One God · One Lord · One Spirit · One Body

Pentecost Sunday (5.24.2026)

Numbers 11:24–30 | Psalm 104:24–34, 35b | 1 Corinthians 12:3b–13 | John 20:19–23

The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,

Whenever you hear about the Holy Spirit, what biblical story comes to mind?

Pentecost.

The birth of the Church.

The breath of God.

Let’s think about breath itself.

It’s warm.

It’s close.

It’s life‑giving.

We can hear it and feel it.

We can only feel someone’s breath when they are very close to us.

That is the kind of God we meet in Scripture.

God’s breath is always in us, with us, sustaining our lives.

• The same breath of God that moved over the waters at Creation.

• The same breath that gave life when humans were formed.

• The same breath that brought new life to God’s people in Ezekiel’s valley.

• The same breath that moves through the whole story of God.

And on this Pentecost morning, we hear and feel that breath again,

• the Spirit resting on the elders in Numbers as leaders who were chosen by God in front of Moses,

• the Spirit renewing the face of the earth in the Psalm, likely chanted and prayed in worship during the days of David or Solomon,

• the Spirit giving gifts for the common good in Corinthians as the early church took shape,

• and the same Spirit invoked whenever we install leaders or affirm our faith in the church.

Pentecost is not just a memory or a Christian historical moment.

It is whenever God’s breath is heard and felt.

And then we come to John’s Gospel,

just five verses,

and Jesus does something unexpected.

He breathes on his disciples.

And then he says something even more surprising:

“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

He is declaring that the Holy Spirit gives the power to forgive.

Not for spectacle.

Not for prestige.

Forgiveness itself is a gift from God.

But this power of forgiveness is conditional,

an if‑then reality that invites a choice between two paths.

Jesus places these two paths before his disciples, and before us.

If we retain sins, if we hold on, cling tight, keep score,

life gets stuck on the cross.

It’s a path of condemnation.

It’s a life bound by guilt, bitterness, and fear.

The cross is where Jesus absorbs the full weight of human brokenness.

For our sake, he is bound by our brokenness,

our guilt, our bitterness, our wounds.

And while we are still wrestling and wondering whether we have any power to set ourselves free from all those bondages, God in Jesus, through the cross, announces publicly:

It is finished. It has been done.

That is God’s radical forgiveness for all.

Forgiveness begins with God long before we feel ready for it.

Forgiveness is not sentimental.

• Forgiveness is that knot in your stomach when you see the person who hurt you.

• Forgiveness is the conversation you avoid.

• Forgiveness is the thing you know you should do, but everything in you resists.

And Jesus breathes the Spirit on us precisely there.

So, if we loosen sins, if we release, forgive, let go,

life is freed from the cross.

It’s a path of resurrection life.

It’s a life open to Christ’s freedom.

It frees us to breathe again.

That freedom calls us into a new way of living.

And that freedom is never just for us individually.

It is for the well‑being of the community.

The Spirit’s freedom always move toward

healing, toward reconciliation, toward the common good.

Last Sunday in confirmation class,

Marleen and I talked about this word: freedom.

We all love the idea of freedom.

But the meaning behind it,

the cost of it, the responsibility of it,

that’s where the Spirit does deeper work.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:17,

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

So the condition is to live in the Spirit of the Lord  

and let the Spirit shape our lives by setting us free from the cross.

As we learn to live in the Spirit of the Lord,

we find ourselves moving with the Spirit—outward, not just inward.

Then we, as we constantly practice forgiveness,

begin to see the giftedness the Spirit has given to everyone,

in us and in all people, just as St. Paul teaches.

Paul reminds us that the Spirit gives gifts, many gifts, various gifts.

Didn’t we just install the Nominating Committee last Sunday?

This is exactly the purpose of this committee:

With the help of God,

living in the Spirit of God,

engaging with the Spirit through prayer and discernment,

this committee notices and names what God has been gathering here at Pointe of Grace.

Yes, certain thoughts do exist among us:  

• Some of us don’t feel gifted, with nothing to offer to the life of the church.

• Some of us feel like leftover scraps on the cutting‑room floor.

• Some of us feel too fragile, too sharp, too hidden, too worn.

• Some of us feel gifted but are not ready to offer what we have.

The fact is that God gathers the fragile ones,

the sharp ones, the colorful ones, the hidden ones.

And God says, “Watch what I can make with this.”

And when all those gifts are offered freely, something beautiful happens:

The broken pieces join.

The scattered pieces fit.

The overlooked pieces shine.

God puts all the pieces together into one beautiful work of art,

forming us into something we could never become on our own.

One body.

One Spirit.

One Lord.

One God.

This is the Pentecost story; this is our Pentecost story.

God taking ordinary people, forgiven people, Spirit‑filled people,

and shaping them into a community that reflects Christ’s love.

And let us remember what Jesus teaches us:

forgiveness is the way the Spirit keeps the body of Christ united.

Yes — forgiveness itself is a gift from God.

But this power of forgiveness is conditional,

two paths placed before us.

And Jesus places these two paths before his disciples — and before us.

Let us pray.

Today, on Pentecost, let us hear this invitation:

Let the Spirit breathe freedom into you and me.

Let the cross remind us of the cost of that freedom.

Let Christ’s forgiveness loosen what has been bound.

Let our gifts bless the community.

Let our lives become part of God’s beautiful artwork,

one faith, one baptism, one body, 

And may the Spirit who hovered over creation,

who rested on the elders,

who renewed the earth,

who filled the disciples,

fill us today with the freedom of Christ.

Amen.