Acts 2: Why Pentecost? (Part II)

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.  

Acts 1: Who are you playing your part for?

We all have ways of interpreting things.  What passes as a harmless remark made in jest for one person, is a deeply hurtful insult to another.  The difference between the two ways of seeing it is usually based on what experiences shape our worldview.  For the first disciples of Christ, the period surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection was a tumultuous one.  It would have been easy for them to swing on a pendulum from depression to elation and back, and at times that is probably exactly how they felt.  However, the beginning of Acts tells us that despite the variety of emotion that they undoubtedly felt, those earliest followers of Jesus sought to anchor themselves by interpreting all that they experienced through the lens of scripture, and by devoting themselves to prayer.  What is the first thing that the disciples do after being commissioned by Jesus to go to the ends of the earth?   They pray.  They have the knowledge that they need.  They have just had a 40-day intensive course with Jesus’ as their teacher, but clearly more than knowledge is needed.  The disciples have Jesus teaching, but they must also wait for his power.

This power had been promised to the disciples by Jesus, but it had actually been promised long before then.  Several centuries before Jesus’ ministry, the prophet Joel had related a promise from God concerning the time of renewal that he would bring about:

“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.” (Joel 2:28-29)

Jesus hinted during his ministry that the promise was near at hand, for when comforting the disciples concerning their ability to stand up to persecution, Jesus reassures them that “it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10:20)  Multiple times in the Gospel of John, Jesus promises them an advocate or comforter who will strengthen and enlighten them in times of trial.  All of this is a fulfillment of what John the Baptist said concerning Jesus:

 “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Luke 3:16) 

So Jesus tells them that the power promised ages ago to their forefathers was about to arrive.  God is about to keep his promise and the words of John the Baptist will ring true.  Jesus sends them out with the assurance that the promise of power is about to become a reality.

But to what end?  It is not enough to know that the Holy Spirit came; we must know why it came.  The short answer to ‘why’ is because we need to play our part, and play it well, and for that we need power.  It is easy to get so caught up in the miraculous work of Peter, James, John, and Paul that we forget the Holy Spirit descended on all the followers of Jesus who had gathered together.   

Only Peter, James, and John are mentioned again in Acts, or any other New Testament book other than the gospels.  We are not even sure what happened to Justus and Matthias, the two finalists for Judas old position as a member of the twelve apostles, after Matthias is chosen.  It is not that they did not do anything; it is just that their acts were not known to the world, and in many cases their lives have been lost to history.  What a stark reminder that our deeds in this life are not done for our own glory!  Should the Lord tarry, it is likely that within a hundred years no one will remember who we were.  However, God can be glorified if the impact of our life is felt, albeit anonymously.  While it may seem that the purpose of the Holy Spirit was to work miracles through a few apostles, in reality its purpose is broader and deeper than isolated acts of miraculous healing.  The Spirit’s purpose is to work from the inside out, dwelling in the heart of every Christian, and remaking that person into the image of God.  That is why we must remember that the whole reason behind our faith is not to serve or glorify ourselves, but to serve others and glorify God.  Jesus had reminded his followers of this when he was with them:      

“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” - Mark 10:45

The Holy Spirit inaugurates a kingdom where greatness is judged not based on who takes the most, but on who gives the most; and because giving is not always easy, Jesus sends the Spirit to lend us a hand.  Hopefully we will all learn something from these earliest Christians.  When speaking of them, the theologian N. T. Wright makes the observation that:

“Part of Christian obedience, right from the beginning, was the call to play (apparently) great parts without pride and (apparently) small parts without shame.”

Do you take pride because you seemingly have all the power?  Are you ashamed because you seemingly have none?  The Holy Spirit comes to convict you, to convict me, to convict all of us that none of that matters.  It comes to tell us that the question is not what part are we playing, but who are we playing our part for?   

Acts 1: This isn't goodbye

Why did Jesus leave?  It’s a question we don’t ask ourselves very often, because 2,000 years after the Ascension we just take for granted that things had to be that way.  But imagine for a minute that you are one of Jesus’ disciples.  You have seen the man you thought was the Messiah nailed to a cross; you have grieved the death of not only your friend, but also your dream of a restored Israel; and then seemingly out of nowhere your friend is returned to you from the grave, having conquered death itself.  Things seem as if they are finally going to work out the way you had hoped, and after a forty-day strategy session with the man you now know is the Messiah he tells you that…he has to leave??

There are a few things about the Ascension that we must grasp in order to understand how all of this fits into the plan.  First of all, unless Jesus leaves, the Holy Spirit will not come and descend upon Jesus’ followers.  He has told them this before, but not until now does the meaning of Jesus’ words sink in.  Back before his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and then resurrection, Jesus’ mentioned in his farewell speech that his departure was actually a good thing for the disciples:

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7)

Jesus physical presence was necessary for a certain stage of God’s redemptive plan.  Jesus had to be physically present to live among us, to teach us, and to go to the cross on our behalf.  However, in the next stage it is the Holy Spirit, or Helper as Jesus’ refers to it, that takes over as the active force in God’s redemptive drama.  For the next stage to begin, the Holy Spirit has to arrive, and for the Holy Spirit to arrive, Jesus must leave…at least physically. 

