Pentecost: Jesus Makes Empty Glasses Sing - Acts 2: 1-21

This morning’s Epistle lesson (Acts 2:1-21) is Peter’s first full sermon as an apostle. Today we only get to hear the first part of the sermon, but it’s the part we love. We love it because Peter preaches Law and Gospel and people repent and are saved. The perfect Lutheran sermon! The Law is clear and sharp: you killed Jesus. The Gospel is unexpected and amazing: But God raised Him up, whom you crucified, to be God and Lord. And the result is life – people repent and are saved.

Now, this is Pentecost Sunday. There is a great temptation to take this text and turn it into an evangelism sermon, to explain three simple steps on how to present the Law, how to pursue with questions, and then how to apply the Gospel. It’s the standard Pentecost sermon formula.

But I don’t want to talk to you as an evangelist today. I want to speak to you as a child – a child of God.

Have you ever seen someone play a crystal goblet?  A musician partially fills a crystal goblet with water, wets a finger, and gently rubs the finger around the rim of the goblet. The friction creates a harmonic vibration; the crystal begins to hum. Different goblets, glass thickness, water volume, and pressure produce different tones and pitches. A skilled musician, with a table full of carefully filled glasses, can actually play entire pieces of music. 

If you have time this week, show this to your grandkids and watch their faces. I will (almost) guarantee that as the musician begins, after the initial whoas and cools, they will sit, quietly, staring, eyes and mouths agape, caught up in wonder and amazement as the crystal starts to sing.

Now, I want you to listen to this text like a child with wonder, lost at what God does with empty glasses.

I want you to look at this text differently. Listen again to verse 14: “Now Peter stood up among the eleven and lifted up his voice and addressed them…”

Peter preaches. That’s the wonder. That’s what I want you to see today.

Now, I admit it’s not that wonderful that Peter preaches. He’s the one never at a loss for words. Think back to the three years he was with Jesus. On the Mount of Transfiguration, “I will build three tabernacles for you, and Moses, and Elijah!” On the ocean, “Tell me to come out to you and I will!”  

It seems Peter is never at a loss for words. Not even the night Jesus was betrayed. Not even then. “Though they all fall away Lord, not me…I will follow you to prison and to death.” But that night Peter lost Jesus. There, in the garden and in the courtyard, he was asked three times if he knew Jesus; three times he said “No,” the last time even adding in curses to make the denial more emphatic. He used his words to empty himself of every last drop of Jesus.

He was a shell of a disciple; an empty glass if I ever saw one.

And that is what makes this moment so wonderful.

You see, it’s not about the glass. It’s not about how full or empty you are. It’s all about the One who can touch a glass and make it sing.

That’s what we see here. That’s what Jesus is doing. He has been raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. Now He sends forth His Spirit and now He touches on all sorts of glasses. He touches Old Testament, Psalms and the Prophets. And He makes them sing in ways we never knew. And He touches fishermen to open their mouths to speak in ways they never dreamed possible. And He opens ears to hear an old, old song in an old language. People are confused – what is God doing? And then they see Peter, an empty glass, and Jesus touches it and makes it sing.

God, by grace, can make any empty vessel sing.

Here it is, Pentecost, and I’m not letting you hear Pentecost. Am I frustrating you? It’s kinda like I’m keeping you outside the chancel doors, or down in the basement, or I’m making you watch this through the sacristy door, unable to get the whole picture. But I’m doing this on purpose because I want you to see something. I want you to see a whole ‘nother sermon. The very fact that Peter preaches is a sermon on its own.

Anyone who dares to speak for Christ, to be His voice, needs to listen to this sermon.

When you stand up as a god-parent for a child and you confess on behalf of the child…

You visit a friend in the hospital and you offer a prayer before surgery…

You call up a friend five weeks after they lost their spouse, just to say hi and see how they’re doing…

One of the greatest fears in our society is public speaking. It ranks right up there with heights and clowns. I’ve watched people make evangelism calls, I’ve listened to people have conversations about Jesus, I’ve attended conferences and led workshops on how to do all of this, and most of all, I’ve been among other Christians in 4 different parishes and you know what I think? I think, as a rule, people, well-meaning, well-grounded, well-faithed Christians are, deep-down, afraid to speak for Jesus. I understand why – trust me. To dare to say to other Christians, “Thus saith the Lord,” is daunting. And, I think our fear stems in this: we know what empty vessels we are.

How can you speak a word of hope or comfort to your neighbor who just lost his job when you are afraid for yourself and glad it wasn’t you laid off?

How do you speak with empathy when your brother calls and says that he and his wife are separating because they just don’t love each other anymore while you are getting ready to celebrate your own anniversary?  

You visit with a friend when suddenly, your friend begins to sob, telling you how their world is falling apart and asking what to do. What they don’t know is that your own world seems to be crumbling around you. How do you help another when you need help yourself?

How do you do this when you’re an empty glass?

Let someone else preach the Gospel for you. You’re not alone. God has not left you alone. In baptism, God joined you to a people and He has surrounded you with a cloud of witnesses – people who speak of Jesus for you. When you can’t speak for Jesus, let someone else speak of Jesus for you.

Those Bible verses you memorized in confirmation class? Let those verses speak. Maybe a hymn verse you sang on Sunday - use that. Take a story from Bible class. Take something you read in Lutheran Witness or the LWML Quarterly, take the Bible verse from the morning’s Portals of Prayer or Lutheran Hour devotion and let the Holy Spirit use that word from your mouth. Let someone else preach through you. The message isn’t yours; it’s God’s and He’s given it to us to share with others.

What you discover is that Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can make any empty vessel sing.

And, if it’s you who are feeling empty, when life has drained you of everything, then come to this place. If you need to, come here and stand in the narthex or sit in the stairwell and just listen. Listen to what God has done – He has taken this Jesus whom we crucified, God has taken this Jesus and make Him Lord and Christ over all.

This Jesus now rules over the world and he causes people to sing again and again – poets and prophets, doctors and lawyers, mechanics and farmers, engineers and attorneys, teachers and preachers, and octogenarian grandmothers and newly confirmed teens – He causes them to sing the Gospel for you and for others.

And, like that like a child, you are lost in wonder.

And suddenly, you hear your voice begin to sing in endless praise.