This
is the second of two blog posts asking the question, “why Pentecost?” Specifically, we are asking the question to examine
how Pentecost was more than the sum of that day’s events 2,000 years ago, how
it was more than a blip on the radar of history. We are exploring how the historical roots of
Pentecost actually help us point toward the brighter future God envisions for
us. In the first post I mentioned in
passing how in Jesus’ time, Pentecost had become a celebration of when Moses
received the Law, 50 days after Passover.
This is important to note because it links the giving of the Law of
Moses on stone, to the giving of the Spirit, which writes God’s law on our
hearts.
This
promise of God acting directly in our hearts was an old one. It was perhaps most prominently stated by the
prophet Jeremiah when he spoke of the new covenant between God and Israel:
“Behold,
the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will
make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and the house of Judah, not
like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them
out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares
the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I
will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. And no longer
shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the
greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
(Jeremiah 31:31-34)
The prophet Joel also spoke of such a time:
“And it shall
come to pass afterward, that I
will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your
old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the
male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. “And I will
show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and
columns of smoke. The sun shall
be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before
the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.” (Joel 2:28-32)
So there it is; the
promise. It was the promise of a day
when God would relate directly with human beings, regardless of their age or
gender. It was the promise of a day when
there would be no more privileged religious class. Despite all the years spent longingly
anticipating the fulfillment of said promise God still manages to surprise us
in a wonderful way, as our Father seeks to do something extraordinary through
his followers. With the sound of a
mighty rushing wind- which is interesting in and of itself since the Greek word
pneuma means both wind and Spirit-
the Holy Spirit is upon the gathered disciples of Jesus Christ. Before we know it Peter is speaking words
that are not his own, and yet they are words from the heart. The words of John the Baptist, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming…
He will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16),
have been fulfilled in their presence.
If we
really want to think about what this means for us today, we should consider
Peter’s role in the story. One of the
first things that happens with Peter and this new gift of the Spirit is he must
relinquish control. Jesus tells
Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its
sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Here is Peter, the disgraced apostle, now
boldly proclaiming the gospel just weeks after he so publicly denied his Lord
in the courtyard of the high priest. As
they listen to Peter’s sermon, the people are undoubtedly asking, “Where did
this come from?” and even, “Where is he going with this?” So it is with the Spirit. Those who are known for one thing, suddenly
find themselves doing the exact opposite.
The silent begin boldly proclaiming, the selfish begin sharing, and those
who hate become those who love.
The Holy Spirit comes
and does not just re-model, it re-creates.
In Genesis 2:7 the Spirit breathes life into dust and creates man, but
here it does something even more remarkable, it breathes life into a disgraced
apostle. It is more remarkable because
what the world needs is not more creation, but for creation to be re-created to
resemble more closely God’s vision for our world. The beauty of Pentecost is not that the
Spirit was unleashed on a large group of people that day. The beauty of Pentecost is found in the
promise that God’s Spirit can, and will live inside even us, even today. God’s Spirit is being unleashed in a broad
sense, no longer reserved for kings and prophets. Men and women, old and young, all united by
their faith in God, and by God’s Spirit living inside of them.
Why Pentecost? First of all, because Pentecost points back:
to God’s promises, to Jesus’ crucifixion, and to Jesus’ resurrection. But mostly, because Pentecost takes salvation
history, and uses that to point to the future: to redemption, to
reconciliation, and to a world made in the image that God intended for it all
along.
