Transcript
Richmond’s First Baptist, May 24, 2026
The Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.
If I’m calculating correctly, this is my 40th Pentecost Sunday as a pastor, which means that for forty years in a row I’ve been stepping up to the pulpit to try to make sense of this incredible thing that happened nearly 2,000 years ago. You might think that I’ve said everything I know to say about it. I might think that I’ve said everything I know to say about it. And yet, as I said to the staff recently, Scripture is inexhaustible. If you look at it long enough, if you listen for the whispered voice of the Spirit, eventually you will see and hear something that you have never seen or heard before.
It happened to me. We were on staff retreat a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t preaching the next Sunday so I used some of my quiet time to look ahead. I saw that the text I would be preaching was the story of Pentecost, and although I love this Sunday, I didn’t know what I would say. I started reading closely, trying to read between the lines and even between the words until I saw something new.
I looked at the backstory of Pentecost, refreshing my memory on what Jesus said to his disciples before the big day arrived. And that’s where I found it. In Luke 24:49, as his last words in the Gospel, the risen Christ says, “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” That felt new to me, and what was new about it was that Jesus didn’t ask his disciples to pray for the power from on high, he told them to wait for it.
I can’t remember when it was exactly, it may have been ten years ago when we started our last visioning process, but at some point I suggested that we pray during that ten-day period between the Ascension of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost. I said, “When those first disciples did it they received the power from on high. Who knows what would happen for us?” And so I asked you to sign up in one-hour blocks so that we would have ten days of uninterrupted prayer for the church and its future. I can’t remember who signed up for those late night and early morning shifts but we did it, we filled all the slots, and as far as I know we prayed for the future of First Baptist Church for ten full days.
Let me just say—that’s not a bad thing to do. Who knows how our life as a congregation would have been different if we hadn’t prayed? But let me also say, Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to do that. He didn’t tell them to go back to Jerusalem and pray, he told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait. The Greek verb means, literally, “to sit.” And the reason this feels important to me on this 40th Pentecost of my pastoral ministry, is that it wasn’t because the disciples spent ten days in uninterrupted prayer that the Spirit came: it was because God is going to do what God is going to do.
In that verse I quoted earlier Jesus says, “I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city (or maybe even sit here in the city) until you have been clothed with power from on high.” And not to get ahead of myself (because next Sunday is Trinity Sunday), but it’s a very Trinitarian statement: “I (the Son) am sending what the Father promised, and that’s the Holy Spirit. And I’m sending it upon you, my disciples.” Do you see how the disciples, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all wrapped up together in this event we have come to call Pentecost? But do you also see that the disciples had nothing to do with it!?
Not that they didn’t try.
If you read the first chapter of Acts you find that after they went back to Jerusalem they devoted themselves to prayer. Jesus didn’t ask them to do it, but that’s what they did. And I don’t think they did it because it seemed like the pious thing to do. I think they did it because they wanted that power. They had seen it in Jesus, seen how he could heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out demons. Who wouldn’t want power like that? I can picture them on their knees praying for it, earnestly, fervently, “Lord, send us that power from on high!”
But after several days of doing something Jesus didn’t tell them to do they took a break to choose a replacement for Judas Iscariot, which Jesus definitely didn’t tell them to do. Do you remember this part of the story? It’s in the second half of Acts, chapter 1. Luke says that in those days Peter stood up among the brothers and sisters and suggested that they find a replacement for Judas, who had taken his own life after betraying Jesus. Peter said it should be somebody who had been with them from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry and two candidates were put forward: Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed for guidance, and they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. “He was added to the eleven apostles,” Luke says. And that’s the last we ever hear of him.
As I said, Jesus didn’t tell them to do that, and if they had asked he might have said, “No, don’t worry about it. I already have someone in mind.” Because a few months later he surprised a Pharisee named Saul on the road to Damascus, suggested that he had a special assignment for him, and when some began to question whether he was the right choice Jesus said, “He is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” Years later, in his letter to the Galatians, Paul would claim that he was “an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities but through Jesus Christ…”
If only the disciples had waited.
But that was hard for them, just as it’s hard for us. In this season of pastoral transition it may be hard for us to wait and see what God has in store for us. We may want to take matters into our own hands, and make our own decisions. While they were waiting in Jerusalem the disciples appointed apostles and prayed for the power from on high. And I don’t know how they prayed, exactly, but I’m almost certain they didn’t say: “Dear Lord, please send your Holy Spirit upon us. And please let it come with a sound like the rush of a mighty wind, as if a tornado were ripping through this upper room. And please let tongues of fire appear over each of our heads, and let us begin babbling in languages we have never learned, and let us pour out into the street in such a rowdy way that people will think we are drunk.”
