Today is Tuesday and our reading thru the New Testament takes us to Acts 2:1-36. It’s a marvelous reading full of mystery and intrigue. Let your mind imagine what happened on that Pentecost day, and after you’ve read the passage, come back that we might walk through it again.
Pentecost as a celebration this year in the church is on May 31. The word Pentecost means “Fiftieth Day”, as in the 50th day after Passover. It was on Passover that Jesus hung on the cross. Forty days after this he ascended into heaven. For those 40 days he had met with his disciples to tell them that their mission, or purpose together, was to carry on the work of the Kingdom of God...but not in their own energy, or by their own devices. Instead, he told them to “wait”... ”wait until the promise of the Father is given, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you - so that - you might be my witnesses, messengers, to all tribes, tongues and nations” (Acts 1:8). Then Jesus’s ascension took place...40 days after the resurrection. The disciples and the followers of Jesus, numbering some 120 people, returned to Jerusalem and waited - in prayer, study, even conversation. The waiting would last 10 days.
Pentecost was a celebration of the harvest to come. It occurred 50 days after Passover every year in the Jewish calendar. God had given the Israelites a festival to celebrate the promised harvest to come (Exodus 23:16 & Deuteronomy 16:10 - where it is called the Feast of Weeks). It would be as if farmers brought their seed to church each year in the Spring and gave it to God with the hope and prayer that from this the harvest would come...maybe some pray it as they plant seeds in the ground.
This Pentecost was the beginning of God’s harvest of souls.
What happened on that special day? While the disciples and the others were gathered in the Upper Room, waiting, the day of Pentecost broke and the sun arose. The scriptures describe the scene:
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” (Acts 2:1-4)
They were gathered in a place of worship and prayer, as one body, and what happened came out of nowhere. A sound - like a blowing wind, not literally a blowing wind, but a sound like one. That and “tongues of fire” - impossible to describe apart from the tongues that were to follow...but something appeared over each one of them as if fire settling upon them. This is no repeated event, but a unique experience these followers waiting in the Upper Room experience. The words “like” are the best that Luke can do in describing what occurred. He is writing it down from the memories of those that were there. The point of the symbols and the “like” is that the Spirit of God comes to each of them, and they were “filled” with the Holy Spirit. To be filled, baptized in the Spirit does not mean they taken over by the Holy Spirit as if they had no will, but given both the gift of the Spirit and the ability to do something they had no previous experience in doing - they began to speak in various languages. “Other tongues” as Luke describes it in the text is “heteros glossolalia” - it means “other languages”.
While there are some who put the emphasis on the tongues as a second gift from the Spirit, that does not seem to be Luke’s point. He writes in the immediate context - vss 5 - 11 - that because Pentecost was a major festival thousands of Jewish believers from all over the Roman Empire had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. These various Jewish believers all spoke different languages and when these sounds occur, they gather as a large crowd wondering what is happening, only to find out they hear their own language being spoken by these Galileans (vss 8-11). There is a wide array of languages - the Greek word is “dialektos”, from which we get dialect - so they are hearing languages spoke from almost all of the Empire Rome had gathered under its dominion. Think about it, Rome had been the instrument God used to gather the nations together so that they may hear the Gospel in their own tongue!
The Spirit came "upon" them, and then the Spirit moved "in" them so that these early followers could speak the Gospel to people in their own languages. Some who came to listen and see mocked them, thinking that this commotion and tongues’ speaking must be nothing more than early morning drunkenness. Others, Luke describes, were amazed, astonished, bewildered... ”what is it that is happening here?” (Vss 12-13).
Then Peter takes the lead, steps forward to quiet the crowd and explain what is going on. The text implies that he was “put forward”, as if those in the 120 pushed him to the front and said, “tell them what’s happening Peter!” Peter’s sermon, or address, is not from notes, but fully aware of what is going on...revelation has come to him even as the experience unfolded.
“This (thing you see and hear) is not drunkenness, THIS is the fulfillment of the promise of God that the Prophet Joel spoke of - that in the last days (as Peter thought it would all culminate soon) these last days of God’s work there will be an outpouring of His Holy Spirit - THIS has occurred here today.”
The significance of the Holy Spirit being given to all of the believers is just the beginning. There is a harvest ahead...which is what Pentecost celebrated. The promise of the Spirit - Luke had written it at the end of his Gospel, and then re-written it in the first chapter of Acts - the promise is that the Spirit will fill the Church, believers, with power and they will be witnesses of Jesus to the ends of the earth. It’s just the beginning Peter says, but it is THE beginning.
Jews from all over the Roman Empire have gathered here in Jerusalem that day, and now they are witnessing the Spirit of God giving these “Galileans”, these fairly simple, normal, untrained, unrefined, people the ability to bear witness of what’s happening to them in their own language.
Peter tells them, (and us) this is about Jesus. In vss 21 - 36, Peter says the name of “Jesus” over and over again. The Spirit of God always bears witness to Jesus in those who are Spirit-filled. It is never about the experience or the feelings...they come along as fruit...love, joy, peace...but the Spirit moves to make Jesus known.
1. Jesus is Authenticated as God’s Son. To “authenticate or attest to” is the word Luke uses and it means to be put forth publicly as proof that “this is the one”(2:22)
2. Jesus was unjustly Crucified by them, but according to the Sovereign plan of God (2:23)
3. Jesus was resurrected by the power of God and overcame death - something never done before, not even to Israel’s greatest leader, King David (2:24-32)
4. Jesus is ascended to the Father’s right hand where he then poured out His Holy Spirit that they are seeing, as he had promised (2:33-34).
5. Jesus is Glorified and declared by God the Father to be both LORD and Messiah (2:35-36)
It is a totally unique day...a day Jesus promised them would come. The promise of the Holy Spirit means that Jesus is now at work in ALL of those who know him.
What else does it mean?
First, I cannot help but think of Peter. A few weeks before this, he had failed Jesus miserably. He thought he was done and he went back to his fishing career (John 21). But Jesus came to him and in forgiving him, he also commissioned him to continue on. Most others would have said, “Peter lost his chance, he failed, time to move on and look for another leader”. Yet Jesus brought him through repentance to forgiveness and then told him - wait, everything will change. When Pentecost came Peter is “filled” and “baptized” by the Spirit, and now there is boldness, the courage to speak, the willingness to identify with Jesus that occurs. Now there is no bravado, pride of "look what I will do" that marks Peter. Peter knows that all of this is not in the energy of his own flesh, but through the power of the Holy Spirit within him. Peter is still Peter...but now he has the gift of the Spirit at work in his broken, humbled humanity. This is how the Spirit of God works in us too.
Is this for us? Not Pentecost in particular, but the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the empowering of the Spirit, the filling of the Spirit - these are still at work in believers, in us, today.
How? It is the gift of the Spirit...not the earning of the gift, or the trying really hard to get the gift, or pleading with God for the gift... it is the Gift of the Spirit that comes to every believer even today.
It would take me too long to prove all of that, but read the Scriptures - Ephesians 1, Romans 8, so many more - and see that God has given His Spirit to us that we might be witnesses for him today.
BUT, what do we share? What Peter shared - Jesus! Simply, straight-forwardly, courageously...with the complete confidence of this: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.” (Romans 1:16).
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