Date: May 23, 2021

Bible Text: Acts 2:1-21, Ezekiel 37:1-14 |

The day of Pentecost was a spring harvest festival celebrated in Jerusalem in the first century AD, coming fifty days after Passover. The book of Acts records that in the year of Jesus' resurrection, his disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit to go out among the crowds, proclaiming the Good News of the Risen Christ, and thousands of people became believers. We will celebrate the "birthday of the Church" and a rebirth of our own.

Ezekiel's audience and the readers of Luke-Acts would have been well acquainted with trauma. These passages tell how God promises to renew and restore people who have been traumatized by pouring out the Holy Spirit on them, to empower them to work in the world in new ways. As we make our way through the trauma of the pandemic and begin to see the end of the tunnel, what might it be like for God to pour out that same Holy Spirit on us to help create a new way of being?

 

The professor referred to in the sermon is KATE BOWLER, Associate Professor of the History of Christianity in North America, Duke Divinity School, who was speaking at the 2021 Festival of Homiletics.

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