these mockers nevertheless mystically bore witness to truths. For the, they meaning the disciples were not filled with the old wine, which ran short in the marriage of the church.

But with the new one of spiritual Grace for our new wine has come in new skin. Since the apostles re-echoed, the wonderful works of God. Not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. So what he's doing. So I don't know if you guys remember Caiaphas the high priest.

When Jesus was getting ready to be crucified and he said it is better for one man to die for the many than all the people to die. Then John even writes that in there, like, hey God, had this guy prophesying. Um, even against his will about what what God was about to do.

This is exactly what's happening here. When these people are saying, ah, they're just full of new wine. They're prophesying to the truth, they're filled with new wine. They're filled with a new wine of the grace of the Holy Spirit. They're filled with a new wine that Jesus promised them They're inebriated with new, why?

With the Holy. And there and they're allowing themselves to to be conduits of his grace as the Holy spirit, has come upon them and so we're going to take a few moments today just reflecting on the new wine. That the apostles were intoxicated with what did this wine look like First, it was the new wine of the Law's fulfillment.

This was the new wine of the Law's fulfillment. See, God makes it abundantly clear that we should view this event as a fulfillment of what he began. In giving the law, it's not an ending of what he started. Right? So it's a fulfillment of what God began when he gave the law to his people.

St. Leo, the Great 5th Century. Roman Bishop said, To the Hebrew people. Now freed from Egypt. The law was given on Mount Sinai 50 days after the immolation of the Paschal Lamb. Law given on Sinai, 50 days after the immolation of the Passover Lamb. So we're 50 days after Easter now, right?

Similarly. After the passion of Christ in which the true Lamb of God was killed, just 50 days after his resurrection. The Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles and the whole group of Believers. That's the earnest Christians May easily perceive that the beginnings of the old Covenant were at the service of the beginnings of the Gospel and that the same Spirit who instituted the first established.

The second Covenant. Same God, same, Holy Spirit, instituted the first and the second Covenant. It's purposely parallel with the giving of the law at Sinai. And and what also we're seeing that actually what God intended with the old, Covenant is taking place not perfectly, it's not all that people needed, but it is taking place in verse 5, it says, there were Jews.

From every nation under Heaven. Hold on for a second. Look at what it says there. There were Jews. So, and these are people not being ethnically identified as Jewish people, but they were Jews from every nation under Heaven, meaning, That the proclamation that the blessing of the Nations had already begun.

That the blessing of the Nations through the family of Abraham had already begun and this was a fulfillment of that and an extension of that, but it had already begun. There were already Jews. People who were rightly related with the with Yahweh. Spread throughout the world and they were coming to this place with different languages, right with different languages and different tongues.

Remember when we talked about Deuteronomy 4 and what the law was supposed to do. The law was supposed to cause the surrounding Nations to say, look, see what a wise and understanding people with laws, such as these what other nation has lost such as these and what other nation has a God.

That is so near to them as this God is to this people. This is what the law was always supposed to do. And we see it happened. It happened, not perfectly. We we needed the Holy Spirit. Jesus told the disciples wait for the Holy Spirit, right? But it had already begun and this should be seen as a continuation of what God has always been up to.

Not like a brand new thing that does away with what he was doing before. Okay. So in the Pentecost event, we have this new wine being poured out. And this new wine is this fulfillment of what the law was always meant to be doing. For God's people. But now the law was going to be written and not on tablets of stone.

Put on their hearts. I will write the law in your hearts. He says, in Ezekiel, when he puts the new spirit within them, right? So there's this new wine of this fulfillment of the law. Next, there's this new wine of powerful Proclamation. Powerful. Proclamation. Acts 1 8 says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

And then you'll be my Witnesses, right? Luke 24:49, says wait until you are clothed with power from on high. In Our Gospel reading. Jesus says, You will do greater Works than these. Pause for a second. Think of the audacity of that statement. Jesus looking at his disciples and saying you will do greater Works than these Think of what we saw in the in the gospel of John.

We saw in the Nathaniel under a fig tree and he told him, he he'd seen him before under the Fig Tree and the and this was the beginning of him. Starting to kind of show off a little bit, you know. Then he made an obscene amount of water wine out of water.

He told a woman, everything she'd ever done in John chapter 4, he healed a blind, lame and paralyzed guy in John chapter 5 and in John 9 people, he healed. Another blind guy, he fed 5 000 people in John chapter 6. He raised a guy from the dead in John, chapter 11.

Here. Jesus says, you'll do greater things than these. And in Acts 2. We have these people speaking languages. They've never learned and operating in the power of the Holy See the marching orders were far too big, convert the whole world, that's what Jesus told his disciples to do. You ever feel like the job's big, you know?

He told his disciples. Convert the whole world to the gospel. Go get after it. Right. But these people were going to be given the power to do that. Because God himself was going to live in them.

See, there will be a lot of churches that don't mention Pentecost today. You know that there'll be a lot of churches that don't mention that it's Pentecost today. It's not the, it's not one that hits our calendar. Um in in our secular calendars to the same degree that Easter does.

So there'll be churches that that made sure to mention Mother's Day a lot. Um, last Sunday and won't mention Pentecost today. Um, And Pentecost is every bit as important in the life of a church as the resurrection of Jesus. Pentecost is everybody's God, torn out his holy spirit. He gave God to his people and he said, God will be with you and live in you.

It's every bit as important. If the Ta, if we're going to proclaim the gospel to All Nations Pentecost is every bit as important as the resurrection of Jesus. We need to to, um, In to the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel. There's no such thing as gospel proclamation.

