PENTECOST SUNDAY May 24, 2026

Prayer of the Day
O God, on this day you open the hearts of your faithful people by sending into us your Holy Spirit. Direct us by the light of that Spirit, that we may have a right judgment in all things and rejoice at all times in your peace, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: John 20:19-23 19
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

SERMON
Maybe you like a little razzle dazzle with your Pentecost…gale force winds, flames, buzzing cacophony of voices that miraculously make sense no matter what language one speaks.

There is another Pentecost…commentators nickname the Gospel reading we heard as John’s Pentecost. True to form, John’s version is intensely intimate and human; just as is his witness that the inner life of God becomes enfleshed and lives among us. We can identify with people feeling dispirited and directionless.

We know about sitting with others in collective grief, when words fail or maybe they just fill the space we don’t know what else to do with.

We’ve been close enough to other humans to feel their warm and damp breath on our own skin.

Jesus appears among his followers when they are at their lowest and he stands with them. He shows them his wounds—death is still real yet here is Jesus, raised from the dead.

Jesus speaks peace to them…and he breathes his own warm moist breath upon his followers—-receive the Spirit; this advocate who will be with you forever to teach, guide and comfort—this Spirit who will gather and gift a faith. community to carry on Jesus’ work.

Dr. Karoline Lewis has devoted her academic career to the study of John’s Gospel and she observes something here…there is no sending us to do the work without first imparting the Spirit within and among us.

Dr. Lewis’s colleague Cody Sanders connects more dots for us by point out that the word used to describe Jesus’ breathing Spirit is the same one used when scripture speaks of God breathing life into the first humans.

Aren’t we a lot like those sequestered behind locked doors?
Dismayed by absurd cruelty in the world?
Appalled by co-religionists calling for violence and maligning the hungry instead of  feeding them?
Dispirited because the enormity of the work exhausts us?
Discouraged and harbouring dread that this just might be as good as it gets?

Aren’t we also a lot like those first followers because Jesus is present with us, showing us glimpses of resurrection even though wounds aren’t healed?
Because in baptism and it’s daily recollection we’re promised God’s Spirit among us all and within each of us
Because we also are called to proclaim Christ in Word and deed, to work for justice and peace and to care for the world God made and so loves?

Amen