No. I don’t think they would have prayed for any of those things. And this is just a footnote, but so often when we pray we want God to answer our prayers in a certain way. When we pray for someone who is sick we want them to get well, and if they don’t get well in the way we want them to we sometimes assume that God didn’t hear our prayer or didn’t answer our prayer. But what if God’s answer is simply different from the one we wanted? Can we accept it anyway? I don’t know what you were praying for in those ten days when we were praying for the church’s future, but I doubt that any of us prayed for a global pandemic. I’m not saying it was God’s will, but I am saying that some things emerged from that season that we never could have planned or predicted ourselves.
And those disciples—faithful as they were—would never have known how to pray for what actually happened on the Day of Pentecost. I don’t think they had that much imagination. So God did what God does: he surprised them with wind and fire and unknown tongues, he pushed them out of their comfort zones and into the streets, he
got them testifying in every language on earth. And some people thought they were drunk.
But Peter stood up in front of the crowd and said, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, these people are not drunk as you suppose. It’s only nine o’clock in the morning! No, this is what the prophet Joel was talking about, that in the last days God would pour out his Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters would prophesy, and your young men would see visions, and your old men would dream dreams.” He went on to preach a full sermon, fearlessly, and when he was finished some 3,000 people asked to be baptized. Do you think that would have happened if the disciples had gotten what they had prayed for? Do you think we would still be talking about it 2,000 years later?
Probably not.
It’s one of the reasons we’re trying to pray the Prayer of Indifference during these days of pastoral transition, the one that says, “Lord make me indifferent to anything other than your will—nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.” But please note that when I say indifferent I don’t mean apathetic. Apathy is when you don’t care about anything. Indifference is when you don’t care about anything except the will of God. It’s what was at the heart of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He cared about what was going to happen to him. He cared deeply. He prayed, “Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me.” And then (after what may have been a very long pause) he said, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.”
That’s the Prayer of Indifference.
I remember trying to teach that prayer during the visioning process, and asking people to imagine putting everything they wanted for the church’s future on the table. “And now,” I said, “imagine sweeping all those things off onto the floor so that God can
have his way.” You could see the pain on some people’s faces as they imagined giving up the things they wanted most. But I believe that kind of indifference is absolutely necessary if God is going to have his way.
And while we were on staff retreat, talking about that prayer, I noticed something I had never noticed about the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus asks his disciples to pray that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven, and we’re pretty good about that. We’ve made it our mission here at First Baptist Church to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Richmond, Virginia. We’re working for it, we’re praying for it, we’re seeing evidence every day that it’s getting closer. But Jesus also asks his disciples to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, and I don’t know that we’ve done as well with that.
But the two are related, as Jesus implies by putting them so close together. And I sometimes say to people that when God has his way in this world, his kingdom will come. So, how do we clear the way for God to have his way? Or how do we get out of the way so God can have his way? I think one way is to pray the Prayer of Indifference. And maybe that is what the disciples were doing in that upper room. Maybe they knew that if God was going to do what God was going to do, they needed to clear the table of their own agenda. And if God was going to fill them with his Holy Spirit there might be some unholy things that needed to go.
As I was thinking about this sermon last week I thought about putting three clay pots here on the communion table, three “earthen vessels” if you will: one that was empty, one that was full of the Holy Spirit, and one that was full of whatever is that’s inside of us. I thought that if you wanted to be filled with that power from on high you might have to pour some of what’s in your vessel into that empty vessel to make room, and that the more you poured out, the more room you would have. Not that you have
to empty yourself completely. There are some good things inside you, some very good things. But there are probably, also, some things that are not so good.
I think about Peter. If he were trying to empty his life of the things that needed to go he might pray that God would take away his fear. Because it was fear, wasn’t it, that caused him to deny Jesus three times? He was afraid that if he told the truth he might be the next one to be arrested, tried, and crucified. He didn’t mean to, but when they asked about Jesus he said he didn’t know him, and when the rooster crowed he realized what he had done. It broke his heart, but it also filled him with a sense of failure, that the one thing he had sworn he would never do, he had done. He may have needed to pray for that—that God would take away that failure and free him up for whatever came next, whenever it came.
And then it did.
It came with a sound like the rush of a mighty wind, And Peter’s empty vessel was filled so full of the Holy Spirit that he stood before a crowd of strangers and preached with a boldness no one could have imagined, least of all him. At the end of that day the church was born, and 3,000 people were baptized.
What would happen in this city, in this church, and in each us if we made room for the Spirit? And what would we have to let go of before the Spirit could come? Fear? Control? Regret? Anger? Suspicion? Exhaustion? Maybe Pentecost begins there: not when we pray for the power from on high, but when we make some room for God to do what God is going to do.
—Jim Somerville © 2026
