"With communion, we are communicating and in communion with the Holy Spirit" —Pentecost 2025

08. June 2025

Pentecost

Acts 2; John 14:23-31

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (Jn 14:23–26).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Is the Holy Spirit a what or a who? Well, we have good news: He's a who, you might say, the Holy Who. And usually, it's hard to keep this straight because whenever we use the word spirit, we often think of it as a thing. So we say, “I've got school spirit,” or something like that. Well, that's a thing. It's not necessarily an object. However, it's still a thing, and then we think of spirit as something you can feel, such as an emotion.

But, here, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is a person, and we know that because of the way that the Holy Spirit has been given to us, which happens first in baptism: I baptize you in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Name is the name of a person, not a thing. So the Holy Spirit is a who. That also means that when you have a who, you can talk to that who. You cannot speak to a rock, or a feeling, or something, but you can talk to a person, and you can talk to the Holy Spirit. So you can say: “Dear Holy Spirit…” And if you pray to the Father or the Son, that's by the Spirit, too! You can pray this way—and you can ask for things from the Holy Spirit and expect that the Holy Spirit will do what only people do, which is to hear you and speak. So, isn't it fantastic that you've got a who? He's not a what, He's a who way down in Who-ville.

The Holy Spirit is a person. He's personal, and person means communicating in one way or another. Typically, we understand communication to be through words, which involves speaking and hearing, and this becomes the basis for what we know human beings to be operating with, even for people who, unfortunately, often lose the capacity to listen, speak, or both. We still understand that we are working with them to communicate in one fashion or another, in a way that allows you to share information back and forth with them. It's good to know that the Holy Spirit is like that.

This is also why we need the holy communion, the communion of the saints. Communion means community. Community means not on your own. It does not refer to FaceTime or Zoom. It doesn't mean a live stream. It doesn't mean a podcast, though, of course, we use all these things. There's some virtue in virtual. They're nice things on the side, but you cannot commune, communicate, until you are doing the speaking and the hearing person to person, in person, personally, face to face, in the flesh.

Various truths emerge from this, which aren't always easy for us to identify. However, it's one of the reasons why, for example, children learn better face-to-face than they do through other forms of media. Everybody knows this. They sense this. They recognize the importance of spending time talking with their children. They pick up on that kind of thing quickly, but they don't always know how to articulate it precisely. It's actually why you come to church. You don't just come to watch a church service. You don't just come to listen to church. You come and communicate, and communication is physical.

It's also big-S spiritual. The Holy Spirit is communicating with you, and you with Him. It's going in and out the ears and mouths, and every way you can get to make speech come out and hear is what you're doing in worship, which is also why you want to turn up the volume (so to speak) on speaking, which is what we call “singing.”

Singing then takes speaking and turns it up a couple of notches, which makes it loud and exciting to hear. And it's not theory, as the Scriptures give us to pray, confess, and sing in Christian community. Without communion, we aren't communicating, and we aren't part of Christ's big-C Church; we aren't in communion with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ is delivered to you by the Holy Spirit through words, communion, and communication. Jesus is always the content of the Holy Spirit's words. That's the heart of the Holy Spirit's communion. When we are called and gathered together by the Holy Spirit, we are in communion, and therefore, we are a community. That's what a congregation is.

When we get together on Sunday, we say things to each other, like: “How do you like the weather today?” But that's not part of the liturgy. So you don't have a hymn that sings: “How is the weather today?” No, the key things being said in the Holy Spirit's communion, communication, are about Christ. The Holy Spirit is the one who communicates these things to you so that you can hear them. And for that reason, we give Jesus the words and we give the Holy Spirit the ear. He's the one who hears and gives you Jesus in words, water, bread and wine.

And how will you hear? How will you communicate, commune, with Jesus? The Holy Spirit gives you ears to hear and lips that speak good words, God-pleasing words, words that confess what Jesus says about himself, that He is your Christ, Messiah, Savior. This is what matters most because He is telling you how to be safe, confident, and certain that you are actually in communion with God.

The Holy Spirit calls and gathers you into communion, communication, to speak to you to give you a home, a place, a belonging, a comfort, an assurance. Otherwise and outside, when you go out of this assurance, you start worrying in the world about what's going to happen to you, who's going to take care of you, and so on.

When you make your confession in church, or wherever, that you believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you're not simply telling people about the wrong things you've done. That's usually the way the word confess is understood and used. But it actually means you are telling the world what is most important to you, and without it, you would not be you, and you would not live.

You confess that you're now going to say it in church and outside the church, because it's essential. It's the most important thing you can confess, so you want to speak it and you want people to listen. And you do this because you hope they will hear you and join with you in making this confession, so that the Holy Spirit may add to His communion, community, and communication of Jesus as Christ, Messiah, and Savior.

When you do this, you are delivering a mini-sermon. In fact, it's a combination of a sermon and a prayer. And remember, a prayer is you asking God for something, and a sermon is God telling you what He's going to do for you. And when both of these are going on, you are both speaking to God and listening to what He's saying. So when you say: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting,” you're speaking the things that are most important to you and now you've also given the person who's listening to you a sermon.

That's the Pentecost of the Holy Spirit. He doesn't want you to be isolated and alone. He doesn't want you to be a monk. He wants you to be together. He brings you Jesus and keeps you with His body of saints. He gives you ears to hear and lips to speak what matters most, especially when you come to church. He says something specific, something that's not being said anywhere else in the world.

It's a word that releases you from the bondage you experience throughout the week, releasing the weight you've carried, and bestowing the freedom given by Christ, which is the forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness leads to resurrection and life eternal. And so, you hear: In the Name of Jesus Christ, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of your sin.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin