In this service, Pastor Eric preaches on Pentecost Sunday with a message titled "Where the Breath Goes," drawn from John 20:19-23.
Kossowski, Adam. Veni Sancti Spiritus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. [retrieved May 19, 2026]. Used with permission.
Most of us come to Pentecost through Acts 2 — the violent rush of wind, the divided tongues of fire, the city bewildered and Peter preaching to thousands. It is a loud, public, unmistakable arrival.
But John gives us a different Pentecost entirely, and it may be the one our moment most needs. The doors are locked — not as a failure of courage, but as an honest account of what fear does to people after the world has come apart. Into that room, Jesus comes. He speaks peace before he speaks commission. He shows his wounds before they rejoice. And then he breathes — the same word John's Greek shares with Genesis, when God breathed life into the dust of the earth.
This is new creation happening in a locked room. The Spirit, it turns out, doesn't wait for open doors or ready hearts. It goes where the breath goes — into the closed places, the wounded ones, the rooms we've sealed against the world. Accompanying scripture passages are Acts 2:1-21 and Psalm 104:24-34, 35b.