This brings us to the other aspect of the Ascension which is crucial we understand: Jesus physical absence does not mean he is not present.  In our minds we often limit the discussion of “heaven and earth” to geographic terms, but Jesus’ farewell to the disciples implies that divine presence is not limited to physicality.  When he gives them the great commission, Jesus also utters words of great hope:

“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

The disciples had spent forty days with Jesus post-resurrection, just like Moses spent forty days on the mountain with God.  Moses was being prepared to form a nation of God’s on choosing, complete with laws to govern their relationship with the Lord, and with one another.  The disciples are being prepared not to form a nation, but to take back a world that has rebelled against God.  And so it is comforting that Jesus describes his own ascension not as an upward movement through the atmosphere, but rather a transferring of himself into the heavenly realm which is always close at hand.  Jesus ascension was not something that NORAD could have tracked, much as they track Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve.  Consider what comes after the aforementioned passage from John:

“And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”  (John 16:8-11)

Just as Jesus comes to us by appearing in the womb of Mary, so he leaves us by disappearing if you will, but only in the physical sense.  The apostles understood this, and often referred to Christ return as his appearing.  In writing to the church in Colossae, Paul would say that “when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:4)  John would write to Christians and encourage them with the following words, “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:2) 

As odd as the ascension might seem to modern minds, it made perfect sense to the people of Jesus’ day.  When a Roman emperor died, their soul was often said to be seen ascending into heaven.  Usually some sorcerer or magician was paid to give testimony to the fact that he had seen the spirit of the recently deceased ruler ascending into the heavens like a comet, to join the pantheon of the gods.  It sounds familiar, but there is a very crucial difference between what was claimed to have happened to the emperors, and what happened to Jesus.  Jesus upstages the emperors by ascending into heaven not just as a soul, but in a fully embodied state.  The Romans had to say they had seen the emperor’s soul, because everyone knew that his body had been cremated.  But Jesus ascends both body and soul, because his body is no longer in the tomb.  Though he has ascended he remains accessible, and the disciples continue to commune with him through prayer and worship, which connects them to the reality of heaven.   

So when we speak of Jesus’ Ascension, we speak not of Jesus leaving us as if he is now far removed from the world in which we live.  While Jesus does sit enthroned in heaven, heaven is not as far away as we think.  Indeed, heaven is within reach whenever we see the Helper that Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit, at work in our world.   

Acts 1: The church's marching orders

Did you know that Isaac Newton considered himself a theologian?  In fact, Isaac Newton devoted more words of his writing to discussing God, than he did to discussing science.  It’s a fascinating bit of biography from a bygone era when faith and science did not seem to be at each other’s throats.  One of the laws of motion that Newton is famous for articulating is the idea that an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion, until an exterior force acts upon it.  In other words, if there is a change in an object, look for an external force exerting that change.  Newton applied the concept to physics, but what if we took the same thought and used it to consider the resurrection?

While Acts has often been described as history- and to a large extent it is- it is actually much, much more than that.  In the opening of Acts Luke refers back to the first volume of his work, which we know as the Gospel of Luke, and tells Theophilus that it was a record of all that Jesus “began to do and teach.”  There is an implication here, that though Jesus’ ascension is recorded at the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts, the book of Acts is a continuation of the story of what Jesus did and taught.  In fact, the open-ended nature of Acts’ conclusion implies that Luke views the story as far from finished.  Acts is not just the type of history we read, it’s the type of history we write ourselves as Jesus acts and teaches through us, his disciples. 

If we are going to be Jesus’ disciples and act and teach on his behalf, we must first change the way we see the world.  Jesus’ challenges his disciples, and by extension us as well, who have gathered after his resurrection.  The challenge is simple; stop thinking defensively.  While we think small, God thinks big.  The apostles must lose their vision of what “restoring the kingdom to Israel” should mean, and they must do so in order to gain the kingdom.   Just as they had to lose their lives in order to save them, Jesus now expands that vision to include not just us as individuals, but us as a community.  The two languages used to describe what has happened to Christ in Acts, the language of resurrection and ascension, are not languages of defeat, but of victory.  And so, Jesus gives them their marching order.  They are to serve as his witnesses “in Jerusalem” (Acts 1-7), “in Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8-11:18), and “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 11:19-the present).  Jesus is sending them out as heralds, announcing the fact that his reign has begun.  I am reminded of a story from the American Civil War.  In the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg, General Lee was in retreat with the Confederate Army.  Lee’s army was beaten and bloodied, and was doing all it could to make it back into friendly territory.  He had almost made it back to Virginia when he reached the Potomac, and found its banks swollen from the recent rain.  His army was now in a possibly fatal position, with their backs to a swollen river, and a better-equipped army twice their size bearing down on them.  However, General Meade, the commander of the Union Army refused to attack.  He had just won a victory which had repelled the invading Southerners from Northern soil, and he seemed content to allow Lee to return to the South unmolested.  This infuriated President Lincoln, who was said to utter something along the lines of, “when will these people understand that it’s all our soil!”

