“Can dreams come true?” a sermon for PENTECOST 2025 (JUNE 08)

 

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter
    and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
   “The Lord has done great things for them.” (Ps. 126.1-2; cf. Ac. 2.11)

     Have you ever woken up into a dream?  That’s the feeling expressed in this psalm.  Perhaps it refers to the return of the people of God from exile in Babylon.  The understanding was that the exile had been the result of the people’s sin (cf. Is. 40.1-2).  Have you ever been so happy that all you could do was laugh?  God had restored the fortunes of his people in a totally unexpected way.  The appropriate response was to shout for joy!  The dreamer of this psalm is laughing and cheering, and probably crying.  God came through!

    As they say, “sometimes dreams do come true”.   However, one of the central concerns of the New Testament is to confront people with a series of strange questions: “Would you know if your dream had come true?” “Would you realize it was happening?” “Would you believe me if I told you that you were actually experiencing that which for so long had only been the stuff of dreams?” “Or would you miss it?”

     The claim.  The New Testament claims, on page after page, to be the fulfillment of the Hope of Israel, i.e. the dreams of the people of God ever since Yahweh had called Abraham to become the “father” of “a great nation” (cf. Gn. 12.1-3).  This hope – this long-awaited fulfilment of God’s plan for his people and his world – was of course the object of interpretation.  Many different people at different times had different expectations of what it would look like once God finally did what he had always promised to do for Israel and for “the nations” of the world.  The New Testament says, in a nutshell, this is what it looks like for God to keep his promises to his people:

Jesus is born, lives a life of healing and story-telling, establishes the kingdom of God by dying on a cross and being resurrected, ascending to the right hand of the Father, and then “pouring out” his Spirit on his followers (Ac. 2.33) who will then go to “the ends of the earth” (Ac. 1.8) and set the world ablaze with God’s breath of life, i.e. his Spirit (cf. Gn. 2.7; Jn. 20.22).  So doing, a new humanity will be formed – which is what we call the “Church”. 

The God of Abraham kept his promises to his people by sending his Son and the Spirit of his Son (cf. Gal. 4.4-6).  This renewed people of God will be composed of people from all nations, something that will become explicitly clear as we move through the book of Acts.

     Have you ever traveled to a different country?  I don’t mean a country like the U.S.A. which is not all that different, but a truly foreign country – one where people speak another language, and where this strange language was all you could see on signs and menus.  You might have felt a little lost or disoriented at first.  You might have been pleasantly surprised by a resident of that country speaking to you in English.  If you were lucky, perhaps this person became your guide and helped you to feel at ease in your new surroundings and perhaps taught you how to order your favourite local dish – and make purchases – in the native language.

     Something like this happened at Pentecost – the Jewish festival during which the followers of Jesus received the Holy Spirit in a new and powerful way.  Actually, it was a crowd of Jewish pilgrims from all over the Roman empire who had journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival – they were the ones who had an experience similar to that of the tourist I just described.  As these pilgrims gathered in the Temple precincts, they were astonished to hear a group of people speaking in their native languages.  What a shock!  This was the last thing these travelers had expected to hear – people telling them about what God had done, in a way that made sense to them, in a way that they could understand without difficulty, in a way that made them feel at home.

So, what is Pentecost all about?

1.     A promise made by the risen Jesus

     Have you ever noticed that Christians tend to talk about Jesus as if he was still alive?  They talk about Jesus in the present tense, as if they spoke to him on a regular basis, as if he was a part of their daily lives.  That might strike you as a bit weird.  I mean, everyone in the western world who has been to the movies knows that Jesus’ life ended with him being nailed to a Roman cross.  Strangely enough, Christians seem to celebrate Jesus’ crucifixion; in many churches, there is a graphic depiction of the death of Jesus hanging above the altar – front and center – sometimes, as large as life.  All our evidence indicates that from the very beginnings of the “Jesus movement”, Jesus’ followers experienced him as being alive and present with them, both personally and when they gathered as a community.

