The Helper, The Holy Spirit (Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost: June 8, 2025)

Listen to the sermon here.

Texts:  Psalm 143

Genesis 11:1–9

Acts 2:1–21

John 14:23–31

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text for this Festival of Pentecost is recorded in the Holy Gospel for this day from John chapter 14.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the essential pieces of equipment for a camping trip is a flashlight. You might take electric lights for granted until you go camping for the first time. Or so I’m told. I’ve never been camping. When camping, you become dependent on something as simple as a flashlight if you want to accomplish any number of tasks while camping once the sun goes down. By now you should be wondering what a flashlight has to do with Pentecost. It’s not so far-fetched. The value of a flashlight is in how that flashlight functions. So also with the Holy Spirit who was given at the New Testament Pentecost. Now, a flashlight isn’t very helpful or useful if you hold it in front of your face and simply stare at the beam of light. In fact, to use a flashlight in that way won’t help you see at all. Instead, that use of a flashlight is only blinding. A flashlight functions not by drawing us to gaze at the light bulb, it functions by throwing light on the object which we need to see. A camper doesn’t look directly into the light beam in order to see how to pitch a tent when it’s nearly dark. Instead, one shines the light on the tent.

So it is with the Holy Spirit. We don’t gaze directly on the Holy Spirit. Instead, the Spirit causes His light to shine through His Word so that we see our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why one Bible theologian has called the Holy Spirit the shy member of the Holy Trinity. Just as we don’t focus our eyes on the flashlight bulb, but on the object which the flashlight sheds light upon, so we don’t focus on the Holy Spirit per se, but on the Savior whom the Spirit proclaims and to whom the Spirit testifies, through the Word of the Lord and to His Church.

Now one religious movement within the Christian Church doesn’t seem quite as popular as it was years ago. The Charismatic Movement or Pentecostalism made the point of saying that the Holy Spirit had been neglected for so long among Christians. And so this movement tried to place the emphasis on the person of the Holy Spirit. But really, that’s the exact opposite of what the Spirit wants to happen. The Spirit doesn’t call attention to Himself in His special work. He calls attention to the Son of God and the Son of Man—He who was sent from the Father into our flesh to suffer, die, and rise again. as our victorious and reigning Savior.

Note that many of our Pentecost hymns make reference to the Holy Spirit using that imagery of light. Consider these examples from Luther’s Pentecost hymn where we confess this, “Lord, by the brightness of your light In holy faith Your Church unite”. And then this, “Come holy Light, guide divine, Now cause the Word of life to shine. Teach us to know our God aright And call Him Father with delight” (LSB #497 Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord). The work of the Holy Spirit is to shed light on Jesus Christ so that we know and trust Him alone as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only way to the Father and to eternal life.

And the Holy Spirit accomplishes His saving and preserving work in you through His Word. His Word is, after all, “a lamp to our feet and a light to our path”, applied directly from Psalm 119. God’s Word and His Spirit are a package deal. You cannot have one without the other. That is why our Lutheran confessions make this point, quoting from the Smalcald Articles, “In these matters, which concern the external, spoken Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which comes before…. Accordingly, we should and must constantly maintain that God will not deal with us except through his external Word and sacrament. Whatever is attributed to the Spirit apart from such Word and sacrament is of the devil” (SA III viii 3, 10). So note that in today’s Holy Gospel, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (John 14:26). A more descriptive translation of the New Testament Greek here would be the one called alongside. We get the title Paraclete from that Greek word. The Spirit wills to come into us in Holy Baptism. He comes to give constant counsel and guidance and strength.

Then Jesus also speaks here of how those who love him will keep his word. To keep Jesus’ word means to hang on to what Jesus says. In fact, that’s how the Holy Spirit teaches us. He doesn’t bubble up inside you as a warm emotion. The Spirit doesn’t give you some special secret insight into the plans and purposes of God. No, the Spirit works in the way Jesus says here, “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). So the Spirit works only in and through the Word. To love Jesus is to keep His Word.

Years ago, there was a guide at Mammoth Caves in Kentucky who would have a message for the tourists at one point in the tour. The guide would climb up on a rock known as the pulpit and then announce he would preach a short sermon. His message was simply, “Stick close to your guide.” It was wise advice as tourists could get lost in the darkness if they ventured off on their own. It’s always foolish and spiritually harmful to stray away from keeping Jesus’ word through the Spirit.

Yet to keep Jesus’ word is something different than obeying the rules and regulations which the Lord God has set in place. When people understand the Christian life, primarily in terms of playing by the rules or obeying the Ten Commandments, they often end up accusing God Himself when life doesn’t turn out the way they had anticipated. In the face of some disappointment or tragedy, such a person says, “Why is this happening to me? I went to church. I gave my offerings. I said my prayers. I acted decently toward my neighbors. I did what God told me to do, and yet this is happening to me.” But the minute you think or speak such words, the very law of God that you thought you were obeying slaps you with the harsh verdict. You didn’t do enough. You never will be able to do enough. You never ever measure up to God’s law. His law always finds your works incomplete and stained with sin. There’s no comfort or consolation in the law. You won’t find shelter in your own supposed obedience to God. When it comes to His law, you always come up short. You always will this side of eternity. And the more you try to argue the case, the more God’s law condemns you.

No, keeping Jesus’ word is not about our obedience to his law. To keep Jesus’ word is to hold on to His forgiveness of your sins. Jesus showers that forgiveness on you from His Gospel, beginning in Holy Baptism. To keep Jesus’ word is to trust and rely exclusively on the fact that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners and to do so through the shedding of His blood after His perfect obedience of His own law. To keep Jesus’ word is to let nothing in life or death, to let nothing in affliction or suffering, to let no earthly joy or pleasure tear from your heart that promise that the crucified and risen Son of God is for you. That’s the faith which the Holy Spirit implants and cultivates, deepens and strengthens as you hear more and more of the Word of our Lord. That’s the purpose of the Divine Service. The same Holy Spirit who breathed the gift of new birth into everyone baptized here—that same Holy Spirit continues to come to you. He comes in the preaching of Jesus’ word. Wherever these words are received in faith, you have what these words declare to you. Listen again to what your Lord says, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we [the Blessed Holy Trinity] will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). We know from the Sacrament of the Altar exactly how deeply God makes His home with us. Here He gives us His own Body and Blood to eat and drink in the bread of wine. The flesh born of Mary and nailed to the cross as the atonement for the world’s sin, that flesh is given us to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins. The blood that poured from the Savior’s veins and pierced side to blot out our sins, that blood is given in the cup of the New Testament.

The Holy Spirit is not given once, but over and over again, wherever the Lord’s Word is read, preached, taught, believed, and confessed. The gift of the Spirit is the gift of Christ himself. The gift of the Spirit is His peace. The Spirit doesn’t drop in, we might say, once in a while. He isn’t here today and gone tomorrow. The Spirit doesn’t swoop down on us to give us a spiritual high which will soon fade away, leaving us empty and fearful and ignorant. No, the Holy Spirit comes constantly and surely in Jesus, the Word spoken to us in the Absolution and the sermon, in Holy Baptism and with his body and blood. These are His gifts, and with these gifts we have His peace. For this is the peace bought with the blood of Christ. This is real and lasting peace, not as the world vainly hopes for. What’s more, this peace, the world cannot take away. It’s your possession, now and unto eternal life, with your risen and reigning Lord Jesus. Therefore, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid”. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.