Pentecost: the Spirit surprises
Acts 2: 1-21
What were the disciples expecting on
the day of Pentecost?
They were expecting a celebration in
the temple – Pentecost was a harvest festival in the time of Jesus. 50 days (‘pente coste’) after the first reaping of the
harvest, baskets of grain were brought to the temple so that thanks could be
given to God for the fruitful harvest. It was also known as the festival of
Shavu’ot – a time to give thanks to God for the giving of the Torah – God’s
law: 50 days after the Passover. The Passover celebrated the freedom of God’s
people from slavery – and then 50 days later the people gave thanks for God
giving them the spiritual gift of the law to live by.
It’s because it was a big festival
that there were people in Jerusalem from all over the known Jewish world –
people from all those places in our reading that are so difficult to pronounce –
representing all four points of the compass.
People had come from North South,
East & West to give thanks to God for the gift of the harvest and for the gift
of the law of God.
The disciples were expecting to join
with the crowds to celebrate what God had done in the past – by giving His
people the law – and what God continued to do by making the earth fruitful,
year by year.
The disciples thought they knew what
was going to happen on that day of Pentecost –the usual celebration, in the
usual way…
But then .. God’s Holy Sprit comes.
An unexpected, alarming, startling, surprising new gift. The disciples were all
together in one place and were filled with the power of the wind and fire of
God’s power – and began to talk in different tongues. Suddenly the story of
Jesus bursts out of them, the story of what God has done for his creation
breaks free from the usual form of being celebrated, and people all around hear
the good news of God’s love shown in Jesus.
Pentecost defies all our
explanations and descriptions – we are told that they heard something like the sound of a rushing wind that
filled the house
and that something like tongues of fire came and touch
them. The people who witness it say it seems
like they are drunk: but Peter denies that.
Whatever is actually happening it is
the momentous moment when the followers of Jesus are given the power they need
to be witnesses to the gospel Jesus lived.
That day of Pentecost surprises them
as God acts and send the gift of the Holy Spirit to everyone there so that they
can all witness to the whole world.
Often when we hear the story of the
disciples speaking in tongues at Pentecost it is contrasted with the story of
the tower of Babel, which ends with human languages being mixed up.
It is an ancient story, from the 12th
chapter of Genesis, and tells of human attempts to achieve something together
by their own power. It is a story from a time when it is said that all the
human beings spoken the same language and these people decide to build a tower
to reach up to God.
One way of reading what happens next
is that God decides to punish humanity for their pride by mixing up their
languages so they can no longer co-operate.
But another way of reading the story
it is that God knows that people staying together and building upwards isn’t
the way to reach what’s important. God wants to teach people that they should,
instead, celebrate their diversity and go out into the world to find the
wonders of God’s creation. In this second version, different languages are seen
as a gift to humanity which affirms and embraces human variety. People are sent
out into all four corners of the world with a rich diversity of language, to
find God wherever they go.
People think they know how to reach
God – build up: but God’s gift
surprises them – and tells them to reach
out.
Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised
the disciples so much to see and experience what God does at Pentecost. The God
who loves diversity and who continually reaches out to touch and empower people
does what he did at Babel : he sends people out with new languages to share the
good news of his presence in the earth.
Jesus had already promised his
disciples that he would send the gift of the Holy Spirit. They have seen him
crucified and killed, they have seen him risen from death and living, and they
have seen him ascend back into heaven – returning to God the Father. Now the
Holy Spirit comes with power to tell the whole world that Jesus is living and
with them in a way which is no longer confined to a body – but is a reality all
the same.
So what are we expecting on this day of Pentecost?
The usual celebration of the
‘birthday of the church’? – whether that is the church universal – celebrating
the day the followers of Jesus first had the courage and the power to reach out
to others – or the church anniversary here at Holt.
Do we think we are thanking God for
what he has done over the years – or what he did long ago?
Or are we ready to receive a new
gift today – the surprising truth that God is ready to bless and touch us with
the same gift of the Spirit?
What might that gift mean..?
At the 1968 Assembly of the World Council of Churches,
Bishop Ignatius of Latakia, spoke of the Holy Spirit in this striking and
memorable way:
‘Without the Holy Spirit God is far away.
Christ stays in the past,
The Gospel is simply an organisation,
Authority is a matter of propaganda,
The Liturgy is no more than an evolution,
Christian loving a slave mentality.
But in the Holy Spirit
The cosmos is resurrected and grows with the
birth pangs of the kingdom.
The Risen Christ is there,
The Gospel is the power of life,
The Church shows forth the life of the Trinity,
Authority is a liberating science,
Mission is a Pentecost,
The Liturgy is both renewal and anticipation,
Human action is deified.’
I hope we can dare to be open
to the Holy Spirit today.
To see what difference God’s power
can make to our
Idea of God, our experience of
Christ and our way of being church.
May it be so – to God’s praise and
glory.
Amen.
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