On Fire With The Truth

Pentecost Sunday (8th Sunday in Easter), Year B
Text: Acts 2.1-21; John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15

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What follows is the sermon (or beginning of a sermon) that I had written. The sermon given during worship started here, but developed into something else. The Spirit must have been moving! Check out the video to get the full message.

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All the readings we’ve been given during this Easter season have been about belonging. We’ve been being reminded over and over that, as disciples of Jesus, we belong to him, and he is taking care of us and our community. We didn’t choose him, he says, he chose us. We belong to him because we first belonged to God, and nothing can take that way—not sin, not death, not doubt, not fear. We are forever and always God’s beloved children in whom God is well-pleased.

This is the Truth to which Jesus came into the world to testify. It is the Truth he embodied as God’s Son, and it is the Truth he lived out as he taught and preached and healed and blessed. It is the Truth to which he entrusted himself on the cross, and the Truth which raised him from the dead. This is the Truth Jesus wants us to believe about ourselves: not just in our heads, but in our hearts and in our lives, our actions. He comes to live that Truth for us and invite us into living that Truth ourselves.