So, what happened during the 50 days between Jesus’ crucifixion and the day of Pentecost, that day on which Jesus’ followers began to publicly proclaim that he was alive again?  Luke tells us that the risen Jesus, just before his ascension, promised his followers that they would soon receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

2.     Promise of power for a worldwide mission

     Throughout the Bible, there are stories of the “spirit” of God being given to people who were entrusted by God with a mission.  Most of the time, it was prophets, priests and kings who received God’s Spirit to empower them for their task of speaking for God, leading the worship of God or ruling the people of God.  Jesus tells his followers that they will receive power so that they can act as “witnesses” of his resurrection throughout the world.  Jesus tells them to wait in the city of Jerusalem until they have been “baptized” in the Holy Spirit.

3.     Occurred after the Ascension of Jesus

     The “Ascension” of Jesus was the last time his followers saw him after his resurrection from the dead.  For a 40-day period following his crucifixion, reports started to spread among the disciples that Jesus’ tomb had been found empty and that Jesus himself had been seen – alive – by different people (e.g. Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 24).  On the 40^th day, Jesus “ascended” to the right hand of God, the place of ultimate power and authority.  From his privileged place beside God’s throne, Jesus rules over the entire creation as “Lord”; that is to say, as supreme ruler.  This is why Jesus tells his followers that they will soon embark on a mission, beginning in Jerusalem and then reaching to the farthest corners of the earth.  The world needed to be told who its true ruler was – not people like the Roman emperor, who ruled through cruelty and brute force, but rather a humble man, who exercises authority through the power of love and who sends his followers into the world as “witnesses” to who he is.

4.     Gift of courage to proclaim Jesus as Lord

     When the disciples eventually undertook their mission to the wider world, their basic message was “Jesus is Lord!”  While this might strike us as just another harmless religious phrase, in the first century Roman empire, it was a controversial and dangerous thing to say.  Caesar, the roman emperor, was hailed throughout his empire as “Lord”.  Caesar claimed to be the ultimate ruler of the world, holding the power of life and death over all his subjects.  As we read the book of Acts, we see just how much trouble the early Christian missionaries caused by proclaiming Jesus – not Caesar – as Lord of the world.  It was the Spirit who gave them the courage to put their lives on the line to proclaim the liberating truth to everyone that their true Lord loved them, had died for them, and had risen from the dead and was establishing his kingdom through his Spirit-filled followers.

5.     A commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt

     And so, following the Ascension, the apostles and over a hundred other followers gathered in a room near the Jerusalem Temple and spent their days in prayer and anticipation of what Jesus had promised.  Meanwhile, another major Jewish festival was fast approaching.  It’s important to remember that Jesus was crucified during Passover, the Jewish national holiday.  During the 50 days following Passover, most Jews spent their time preparing for the next big festival, Pentecost (i.e. Shavuot).  Of course, during this same period, the disciples had been experiencing Easter and the appearances of the risen Jesus.  Pentecost was a 7-week-long celebration that began with the barley harvest and ended with the wheat harvest.  At some point in Israel’s history, this festival came to be associated with an event which occurred after the “Exodus” (during the first Passover) from Egypt, where they had been enslaved many centuries before.

This way, Pentecost at the time of Jesus marked the arrival of the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, where God gave Moses the 10 Commandments and reaffirmed his commitment towards the nation of Israel whom he had chosen to be his own people, entrusted with the mission of showing all the other nations of the world how to live:

“Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “…tell the Israelites: You have seen …how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19.3-6)

Wait & pray.  And so, these 120 Jesus-followers gather in their nation’s capital, next to their national shrine, and wait and pray.  We can only imagine what was going through their minds during those 10 days spent in that room – memories of Jesus, what he had said and done, what he had said to them personally, horrific memories of the crucifixion… and then the shock of hearing that Jesus was alive again (some had seen him for themselves), and now the prospect of a world-wide mission – it was a lot to take in.  One thing was certain – nothing had happened as they had expected, from the moment they first encountered Jesus until now… The God of the Exodus, the God of Sinai, the God of Jesus was about to do something new.  They could only wait and see what that would mean – for their nation and for them…

