The Story
So, Jesus is alive, ascended, triumphant, seated at the Father's right hand in Heaven. He is the Victor. What he came to do, he has done! He has taken our sins. He has defeated Satan, and death. He has won the battle that means the Kingdom can and will be established. We know that, from reading the stories of the resurrection appearances of Jesus.
The next stage, living the Jesus life and spreading the Good news of the Kingdom, He has entrusted to those who have followed him for the past three years. He has promised, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses...” (Acts 1. 8) So the disciples do what Jesus. tells them to do: they wait.
And now, fifty days after the resurrection, ten days after Jesus was taken away in the clouds, it happens... as they wait and pray, together in an upstairs room somewhere in Jerusalem, they find themselves in the grip of something bigger than themselves, something supernatural... There's a sound like a wind, blowing from heaven, and filling the house they are praying. The disciples didn't think in English, or even in Greek but in Aramaic or Hebrew. They heard the sound like a mighty Ruach. That's the wonderful Hebrew word that can mean wind, breath and Spirit. It's the word that is used right back in the beginning, in Genesis 1. 2. They recognised that the Spirit of God was coming. And they saw tongues that looked like fire resting on each of them. When God revealed himself to Moses, he “descended n fire” (Ex 19. 18) The they wanted to praise god – at the top of their voices! And the words that came out were not words they had learned; and as they rushed out into the street, they realised that the people passing by understood: people from all over the Roman empire. This God experience, the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit, breaks the boundaries, turns Galilean fishermen and Jewish freedom fighters into globe-trotting internationalists! Amazing!
The point is that God has moved in. They are breathing a different atmosphere. There is fire in their souls that they can't keep in. They are caught up in God's mission; they are seeing the Kingdom of God worked out in their lives. They are making connexions with people they had previously passed by as strangers. When the spirit comes, eh transforms us. He gives us a taste of God's Kingdom; he gives us power to engage in mission; he builds community, a sense of connectedness with one another and with people...
But not everyone agrees. Some in the crowd wonder what it's all about. Some have an easy answer – they're all drunk! Always – for some people – this business of God moving in, is too freaky. It's just weird stuff – evidence of something not quite right in the head... Some of us prefer the predictable. An hour on Sunday morning; praise, a sermon, Communion. Serious Bible study, all the bits of the theological jigsaw fitting together. I was in St John's Primary School on Thursday, talking about the baptist church to the P3 class. One of the children asked my how I feel when I am preaching: do I feel afraid or nervous? Answer, “not really...” because I have been preaching for over 35 years; actually probably over 40 years now. It's OK. When I was young my dad used to quote – probably from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he build his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door.” We believed good preaching attracted people to churches. My role as a preacher fitted nicely with the expectation that God would send his Spirit, people would see God at work and get saved. I would love life to be that simple. But life isn't that simple. What if the Church no longer needs preaching? I don't like the idea of ministry in a brave new world where the old certainties no longer work. It's possible to pay lip-service to the Spirit while depending rather heavily on ones training, well-thought-out strategies, and human devices. It's possible to look down on “simple faith”. It's possible to dismiss the Spirit's gifts as just too freaky.
Peter stands up, and answers all of that: “These men are not drunk as you suppose...it's only 9 a.m. – the pubs aren't even open yet. This is what god promised...” There is a healthy, wholesome logic to this.
Point one. Peter quotes Joel, and Joel's message was focused on a plague of locusts that
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| Image by Christian Kooyman, in PD |
So, Pentecost was the fulfilment of prophecy. It was the next stage in the coming of the kingdom; it was and is the experience that lifts us into the work of messiah, of Christ; it is the experience that makes us community and extends that community to be worldwide, and makes us fully human. It is the fulfilment of why you were made.
Remember, this what God wants for every human being. It is not weird. It doesn’t' matter who yo are, or what you've done, or how you've messed up in your life: God made you in his own image; God made you to be spiritually alive, to have his breath in you. God made you to receive his Spirit.
And point two. What Jesus did in his life, death and resurrection, makes that a possibility. We can be right with God. We can be new people. We can receive the Spirit; we can have God living in our lives. Because Jesus has won the victory of evil; because Jesus. has done what it takes to deal with the rubbish in our lives...This life, being fully human, welcoming God's spirit, is possible because of Jesus. Peter was speaking in the city where, less than two months earlier, Jesus had been betrayed and executed. The whole city had been part of that. “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” Jesus is central to all this – even if we have sneered and giggled about him, it is to him we must come....
What should we do? This spirit-filled life is a desirable thing. It's what we were made for. It's God's promise to every believer. It's not just for a special few. And it’s not weird. It's not optional, it's part of the package. What are we to do, if we are not there, today?
Peter says
1. Repent: “think differently afterwards” to have a change of mind. Men and women who had shouted “Crucify him” needed to change how the thought about Jesus. And they needed to change how they thought about the whole of life.
2. Be baptised – a public, decisive step to declare that you belong to Jesus., and trust him to take the bad stuff out of your life; it's about the forgiveness of sins, knowing that God has dealt with the bad stuff.
3. Receive. It's a promise: you shall receive. But that word “receive” is and active one, that suggests laying hold of something, grabbing it, being determined to have it. It's not just about sitting waiting for the gift to fall into your lap. Grasp it.
So how do we enter this Spirit-filled life? We begin by changing our minds about Jesus. We need to come to the place where we realise that he is God's son. We need to determine that he is going to be in charge of our lives. We publicly declare our commitment to Jesus. and our need of his forgiveness. If you've never done business with Jesus, you need to start with that change of mind and that public act of trust in him..
If you have put your trust in Jesus. and you feel stuck, on this Holy Spirit question, you need to repent – to change your mind about who's in charge; God isn't interested in giving you an experience for your enjoyment. You need to accept the forgiveness of your sins. Guilt – feeling unworthy – can make you wonder if God is going to give yo anything at all. And you need to receive it, to take hold of it. God wants to give you his Spirit.
© Gilmour Lilly May 2016
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