We as the church are a lot like General Meade.  We are as well-intentioned as he was, but we also possess the same lack of vision.  We continue to remain on the defensive, huddled inside our church buildings, hoping for the enemy to come to us.  Meanwhile, God desperately wants us to understand that it is all his soil.  Every inch of sand or dirt on all seven continents, and every drop of water in from the smallest stream to the biggest ocean, it all belongs to him.  Every broken home in our community, every addict walking our streets, every neglected and abused child…they all belong to him. God’s desire is that we leave our church buildings, our places of comfort, and that we go and reclaim those broken homes.  God’s desire is that we go and minister to those wayward souls.  God’s desire is that we go and fight to protect the innocence of our children. 

I spoke at the beginning of Isaac Newton and his laws of motion.  An object at rest stays at rest, until acted upon by an outside force.  The church has been at rest for far too long.  We have been huddled together, just trying to survive for far too long.  We need a force to act upon us, to put us in motion.  It’s time we acted, it’s time we moved.  In the next post we will look at the identity of that outside force, which it turns out actually becomes an inside force.  In the meantime, consider our mission as a church, and what we are doing to fulfill that mission.  N. T. Wright says that “the church is either the movement which announces God’s new creation, or it is just another irrelevant religious sect.”  God forbid that our rest becomes irrelevance.    

Who is Theodore of Mopsuestia?

If you know without me telling you, then I want for you to slowly put down the textbook on church history and slowly back away from the computer.  For those of you who haven't spent the past several years in a theology library cubicle Theodore of Mopsuestia was, not surprisingly, the bishop of Mopsuestia from 392 to 428 AD.  
Now that you know who Theodore is, you are probably wondering why I have brought him up.
In one of his Catechetical Homilies (also known as sermons of instruction on Christian doctrine), Theodore states that:
"It belonged to our Lord to confer the Spirit, whom he conferred now upon us in baptism as the firstfruits of the future benefits, which he will confer upon us in their entirety at the time of the resurrection."
At the heart of Theodore's statement is a very simple truth, one that often gets obscured as we go to war in our churches over what the Holy Spirit is and what it is not.  When we move from one place to another, it is a fairly common occurrence for people to exchange meaningful objects as a way of remembering each other.  Just a few days ago, I received a very artfully laid out poster and tri-board from the youth group I used to work with.  The point of both was to capture some of the most memorable moments of our time together, while also taking as many opportunities to make fun of me as possible.  I love it.  I love it because every time I look at it, I will be reminded not only of those memories, but of the fact that there is a group of teenagers in Atlanta that I care deeply about.  In a similar way, the Holy Spirit has been give by Jesus as a palpable sign of God's presence in our midst.  As we engage the world that surrounds us, it is easy to get the feeling that there is much more to be done than can be accomplished by even the most dedicated of disciples, and that feeling is justified.  I know that it's justified because in His infinite wisdom, Christ did not leave us to perform the task of reconciliation and recreation alone.  He left us the Holy Spirit, referring to it as the paraclete, and thus giving us some insight into his reasons for leaving us the Spirit in the first place.  While the name Holy Spirit goes a long way in telling us that that of which we speak is both sacred and eternal, the word paraclete is far more concerned with functionality.  It's hard to use one word to describe what paraclete means, but its generally agreed that it is some combination of helper, comforter, and advocate.  The interesting thing about this is there are words that denote action.  Help, comfort, advocate.  There is a reason why Jesus left the Holy Spirit behind to lead us in our journey of faith: He knew we needed help, and beyond that, He knew there would be times when despite their past experiences, the disciples would begin to doubt whether He ever really existed.  Years from now I will be able to take out my poster and tri-board and know that the group of teens I worked with Atlanta was more than just a figment of my imagination.  Similarly, almost 2,000 years after His resurrection the Holy Spirit testifies to us that Jesus is more than a well-written character in some fictional drama.  He was, is, and forever shall be real, because the gift that He gave us in the paraclete remains with us to this day, helping us, comforting us, serving as an advocate for us with the Father.  
In an effort to come full circle, Theodore's point is that just as baptism is the beginning of our Christian walk, so is the Holy Spirit just the beginning of God's work in our world today.  Just as our baptism symbolizes the literal resurrection that we expect to one day experience, so the Holy Spirit serves to help us envision a world where God's kingdom will be made manifest among all creation; a world where love, peace, and justice have become universal norms rather than unrealized dreams.