6.     The dream of “one world” begins to come true

     Remember the story about the tourist travelling to a foreign country?  Listen to how Luke recounts what happened to the disciples after 10 days of praying and waiting.  This is a reversal of what had happened at the Tower of Babel, the moment back in Genesis when God had created different languages in order to prevent the builders of the Tower from collaborating, and therefore putting an end to their prideful project of “reaching to heaven” (cf. Genesis 11.1-9).  God’s plan had always been for there to be one humanity, united in love of the Creator; human sin (including the first of the deadly sins, pride) caused that plan to go off the rails.  Through Jesus and the Spirit, the Creator’s plan of a humanity united under God is getting back on track.

     One humanity, living in a world of peace and justice – that was always the Creator’s dream!  As we read the book of Acts, we discover that the members of the early Christian community shared all of their possessions with each other, so that no Christians in Jerusalem were better of than any of the others. Everyone’s needs were taken care of (cf. Ac. 2.44-45; 4.32-35). Sadly, those who claim to follow God often prove to be part of the problems of this world, as opposed to part of the solution.

Once again, don’t forget the saints!  The saints – i.e. those Christians who have demonstrated “heroic virtue” – are proof that genuine humanity is possible, and beautiful.  You know a saint when you see one.  Also, let’s remember that we are part of the “catholic” Church.  “Catholic” means “according to the whole”, that is to say, “universal”.  We belong to the Church that is for all people, regardless of ethnic background, gender, social status or any of the other things that cause people to gather into “tribes” or subcultures, clubs or special interest groups.  The Church of Jesus Christ, the Church “catholic”, is the place where EVERYONE belongs.  That’s good news!

     What we see in the story of Pentecost is “unity-in-diversity” – through the work of the Spirit, people who speak different languages are enabled to communicate with each other, with the goal of forming one new people of God, filled with the Father’s Spirit and loyal to God’s Son, Jesus.  Father, Son and Spirit – sound familiar?

7.     A revelation of the Trinity, God’s 3-in-1 reality

     Jesus showed us that the Creator is more mysterious than anyone had imagined.  In his Gospel, St. John tells us that the Creator sent his Word – through which He had spoken all things into existence – into the world as a human being named Jesus of Nazareth (Jn. 1.1-2, 18).  The theological term for this is the INCARNATION.  “The Word (of God) became flesh” (Jn. 1.14).  God sent his Son into the world to do what only God could do in order to save the world from sin and death (Jn. 3.17).  The creator had revealed himself to his people in many different ways throughout Israel’s history, but by becoming human, God revealed as much of himself as he possibly could.

     In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus makes 7 statements about himself that begin with the words, “I AM…”.  This is a deliberate echo of what God had said to Moses in the story of the burning bush.  When Moses asked God what his name was, God replied, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Ex. 3.14).  Jesus’ “I AM” sayings are 7 ways that Jesus describes who he is as the Word of God made flesh (human).  Jesus expanded his followers’ understanding of “God”.  Jesus prayed to “the Father” and also claimed to be “one with” the Father (Jn. 14.9-10).

     Once the disciples had their Pentecost experience, and as they continued to experience the Spirit’s presence and power with them and in them, they eventually grasped that the only way they could speak truthfully about the Creator was in terms of the Father, the Son and the Spirit.  There is unity-in-diversity even within God.  The 3 distinct persons – Father, Son & Spirit – together form 1 God.  This is the most profound mystery we will ever encounter.  It’s important to remember that the doctrine of the TRINITY was not discovered by scholars wracking their brains trying to understand God.  Rather, Christians came to understand God as 3-in-1 because of their experience of Jesus and the Spirit.  The Creator revealed himself through his Son, and then through his Spirit.  This is why the Sunday after Pentecost is called Trinity Sunday.  On Pentecost, the revelation of God as Trinity is completed.  God became human and then sent his Spirit to “energize and empower” those who believed in his Son Jesus.  It’s time to wake up and “live the dream”.  Amen.