Amazed and Perplexed
Pentecost June 8, 2025
The tests for this sermon are Acts 2:1-21 and Joh 14:8-14
Quite a drama unfolds in the second Chapter of Acts.
Envision, if you will, the location of our story: narrow street in a very congested city; people from all the known world at the time. Most of the Jews of the diaspora, but not exclusively. People wearing different types of clothes, with different facial features and skin colors. People speaking different languages: a Persian mother reprimanding her children. A cluster of African men debating some topic. A group of rabbis standing at an intersection all talking at the same time. Judean street vendors shouting out the merits of their wares.
This is not a quiet scene. It is Passover in Jerusalem and there’s not a quiet corner anywhere! Devout people from every nation under heaven it says, were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
But then something happens that arrests the attention of all these busy, engaged, self-absorbed people. A band of Galileans break out into the street through a small doorway and they’re all talking at once. Some are speaking Persian, some Ethiopian, some Eritrean, so on and so forth. The Persian woman turns from her children and listens; the Ethiopians and Eritreans stop their debate, the rabbis their discussion, and the vendors stand up in silence.
Our story then tells us that these people move through a mix of emotions: they are perplexed. Something is happening they’ve never seen before and do not understand. They are amazed; they ask Why? How? What? They are skeptical; it’s a group of drunkards. Then one of the Galileans shouts out above the rest and when everyone quiets. Peter tells them a story.
He tells them that there was a man who carried within him the divinity of God; a man of whom the prophets had spoken and who, by the power of God, did miracles and wonders for everyone to see. And who, when crucified and buried, and dead three days, rose again breaking the grip and power of death, putting an end to its agony. (vs 22-24)
At the conclusion of Peter’s story, the crowd is pierced to the heart. They feel convicted. They don’t understand but they comprehend they’ve heard something profoundly true. They ask: “What shall we do?” and it is then, that they move to a new emotion. They are moved repentance and then devotion.
There are many veins that run through this story. One I’ve just mentioned: the array of human emotions that arise from this event: amazement, perplexity, skepticism, repentance, devotion.
This vine intertwines with another one. This story speaks to the work of God’s Spirit.
First, this account reveals that the work that God’s Spirit does in us cannot be manufactured. A wearied, unsettled group of followers gathered together as instructed to wait and pray.
Second, this account reveals that the work of God’s Spirit attracts attention. And when it does, it often spawns perplexity and amazement. People want to discount it, explain it away. They want to shrink what they experience to manageable dimensions and explanations. What is this? Oh, they’re drunk!
Third, this account reveals that the work of God’s Spirit is meant to be explained. When the Spirit of God breaks in upon us we are meant to tell the story of what God has done for us. I was once This, now I am free of That. The work of God’s Spirit is not meant to be private and sequestered.
Fourth, this account reveals that the work of God’s Spirit inspires repentance. When they heard Peter’s story they were pierced to the heart. (v37) What shall we do? They cried.
Fifth, this account reveals that the work of God’s Spirit forges community. And all those who had believed were together, and had all things in common, and…day by day they met in the temple and broke bread from house to house, they took meals together with joy and sincerity of heart. (vv43-46)
All of this began with two things: obedience (Go back to Jerusalem and wait) and prayer.
They didn’t just sit looking at the walls; they prayed.
From this work on that day in Jerusalem, emerged the GREAT WORK, the eruption of God’s Empowering Spirit.
Is not this where we are today as a church? We know we’re to pray for God’s Spirit to inspire us, lead us, awaken us. But I think we Christians today are a bit ambivalent about God’s Spirit. Not quite sure we want that holy fire to break in upon us. And even if we do, we Christians today are still a bit perplexed as to what to do; what kind of prayer we’re to offer and to what end?
We Christians today, might ask ourselves if we really want to be Pentecost Christians? Do we want to be the kind of Christians who fervently invite the Spirit to enliven us, purge us of pre-conceived ideas and practices and convert our cerebral, abstract belief into a visceral, animated live-out-loud testimony that God is afoot.
And if we do want to be Pentecost Christians, if we do want God’s Spirit to widen God’s work in us,
let us remember that it won’t be of our own making. It will be of God’s making. It will attract attention. It will propel us to share what God has done; to tell of the love and life God gives. If we are faithful, God will be too and this will inspire repentance and forge an invigorated hope-inspiring community.
L Quanstrom, Pastor
Cornelius UMC