Pentecost

Acts 2: 1 - 13 (May 31, 2009)

1) The Text

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

2) The Context

Acts is the sequel to the gospel according to Luke. Beginning with Jesus' ascension, Luke tells the story of the beginnings of the church. By no means a comprehensive history, it does however describe the spread of the church from Jerusalem to all of Palestine, and as far as Greece. The episodes he reports show how Christianity arose out of Judaism. He shows us something of the struggles the church underwent in accepting Gentiles as members. The Holy Spirit guides and strengthens the church as it spreads through much of the Roman Empire.

One of the three pilgrimage festivals, Pentecost falls 50 days (seven weeks) after Passover, as its Greek name, Pentecoste (50th), preserves. It is also called the Feast of Weeks, an occasion to celebrate the gathering in of the harvest (Exod 3:14-17; Lev 23:15-22). It also became a time to celebrate the coming of the divine Law on Sinai. Legend has it that on that occasion a flame came down from heaven and divided into 70 tongues of fire, one for each nation of the world. All could understand. It is entirely credible that the first great pilgrim festival after Jesus' execution at Passover and his disciples' acclamation of his resurrection would have been a special occasion for the fledgling Christian community.

Whatever historical event lies beneath Luke's story in Acts, we have to recognize that he is writing a symbolic narrative which wants to tell us of something much more than a once-off historical event. He is celebrating the presence of the Spirit in the early Christian movement. Luke wants us to sense a momentous truth. The Spirit, Breath, Presence of God, which we celebrate in Jesus, can be present in human community. When this happens and we let it happen, the ancient curses which divide us are undone and we connect with God in a new way and we gain a new sense of identity.


3) Interpretation

God has always wanted our relationship to Him to be so much more than a set of rituals we go through or a list of doctrines in which we believe. God has always wanted to be in us, to take up residence in our hearts and restore us to His original dream to live the life of Jesus in this world.
The response is to receive the gift of God in the Holy Spirit. But this is not to suggest that our response is passive. This gift is active and changes the way we live in the world and with one another. Acts 2, and indeed the whole book, makes it clear that the purpose of the Spirit was to empower the church for witness.

Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). The very first thing these Spirit-filled believers did was hit the city with proclamation. Suddenly in verse 5, the scene shifts from the upper room to the streets of the city where people from all kinds of places were hearing the good news in their own language. The Holy Spirit does come to comfort, to teach, and to bring peace. But the very first gift given by the Holy Spirit is the gift of witness. The Holy Spirit gives us the courage and the power to be witnesses of Jesus Christ to our world.

The whole story of Pentecost is not a story of how the Spirit comes to ease the life of the believer; it’s a story of evangelism. Some call Pentecost the "birthday of the church." I disagree. I sense that the church was born on Good Friday when Jesus asked the Father to forgive us, and a few bewildered, broken-hearted women and men wandered off wondering how they were going to live with that. Pentecost was the day they got their answer: with great joy, and with wind and fire and Spirit, making them look like a bunch of happy drunks in the midst of a numbingly sober and sour world. At last they knew that they were God’s -- every last one of them -- and that God was Love, not just in poetic theory but in palpable fact. They learned that in belonging to God they belonged also to each other. The joy derived from their trusting contained power, power not only to gladden but also to heal and redeem. Unleashed from an empty tomb, God’s outlandish love found its way into empty hearts, and the world has never been the same since.

4) Thought Exercise

How can we live the life of Jesus in this world?

What can we do as a church to be witnesses to Jesus Christ in our world?