The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church, on Sunday, May 25th. The sermon is entitled, Pentecost, Birthday or Coronation? 

The question is, what is Pentecost? If you had asked me that question, for most of my life I would have had a ready answer, and the answer would have been, Pentecost is the birthday of the church. Pentecost was that moment when a ragtag band of fishermen and tax collectors and assorted others were finally given what had been promised, namely new life in Christ, new life from God through the Holy Spirit, and were incorporated into the body of Christ.

It was their birthday. Paul at some point later wrote, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away.

Behold, all is become new. How has all become new? Because I've become new.

I'm a new creature in Christ and that changes everything. And that began, that happened, I would have said, for the first time on the day of Pentecost. And has been happening ever since.

When people have come to new life in Christ. And Pentecost then is the great birthday party of the church. As the years have gone by, I've found myself less and less happy and satisfied with that answer for a number of reasons.

For one thing, I'm not so sure that we can date the beginning of the church's life so late in the game. I mean, clearly a person's relationship with God begins at least when he first becomes conscious of the call of God. and the men and women who were following Jesus had been called by him long before Pentecost when Jesus said to Nicodemus you must be born again he did not say but of course that can't happen for another three years until the Holy Spirit is given he did not say that did he present tense you must right now today Nicodemus be born again.

The Holy Spirit right now, today, Nicodemus, blows wherever he wishes to and you've got to let him blow into your life. It goes on to say you cannot even see the kingdom of heaven unless you are born again. A lot of people in the old covenant saw, they glimpsed as from afar, they didn't come into its fullness, but they saw the kingdom of heaven.

God was working, drawing men and women to himself all down through the ages. Jesus invited men and women who followed him to begin calling and knowing God as their father. Gave them a little prayer to pray.

How does it begin? Our father. He invited them to know him as the elder brother.

and each other as the members of the family of God, none of which would be possible unless the spiritual birth process had already taken place. Forgiveness was not contingent upon Pentecost. God had been promising and providing forgiveness from the very beginning of his dealings with mankind.

Right immediately after Adam sinned, God begins talking to him about forgiveness. He announces forgiveness all throughout the whole of the Old Covenant. Of course, that is meted out.

The great transaction is in fact effected on Calvary on a cross. But it wasn't contingent upon Pentecost. Nobody had to wait until the Spirit was poured out in this new way this special way.

Nobody had to wait until then for the forgiveness of their sins. So it was not a matter of beginning a relationship with God. It was not a matter of coming to know Him as Father.

It was not a matter of receiving His forgiveness. It was not a matter of experiencing the touch, the breath, if you will, of the Holy Spirit blowing into our lives for the first time. What was it?

What was Pentecost? I want to suggest to you that the model for the work of the Spirit in the life of the Christian is to be found in the account of the work of the Spirit in the life of the Christ. Did you hear what I just said?

Let me play that back again. The model, God's will, mind you, this is normative Christianity. This is what He intends and desires for all those who would name the name of Christ.

The model for the work of the Spirit in the life of the Christian is to be found in the account of the work of the Spirit in the life of Christ. That's why we call ourselves by His names. By His name.

What does Christian mean? It means literally the little Christs. That's who we're to be.

We're to be little Christs. He's the model. We're to experience what he experienced.

And I'm sure you remember how Jesus' own ministry began. Sheds a lot of light on the subject. Thirty years he's been in preparation.

He's a carpenter's apprentice. And then all of a sudden, the time is upon him. And he seeks out a man by the name of John who was baptizing people down in the River Jordan.

John's message was one of God's judgment and anger against sin he said who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come you better repent God is angry with you but John went on to say I baptize you with water for repentance and this baptism bears a certain resemblance a certain analogy to a much greater baptism a baptism with the Spirit and with fire that Messiah will extend to you when He comes. All of a sudden Jesus appears and John says, that's Him. That's the one I'm talking about.

Behold the Lamb of God. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And to John's horror, at that point Jesus says, I want to be baptized.

and John says what? you want to be baptized by me? it ought to be the other way around and Jesus insists he says no it's appropriate that I do this to fulfill all righteousness and he steps into the water of baptism he comes up out of that water and the heavens open and the voice of God declares this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased don't miss the significance of that you remember John's message was God is angry with you God was not at all angry with Jesus he made that very clear Jesus identified himself with the need for baptism which is my need it's your need you and I are the ones who need to repent you and I are the ones who need to be forgiven when Jesus stepped into that water he did not need to be forgiven.

