Acts 2. Pentecost: Filled with the Spirit

Acts 2.  Pentecost: Filled with the Spirit

Luke tells the story of “The Acts of Jesus – part two” with tremendous skill and theological insight... Just as his Gospel begins with the miracles of coming of the Spirit to Mary to bring about the birth of Jesus, so Acts begins with the miracles of the coming of the Spirit to bring to birth the Church.  And he begins this story of the coming of the Spirit, with the countdown to the Day of Pentecost,  which means the fiftieth day. But the fiftieth day from what?

For Jews, it was fifty days since the beginning of Passover, when among other things the the very first harvested sheaf of barley was offered to god.  Fifty days later was the end of the harvest season, and Pentecost was the second harvest festival.

And that means that for Christians, it was fifty days since the resurrection of Jesus. Luke exploits the sense of anticipation.  You just know something’s going to happen... .  Just as the resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of the harvest, Pentecost in the climax of it.  

But the disciples who gathered didn't know what was going to happen.  They were waiting for the promise... but they had no way of knowing it would happen on the day of Pentecost.  And they had no way of knowing what it was going to be like when it did happen. But they were together in one place... doing what Jesus had told them to do... waiting for the promise...

And then it happened...  Suddenly there was...

Firstly a sound – like a rushing mighty wind that filled the place..  A sound so intense you could touch it.  Bruce Springsteen's “wall of sound” was tame by comparison!!!.   This sound was reminiscent of occasions in the Old testament when God moved by his Spirit.  In fact the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma both meaning “air in motion”: Spirit, wind or breath. 

• So David sings praise that God “soared on the wings of the wind” and “the  foundations of the earth [were] laid bare... at the blast of breath from his nostrils.” (2 Sam 22. 11, 16)
• Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones is told to ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”’ (Ezek 37. 9)
• In the New testament, Jesus says to Nicodemus, who is seeking the truth about the Kingdom of God: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (Jn 3. 8)

But Luke describes the experience as “Like” a wind.    It reminds me of Ezekiel trying to describe to describe his vision of God, and three times he says “it was like...” (Ezekiel 1  verses 16, 22 and 26)  In the end he says such was the “appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. (v 28)  Both Ezekiel and Luke are trying to describe the indescribable.

Secondly,  a sight: that looked like tongues of fire, dividing and settling on each of them. Again, it's the indescribable: it is like fire... And again,  fire was a sign of god's presence and his awesome, holy character. 

• Ex 19. 18 describes what happened when God started to lead Israel through the desert: “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.” 
• When Elijah encountered the Lord the prelude to it all was earthquake, wind and fire (1 Kings 19)
• John the Baptist prophesies that Jesus will “baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk 3. 16)

Thirdly, an internal experience: they were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in tongues... as the Spirit gave them utterance.  From our point of view, we may have heard people speaking in tongues or done so ourselves; or at least we have heard of it.  But for the first disciples, it was a new thing.  It wasn't just new in their experience.  It was totally unprecedented and unexpected.  Nothing like it had happened before.  It had not even been prophesied directly and clearly.  Yes in 1 Cor 14. 21 Paul quotes from Isa 28. 11 “with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people” – but in its original context that prophecy was about God speaking to Israel through foreigners. No-one had any reason to expect speaking in tongues to happen.  Nobody knew it was supposed to happen. Nobody was trying to make it happen.   It just happened. The Spirit filled them and gave them this flow of speech.

The first thing to note about this event, is not its significance as an expression of mission.  The first thing to notice is its significance as an encounter with the Almighty. Before it was an outreach  moment, it was a God-moment. It was part of the overwhelming, surprising thing that the Spirit was doing in their lives. They weren't thinking “ I'll go out and evangelise a few Persians or a few Libyans in their own language.”  They were thinking,  “Hey, God is so holy, so good, so powerful, so gracious, so generous.  Thank you God”  and what came out of their mouths, was God's praise in words that they didn't know but that made sense to Persians, Libyans, and so on.

(That, incidentally is how tongues is supposed to work. The Spirit searches our hearts and gives expression to what is in our hearts: see Rom 8. 26-27)

But the disciples who were together on the day of Pentecost would learn all that later on.  When the Spirit came, the focus isn't on the results of Pentecost but on its source.   The expression of mission flows from the encounter with the Almighty.   Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, was right when he said, “It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission that has a church in the world...”

Conclusion

Andromeda Galaxy. NASA photo

This is a hugely significant cosmic event.  It is right up there with creation, the incarnation, the death and resurrection of Jesus, as a moment when eternity made a permanent, lasting effect on the  physical universe.  These 120 followers of Jesus, were together, waiting for the Promise,  and they were overwhelmed with the presence of God.   The Spirit had come.  And he still wants to come.

This is what God wants to do.  He wants to overwhelm us with the presence and power of Jesus through the Spirit.  Peter tells the crowd in Jerusalem, “The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2. 39)   Paul prays for the Ephesians “That you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God  (Eph 3. 19).

The Spirit comes to seal us in what the blood of Jesus has bought for us: to baptise us into all that God is and all that God is doing.  The Spirit comes, and when he does, we are

• Overwhelmed
• Surprised
• Empowered. 

All the other stuff the Spirit does, prayer, gifts, service, compassion, mission, outreach, and fellowship all flow from and are the results of that moment of encounter with God. 

Our understanding and experience of the spirit are all different.  Some of us rejoice that God gave us his Spirit when we became Christians, but know little of gifts; some of us have sought to be filled with the Spirit; some have spoken in tongues or prophesied r been used in evangelism.  But whatever we have or have not received from God, there is always more to receive.  All of us can say to God today “Send your Spirit again. Overwhelm me; surprise me; empower me!”

© Gilmour Lilly May  2013