St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, New York
24 May 2026 + The Day of Pentecost
John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-21
The Rev. Josh Evans

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When I say “Pentecost,”
what do you think of?
The apostles huddled together
in the midst of the hustle and bustle
of the urban metropolis of Jerusalem.
The sudden rush of a violent wind.
Tongues of fire.
The bewildering cacophony of languages,
leading some to speculate the apostles had been day drinking.

Such a dramatic, chaotic, spirited scene
is not, however, what John gives us.

John’s “Pentecost” is really no Pentecost at all.
It’s Easter.
It was evening that day,
the first day of the week,
the day when, hours earlier,
while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene ran from the tomb
shouting “I have seen the Lord!” –
herself still the only person
who had actually seen the risen Christ.

Here, the disciples are still huddled together,
not in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem,
but in a quieter, nondescript, undisclosed location.

As one commentary captures the scene:
The disciples are “behind locked doors, in fear and grief.
Their world has collapsed with the crucifixion of Jesus.
Their sense of purpose is dashed.
They’ve lost their beloved friend and teacher to a gruesome state execution.
And they’re afraid they may be next.”

Fear and grief,
not amazement and astonishment,
characterize John’s non-Pentecost “Pentecost.”

Like Luke’s account in the book of Acts,
the followers of Jesus are in an in-between place,
in a moment of transition.
In that story, Jesus has promised the Holy Spirit would come to them soon,
and he has been taken “up,” out of their sight,
and now they’re waiting.
In John’s telling, Jesus had also promised to send “another Advocate,”
part of his lengthy final words to his disciples,
just before he would be arrested, condemned to death, and crucified –
and now he has been,
and now they wait.

Truth be told,
there was probably a tinge of fear
in both stories –
the same questions of doubt
running through their minds:
When is this Spirit showing up?
Is the Spirit going to show up at all?
Was this whole Jesus thing a big waste of time?
What are we even doing here?

Until, seemingly out of nowhere,
Jesus shows up.
How did he get in?
And with a weirdly familiar greeting
announces,
“Peace be with you.”

I wonder what it felt like,
hearing those words.
I wonder if they imagined themselves transported
back to that other room
of fear and grief –
as Jesus is talking about leaving them,
on the night he would be arrested
and later killed,
when their whole world as they knew it
was about to be shattered.

“Peace be with you,”
Jesus says,
echoing those earlier words
from what had to feel like ages ago:
“Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give to you.”

“Peace be with you,”
Jesus says, again –
a familiar Jewish greeting
and probably one they heard from him
many times before –
almost like a refrain of reassurance
when they needed it most…
a refrain we too speak to one another every week
at the center of our liturgy:
“Peace be with you.”

In the midst of grief and fear,
Jesus shows up
and offers a word of peace.

“Peace be with you,
Jesus says, again,
and breathes on them –
or perhaps, more accurately,
breathes into them (emphysaō).

Breath.
So simple,
so intimate,
so primordial.

In the beginning,
God breathes life into a clump of dust,
and it becomes a living, breathing human being.

In Ezekiel,
God tells the prophet to prophesy to the breath
in the midst of a valley of very dry, very dead bones:
“Breathe upon these slain,
that they may live” –
and they live.

And here,
in John’s upper room,
Jesus breathes new life –
into the midst of death and despair,
into the midst of grief and fear,
into the midst of weariness and exhaustion,
into the midst of doubts and questions:
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

In John’s non-Pentecost “Pentecost,”
the Holy Spirit arrives not with the spectacle
of a loud, rushing, fiery wind,
but with the gentleness
and intimacy
of a breath.

In this Spirit-filled breath,
as in the beginning,
is life –
a sort of divine CPR –
as Jesus breathes into
the disciples –
a re-creation –
and in that breath declares,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

“This is the Spirit of truth,”
Jesus promised only days before,
“You know him because he abides with you,
and he will be in you.”

Promise fulfilled.

***

There’s a tendency to hear “Pentecost”
and automatically call to mind
the miraculous polyglottal cacophony of voices
amid the spectacle of wind and flame –
and true, the Holy Spirit does show up like that…
sometimes.

But more often than not,
the Spirit shows up
in quieter, more subtle ways –
those moments that feel too serendipitous
or coincidental
to not be “God moments” –
moments where God is as close
as our own breath.

To limit the work of the Spirit
to big flashy moments,
or to reduce the celebration of Pentecost
to merely the “birthday” of the church
misses the point of this promised Spirit –
the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter,
all of these things and more –
as though the Spirit can really be boxed in like that.

This Spirit,
called alongside us and breathed into us,
underscores the mutual abiding relationship
of God with us and us with God –
that’s the point.

Pentecost is, as one pastor (Micah Krey),
so wonderfully puts it,
“a celebration of God refusing to remain distant.”

At Pentecost,
we celebrate a God who refuses to remain distant,
whose Spirit comes near to us,
as close as our own breath,
in every moment –
in the big flashy ones
and the not so bright ones –
in our grief and sadness,
in our fear and uncertainty,
in our weariness and exhaustion,
in our doubts and questions –
and reminds of God’s abiding and enduring presence
through it all.