Introduction
It is Easter Sunday morning as our reading begins. Mary Magdalene has come to the Lord Jesus’ tomb accompanied by some other women. Because the Lord’s body had to be hurriedly put into the tomb, they’ve brought spices with them to use to prepare Jesus’ body properly for burial. But the tomb door is open when they arrive and Jesus’ body is gone. The women have run and told Peter and John who have also come to the tomb and found it open and empty, like they said. But no one has understood the Scriptures that Jesus was to rise from the dead.
Now, Mary Magdalene has returned to the grave site, and John writes,
John 20:11-23 [NLTse]
11 Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. 12 She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13 “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.
“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put Him.”
14 She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize Him. 15 “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”
She thought He was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will go and get Him.”
16 “Mary!” Jesus said.
She turned to Him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).
17 “Don’t cling to Me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find My brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them His message.
19 That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” He said. 20 As He spoke, He showed them the wounds in His hands and His side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21 Again He said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Sermon
How many of you are trying to read the New Testament with me this year, reading the daily sections set before us in the weekly Bulletin and on the website, and me preaching each week from something we’ve read? … Keep up the good work! If reading the Bible each day is a new practice for you it can take some getting used to. So don’t be discouraged if you miss some days and get behind. Leave behind what you’ve missed and start again today. Don’t let the devil convince you that you’ve blown it or that it’s too late. That’s not true. Today’s a new day. Start today! (Or tomorrow, really, since there’s typically no reading on Sundays.) This-coming week we’re moving into the Book of Acts, and you don’t want to miss it!
Which brings us to our reading this morning because in our reading the Lord Jesus has “breathed on His disciples” and commanded them to receive what He has just breathed: The Holy Spirit. And yet we’ve all been taught that the Holy Spirit didn’t come the day Jesus was raised from the dead (as we are reading here in John). Most of us have been taught that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples fifty days later at Pentecost. So, what’s going on here?
I’m glad you asked!
First off, if you didn’t already know it, realize that the Holy Spirit is indeed God’s breath. Ruach – roo-akh – is the Hebrew word for spirit. But it’s a word that also means breath and wind. Likewise in the New Testament, pneuma – nyoo-muh – is the Greek word for spirit. But it, too, can also mean breath or wind.
In the beginning, in Genesis 2, the Lord God breathed into Adam the “breath of life”: The Holy Spirit. Here the Lord Jesus is breathing into the disciples the “breath of new life”, abundant life: The Holy Spirit. And now the Lord Jesus says that the disciples can forgive people’s sins. This coming Tuesday we’re going to read in Acts 2 about the disciples being gathered together on Pentecost and hearing the sound of a violent wind, and how afterwards the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they become bolder in their preaching and begin praising God in other languages and suddenly have better understanding of the Scriptures and more…
So, again, what’s happening here? Have the disciples received the one and the same Holy Spirit two different times? Or have their two fillings been distinct? Are there two separate and different ways that the Holy Spirit comes to a person?
Well, let me make this as clear to you as mud: Yes, the disciples have received the one and the same Holy Spirit two different times, and the Bible tells us that lovers-of and believers-in Jesus should expect to be filled with the Holy Spirit again and again and again and again.
But we’re also witnessing two different acts of the Holy Spirit happening in John and in Acts, as well. It’s what the Bible speaks about as the Holy Spirit coming within a person – that’s what we first see happening in John this morning – and what the Bible speaks about as the Holy Spirit coming upon a person – which is what we first see happening in Acts 2, that we’ll be reading in just a couple days.
First, let’s look at this idea of the Holy Spirit filling Christians over and over again.
We’ve already read about the Lord Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit into His disciples here in John 20. And we’ve talked about the famous passage of the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples at Pentecost recorded in Acts 2. But the Holy Spirit also fills Simon Peter again when he and John are brought before the Jewish Council on account of healing a lame man and teaching that there’s going to be a resurrection from the dead. (That gets spoken of in Acts 4:8) All the disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit again after Peter and John get released, in Acts 4:31, and the Bible tells us, “The meeting place shook”!
The apostle Paul was first filled with the Holy Spirit after a disciple named Ananias prayed for him as Paul was first coming to faith in Jesus. (Acts 9:17) And the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit filled Paul again when he and his missionary partner, Barnabas, were preaching on the island of Cyprus and were being opposed by someone practicing witchcraft there. (Acts 13:6-12)
“Keep being filled with the Holy Spirit,” Paul writes to the Christians in the city of Ephesus in Ephesians 5:18. Most English translations read: “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit,” but the Greek verb there conveys ongoing action: We’re not just to be filled once and for all, but we are to always to be filled, to keep being filled, to continually be filled with the Holy Spirit. And, as we’ve already been reading, we keep seeing examples of that across the pages of the Bible.
