God Among Us: A Meditation on Psalm 139 for Pentecost Sunday

O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising,

thou understandest my thought afar off.

Thou compassest my path and my lying down,

and art acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo,

O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before,

 and laid thine hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

 it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

 

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

 if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning,

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

 Even there shall thy hand lead me,

and thy right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;

even the night shall be light about me.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;

but the night shineth as the day:

the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

 

There are events in the history of the world that are inescapable.  They can be ignored only by force of will or darkened intellect, because they have shaped the entire course of world events.  Creation is one of them, as is the Mosaic covenant at Mt. Sinai, and the Incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Among the inescapable events of history comes today’s celebration, too:  the festival of Pentecost.

 

After Jesus had accomplished His saving work upon His Cross for the sins of the whole world, He ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He continues to intercede for His people until the Last Day when He shall come again to judge the living and the dead.  Yet before He ascended, He gave His disciples instruction to wait in Jerusalem until they were imbued with power from on high—the promise of the Holy Spirt Jesus made to His disciples just before the traitorous Judas handed him over to the Jewish authorities.  And on that first Pentecost, the disciples were indeed given power from on high as the Holy Spirit descended upon them:  they preached Jesus in foreign languages they had never studied, worked miracles of healing and resurrection, cast out demons, and bore fearless testimony to every strata of society that the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ was offered to everyone who might repent, believe, and live in Him according to His Word.  The world would never be the same after Pentecost, where the Spirit of the Living God dwelt among men, inspiring and empowering their testimony of Jesus Christ to the very ends of the earth.  While God had always been among His people from the very foundation of the world, now He would be present in His saving grace and mercy through the shed blood of Jesus’ Vicarious Atonement, pouring out His Holy Spirit without measure upon His people, everywhere He would send them across the globe.  The faithful followers of Jesus went from roughly 120 people huddled in a dark room, to thousands overnight.  Today, roughly 2 billion people around the world bear the name of Jesus, even in countries or regions which have with violence and hostility tried to stomp it out for centuries.

 

To be certain, the Church of Jesus Christ has been beset by myriad trials, persecutions, oppressions, and outright slaughter from the 1^st century forward.  Faithless leaders inside and outside the Church tried to tear it down, bend it to their own will, use it to make or steal fortunes, provide cover for bloody enterprises, or be the lapdog of politicians.  It has suffered from heretics within who tried to draw people away from the Word of Jesus, and from tyrants outside who tried to extinguish the Word of Jesus.  To top it all off, the Church of Jesus Christ has been entirely populated by wretched sinners of every stripe and kind, people whose fallen minds and hearts led them to do terrible things, even as the Word of the Lord called them to new life in Jesus.  Hordes of demons with Lucifer at their helm have attacked the Church every moment of every day from the beginning, targeting every believer with unceasing ferocity and malice to rip them away from the love of God, to corrupt and confuse the preaching of God’s Word of Law and Gospel, and to stop the ears of everyone they can from hearing it.

 

And yet, the ongoing miracle of the Church of Jesus Christ stands for all the world to see.  When Jesus said He had come into the world to save sinners, and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church, He meant it.  Not only did He promise to live, die, and rise again so that His Blood might cover the multitude of our sins, but He established in the world the power and means to get that message into the ears and hearts and minds of everyone who might hear Him.  What He began in the Garden of Eden so many millennia before, continuing through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, He completed on His Cross and sent out into the world through His disciples until the Last Day dawns.  No matter the work of the wicked who have tried to corrupt, suppress, or destroy it, and the frailties of every baptized sinner who strives daily to live by grace through faith in Jesus, the Church of Jesus Christ presses forward into the present darkness of every age with the Gospel of Salvation, bearing the almighty power of the Ever-living God.

 

Today, in small parishes and large cathedrals, around humble hearths and immaculate altars, the People of God continue in the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to each believer to carry out their vocation in their time and place.  Today, the Spirit of the Living God dwells among His people, gathering into one Body by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, the entire universal Christian Church.  May the Holy Spirit fall fresh upon you this Pentecost day, that you might know the omnipotence of our Savior in His work among us, so that from now until the end of time, His people might bear fearless testimony to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Into this present darkness shines the Light of God’s Eternal Word, that all might repent, believe, and live forever in Him.  Stand forth, therefore, O People of God, and behold the unconquerable power of the Eternal Word, the Lord of Hosts and King of the Universe.  Amen.