There isn't empowered by the Holy Spirit. There's no such thing as a. Like, all the people like if you're praying for people, no one converts. Without the Holy Spirit doing a work on their heart, there's no such thing as a single conversion. You don't have the power within you with your wit and charm.

And good looks to like to convert a single person to the kingdom of God. Not one, not one. Your own children. Like, not your own. You know. I know I can't get my own children to listen to me. So, like, like, not one person. Can you convert in your strength?

But the power of the Holy spirit is the only way that we see a single person converted to the good news. The coming of the holy spirit is, is the Telos. It's the end of Christ's Ministry. It's what it's for. It provides all the power to live out the mission of God to bring about his kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven.

And we have our interaction with the Holy Spirit in baptism in the Eucharist in confirmation and ordination and healing. But we also those are like, the more sacramental. Times that we interact with the Holy Spirit, but we also have interaction with the Holy Spirit in every prayer and every experience that we have with God in our scripture reading, and our being quiet before the Lord and listening to him.

Ordinarily, Jesus. Mediates his presence. Through the Holy. So, or when he says, I will be with you all always ordinarily. He's not appearing bodily ordinarily, he mediates his presence through his holy spirit. So when he says, I'll be with you, he is through his holy And so, our connection with God.

Is always mediated by the Holy. The Holy Spirit who's with us and in Do we feel like marching orders are too big sometimes? I mean, there's so few Christians in this Valley, right? And we feel spread thin. There's a dominant religion and it isn't Christianity. The marching orders, aren't any bigger for us than they were for the apostles?

Who were told to convert the whole world. At that time there. Zero Christians, you know they were the first so that that was it. In church. You, and I have the very same Holy spirit in. So, when you lay hands on someone, You're meeting God's presence to them. God can heal them.

When you preach God can Empower your preaching and bring about conversion. When you pray for someone's conversion, God can convert their hearts. The missing the mission is large but I'll tell you God. More than strong enough to carry it out. He's a big God. He's pretty strong. He doesn't sweat.

He doesn't get tired. He he can he can carry out the mission, okay? So we have this new wine of empowered powerful proclamation of the good news. Finally, we have this new wine of Union. See Our Gospel reading begins with Jesus discussing his Union with the father, right? He talks about how he's in the father and the father is in him.

Look at the language. He uses there and compare it with what he says, our with our relationship with the Holy Spirit in verse 17. With you. And in you, he's using the very same language. The same type of relationship that Jesus has with the father is the same intimacy.

It's the same type of relationship. He's offering us with the Triune God, by the Holy Spirit, he's saying that holy spirit is going to be with you and in you United with God, our participation with God, our participation in the divine nature, our connection with God is because the holy spirit is with us and in We are one with God.

We are united with God. God is with us, God is in And we bring that Union with God into the world with us. This also leads us into Union with our neighbor. That's a part of what Pentecost is all about, too. So like there's these divided tongues of fire, You see that?

Like split tongues of fire, it's a call back to Babel with the multiple languages. That's why we read the Tower of Babel. So we have multiple languages. So these split tongues of fire. But what's happening is, is where Babel brought disunity. The spirit is taking the City and bringing Unity to diversity and calling it.

Beautiful so where where we're tempted to be division divisive from one another and to start sex and to be disconnected for another, the spirit is bringing Unity Saint, Paul tells us that the same spirit is dwelling in all of us and that's the foundation of our Unity. Yeah, we've inherited a situation where we have true Christians in several different churches.

We didn't ask for this situation, but this is the situation that is. It's just what we've inherited. Um, Ever since I've been alive and my parents were alive. My grandparents are alive, like go back to 10 54. So it's a long time. That's the first church division that we ever saw, right?

10 54. So we've inherited a situation where there are true Christians In churches that are divided from one another. It's important that we recognize though that we don't celebrate that division. Like, I know, I know we go, we get excited a lot about like, Reformation day on October 31st and it's really because a lot of people are like Concerned about Halloween and they're and they're not sure what to do with All Hallows, Eve, and All Saints Day and all that, and they're not sure if it's demonic and a little worried.

And so they're like, we'll do Reformation day like we'll make that a big deal instead, right? Um Reformation like it was important to recover some really Central truths of the Gospel. We're not excited about division that has resulted from the Protestant Reformation, okay? Like we shouldn't be like pumped about that.

Like yay there's 30 000 denominations of Christianity. Yay this is like that's not great news, okay? And the the holy spirit is Desiring to bring us into. Unity bring all true Christians into unity and fellowship with one another because our Union with God leads to Union with our neighbor and so we do our best to be faithful within a broken situation.

There's no perfect church and if we're not going to just like de-church, all the other Christians that are on a part of our group or or we're or we're not going to celebr

More and more unity and ask the Lord. What's my part to bring more and more? Unity to the church? Because that would be his desire. There's no doubt because the spirit brings Unity because there's one Holy Spirit, right? And so today, we realized that the people of God are.

In fact, intoxicated with new wine, the mockers were right about them. They are intoxicated with new wine. This new wine was so powerful that the old structures Jerusalem leadership just wasn't going to work anymore. The new wine was a fulfillment of the old Covenant that the law that he was giving us.

The the new wine was an empowering wine that gives us the power to proclaim the gospel far from, making us sleepy or ineffective like too much wine can do. It makes it empowers us and makes us more effective and enlightened to preach the gospel and proclaim the gospel in power.

And the new wine is a wine that unites us with God. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Making us one with God and one with our neighbor.

You have the Holy. God lives in you. And we're invited into fellowship with the Holy. May God give us all Grace to walk in the power of His holy spirit today. Amen.