So, we, Christians, should expect to be filled with the Holy Spirit again and again and again. The truth is that we leak, and our Father needs to keep topping us off! And yet, the Bible also gives us pictures of two distinct types of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Let’s talk about that.
When the Lord Jesus breathes on His disciples He is filling them with the Holy Spirit within themselves. When the Bible uses phrases or imagery about the Holy Spirit coming inside of us or doing a work within us it is most often referring to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit: That is, the Holy Spirit making us more and more holy from the inside out. We can see the results of such an “inside job” in Galatians 5:22-23s listings of “fruit” that the Holy Spirit produces in a person. The Holy Spirit within us makes us more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, and more patient. As we are filled more and more with the Holy Spirit within we grow more and more kind, good, trustworthy, gentle, and self-controlled. That is the “inside” work that the Holy Spirit does in a Christian’s heart and mind. And that is the work that we see the Lord Jesus beginning with His disciples that first night when He was newly raised from the dead and they began believing in Him. Of course, they believed in Him for different reasons and in different ways long before that, but this is the first time that they fully understood His Person and His mission: They finally “got it” that He was God the Son, and that suffering and even defeat for God’s sake and the sake of the good news was not failure but to be expected, and led the way to being resurrected with Him in the life to come!
So, here they are. And their very first meeting with Jesus since they’ve come to truly and fully believe, He breathes upon them, giving them the Holy Spirit within themselves. And He tells them, ‘Now you have God the Holy Spirit living within you. He will give you the peace with God that I have won for you on the cross. Now you, too, can declare people’s sins forgiven, because I’ve first forgiven your sins. The Father has sent Me. Now I send you!
Wonderful, isn’t it?
Everyone who has come to believe in God the Father through Jesus Christ has God the Holy Spirit living within them doing His sanctifying work, making us holier and holier day by day.
But let’s move on to the next kind of “filling”: What’s happening in Acts 2, that we’ll be reading in more detail this week, is the Holy Spirit coming upon believers in Jesus.
When you read Bible passages about the Holy Spirit working in the life of a Christian that uses external imagery like coming upon or the believer wearing the Holy Spirit like clothing or having the Holy Spirit settle on them, that is an external “filling” of the Holy Spirit and that “filling” leads to empowerment for the work of ministry.
The Lord Jesus says in Acts 1:8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus is talking about empowerment for ministry, for being His witnesses, for telling people about Him: The Holy Spirit will come upon us for these things.
And this is where the Bible talks about the gifts the Holy Spirit gives for ministry: Helping, service, mercy; knowledge, wisdom, faith; encouragement, evangelism, pastoring; giving, discernment, leadership; administration, teaching, prophecy; healing, miracles, missions; apostleship, craftsmanship, intercession; hospitality, tongues, interpretation, and making-music… All empowering gifts the Holy Spirit gives to enable us to do the works He calls us to for advancing His Kingdom here in the earth.
But not every Christian receives this empowerment, because this “filling” needs to be sought and waited for. The resurrected Jesus said to the disciples, recorded at the end of Luke, “Stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from Heaven.” (Luke 24:49) So it is a “filling” we need to expect, ask for, and wait for. And many Christians don’t know – have never been taught – to expect such empowerment, let alone to think they need to ask for it, and much less to think they need to wait for it. But it is this “filling” with the Holy Spirit – even as He fills us again and again and again – that is necessary to accomplish the great works – whether visible or invisible – that is necessary to accomplish the great works that greatly advance Christ’s Kingdom among us!
So, to recap: The Holy Spirit fills us within in order to sanctify us that we might bear the holy fruit of godly character; and, the Holy Spirit fills us upon with power and ability so that we might do all that Christ has called and commanded us to do.
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And we keep being filled in these ways. We have times when we see ourselves growing in holiness by leaps and bounds! (Often the evidence of a fresh filling!) And we see other times when we experience our work for the Lord having great – supernatural – effectiveness! It is the Holy Spirit continuing to fill us within and upon to make us more and more into the likeness of Christ and so that His Kingdom might come and His will might be done here on earth as it’s always done in Heaven.