He didn't need to be baptized. He put himself in my shoes. He put himself in my place.

God made that very clear. My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And then what happened?

The Holy Spirit came down in visible bodily form and lighted upon Christ and anointed Him and empowered Him for his ministry. He whose ministry, John said, was to baptize others with the Holy Spirit and with fire, began that ministry by himself being baptized with the Holy Spirit. You see that?

Jesus was anointed. He did not begin his ministry until the Holy Spirit came upon him, and his life was never the same again. Up until then, he'd been the best carpenter in Nazareth.

afterward he never again returned to the workshop his life was dramatically changed when Jesus was baptized by the Holy Spirit it was not his birthday it was his coronation day it was his investiture with authority and power and anointing to go out and begin his ministry. Who are we talking about? We're talking about the eternal Son of God, the incarnate deity.

Had his life changed when he was baptized with the Spirit and anointed with power and invested with authority and it was never the same again. Think that through with me. If I use the phrase the man born to be king, I wonder what comes to your mind.

Some of you are going to think of a series of plays that were written about a generation ago by Dorothy Sayers about Jesus himself. They were called the man born to be king. Others of you might possibly think of a television documentary that was shown a couple of months ago about Prince Charles of England.

it too was called the man born to be king. You see, Bonnie Prince Charlie was born to the throne. He does not need to be born all over again in order to inherit it.

But he does need to be coronated, to be anointed, to be invested with that new responsibility. Jesus did not need to be reborn. If there was ever anybody in the history of the world who was born of the Spirit, it was surely Jesus.

Conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary. If there was ever anybody who didn't need to be reborn, it was Jesus. He was born of the Spirit.

Jesus didn't need to be forgiven for His sins. He didn't have any sins to be forgiven. Jesus didn't need to become a member of the family of God from all eternity.

He was the Son of God. Jesus didn't need to be made regenerate, to be given new life. He was the author of life, Himself.

Jesus didn't need to be incorporated into the body of Christ. He was the body of Christ. That's all there was.

But Jesus needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. and he didn't begin his ministry until that happened and if he needed it what does that say about you and me? do you begin to see something new here?

the one thing out of all the things that John the Baptist could have proclaimed about Messiah the one thing he said he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit it is God's will it is his pleasure it is his purpose that you and I would enter into an anointing and empowering for ministry like unto that of the Son of God himself and that's what Pentecost is all about to see it merely as the birthday of the church I believe is to seriously miss the point the apostles already knew Christ as their Savior They already knew God as their Father. They already experienced the forgiveness of their sins. And if there was any doubt that they had tasted new life in the Spirit, John dispels that with his account of Easter evening, when Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into them, to recapitulation of the creation of man.

God formed man of the dust of the earth, and He breathed into him, and the man became a living being. And here on Easter evening, Jesus' disciples are gathered together, and He appears amongst them, and He breathes the Holy Spirit into them. And then, He says, wait.

In spite of all that, wait until you are clothed with power from on high. That's what Pentecost is. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit, who's already active in the world, all throughout the Old Testament, you can't read it without finding Him all over the place, who's already active in the lives of these disciples, but you wait until He's poured out in a new way, investing you with power, coronating you to be kings and priests to God, saturating the common clay of our humanity with the empowering of the Spirit.

If you like, this is the coming out party for the Holy Ghost. And I want to challenge you this morning, don't settle for less. Don't settle for less.

Jesus never intended that we would engage in the hard business of following Him, of taking up our cross and bearing it, of dying to ourselves daily, and of accomplishing His work here on earth in our own strength. That's not His purpose. His purpose is to equip us with the empowerment of the Spirit.

Don't settle for less. Jesus says, if you know how to give good gifts to your children, as sinful as you are, How much more will the Father pour out the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Have you asked Him?

Have you opened your life to Him and said, Fill me with your Spirit, saturate me with your Spirit, anoint me, empower me? That's what shook up the city of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. They were so filled with the Spirit, they couldn't contain it.

People were saying, they must be drunk. Nobody could be that happy at 9 o'clock in the morning. No, we're not drunk.

This is that which the prophet Joel proclaimed. God has visited His people with the anointing of His Spirit. And you can get in on it if you want it.

Don't settle for less. Open your heart, open your life this day. If you've never done so before, come to the communion rail at the end of the service and pray with somebody.

If you've got theological questions about this, find somebody who can answer them. Look, why settle for a birthday if you can have a coronation? Amen.