St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL – Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23
Gospel: John 20:19-23
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
NRSVue
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The Fire that Heals
Grace and Peace to you, beloved of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Have you watched Rambo, part III? I know, bear with me, will you? In this scene, Rambo is wounded by a sizable wood splinter on the side of his abdomen. It seems to be a non-life-threatening wound, but our hero is hiding in a cave in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan with no medical supplies. His survival training kicks in. He manages to pull out the piece of wood from his body. Then he cracks open a bullet with his combat knife, places the shell case on the front hole of the wound across his side, and dumps the gunpowder on it. The final step of this improvised medical procedure is to light up the gunpowder with the flame of a burning stick. The gunpowder then ignites, and flames go out both in the front and back of the wound, telling the audience that the wound has been cauterized. It is bad, I know, but it makes a great scene for a late teen watching in the movie theater.
If you remember the movie’s plot, Rambo has put down his weapons and living among monks in southeast Asia. Colonel Trautman, Rambo’s commanding officer and father figure, had been captured while on a clandestine mission, so no one would officially go to the rescue. Against his newly adopted way of life, Rambo calls upon himself to rescue his best friend. He will have to face the magnificent opposing forces keeping Colonel Trautman in bondage. His first attempt would fail, leaving him wounded. The scene in the cave where the wound is healed by fire is the pivotal moment that sends our hero over the hump and leads him to successfully save the life of his brother-in-arms.
This is not the fire image you expected for Pentecost, right? That is OK, me neither. It came to me on Friday early morning when I was half asleep and not quite awake. This is one of those liminal spaces of transition between realities when the Spirit may be talking to you. So I decided to have fun and run with it.
Anyway, getting theological now.
Remember the fire that John the Baptist promised to us in Advent when we were anticipating the birth of our Savior, the moment when the seed of God’s love, forgiveness, and righteousness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ was planted in the world? Well, against immense odds and opposing forces, but with Jesus himself as good soil and gardener, the seed grew, and it is ready for the fire to ignite the vineyard into bearing fruit. This is one of the amazing things that fire does. That big ball of fire in the Sky that illuminates the day and provides the light and warmth to trigger the biochemical reactions necessary for the renewed life to carry its mission, and the renewed life is the one that rises soaked from the waters, ready to grow and to bear witness to better things. It is a mission common to all of us called and raised by the same Spirit.
Nonetheless, the opposing forces have gone nowhere. We are bound to struggle with anything ready to separate us from each other and from God. It may come in the form of selfishness, boasting, hardness of heart, unforgiveness, avarice, betrayal, slender, injustice, violence, death, anxiety, or fear. It may come from others, and it may reside in us. Our old selves that drowned in the waters of baptism often die a hard death.
God is aware. Remember, we were chosen in love and trust as common people. We are not superheroes. We don’t have supernatural sources of physical or spiritual strength. We are part of the family of living stones that the builders rejected. We are not invincible. We make mistakes. We are, at best, an unfinished product. Therefore, the struggle will leave wounds.
Now we know why Jesus prays for us. Now we know why he asks for our hearts to not be troubled. Now we know why we should forgive and not judge. We need each other. Now we know why Jesus promises to abide in us with God the Father and Holy Spirit when we keep his simple words, “love one another.” That is good news in any language and any corner of the world. The Spirit can heal our wounds, and evil will never defeat love.
Beloved of God, we may not always be the best that is. That is not why God picked us to proclaim good news to the world. The Spirit gave each of us one gift that is the same. Such a gift is faith in Jesus Christ. The same Spirit gave us other gifts, as unique as we are as persons, to shine despite and because of who we are, and the love of Christ gives us everything we need to carry our common mission as the better version of ourselves for the sake of the better version of the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Bridging Faith 