Pentecost

Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13

So, before there was ever a Pentecost for Christians, there was already a Pentecost festival in Judaism, also knows as “Shevout.”  In Judaism, the festival originally had to do with celebrating the early wheat harvest.  The core meaning that emerged, though, was about Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mr. Sinai, the original covenant between God and the people:  “If you keep these laws, then I will be your God and you will be my people.” Interestingly, as one specific area of the law, a sub-meaning also developed around being able to eat both dairy foods like milk and wheat products together.  So today, “Shevout” has become known as “cheesecake day” and consuming cheesecake is part of the celebration.  (Which is just one of the many reasons that I’m going to be Jewish in my next life!  Cheesecake Day—how awesome is that!)

So, that’s Pentecost if you happen to be Jewish.  What is Pentecost, though, if you’re a Christian?  I literally was asked this question by a seminary classmate—a few years after of seminary, “By the way, what is Pentecost anyway?” I remember being a little shocked that he made it all the way through school without running into that information!  The truth is, though, that for a lot of Christians, Pentecost is a bit of a mystery which is really an indictment of those of us who are supposed to be leading congregations.  That’s why pretty much every year, I really try to spend some time exploring Pentecost.  

There are three big days in the Christian calendar.  The first two days everyone can name:  Christmas and Easter.  On Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, the day when God became one of us.  On Easter, we remember Christ’s victory over death and the knowledge that not even death can separate us from the love of God.  We spend our whole lives celebrating those days not just for the spiritual meaning that they carry but for the history that we have of sharing those days with the people who matter most to us.  In both cases, a part of the meaning, too, is that our whole culture celebrates a cultural version of those days, as well.  Although the days may mean very different things to different people, no one is going to overlook or forget Christmas and Easter.

If I asked you for the third most meaningful day in the year and we weren’t standing in a church and I wasn’t your pastor, I think you would answer, “Thanksgiving!”  I would.  As a guy for whom Christmas and Easter are crunch times at work, sometimes I would argue that Thanksgiving is even better since it is a day set aside simply for gratitude (and good food and football and napping.) Still, although Thanksgiving is a cultural holiday, it is not a Christian holiday (even though plenty of Christians benefit every year from the strong reminder to practice a little gratitude!)

Nope…no surprise here (because you are in church and I am your pastor), the third major holiday for Christians is Pentecost.  This is literally a “holy day.”  Why? Think of it this way.  There are three ways in which we know God in our faith.  One, often referred to as "God the Father” or “God the Creator” is the experience of God as the source of all that is.  This is the God we meet in the majesty of a night sky or in the power of a storm or as we look at the tiny hands of a baby.  The second way that we experience God is as “God, the son” or “God, incarnate.”  Jesus shows us the way to live our faith, who to care about and how to love, how to live a life that is worthwhile.  Jesus promised that there would be “one who would come after him,” “a counselor,” “a guide.”  The one who comes after Jesus is “God as the Holy Spirit.”  Pentecost is the day on which the Holy Spirit became widely present in the world.  If “God, the Creator” provides for us and “God, the Son” becomes one of us and shows us the way, then “God, the Holy Spirit” empowers us to actually live that faithful life.

Let’s unpack this text.  The first thing that I want you to know is that despite the fact that the risen Jesus has not been seen for a while, despite the fact that no one is really sure what’s going to happen next, everyone is together in one place.  They are patiently waiting and hoping for what is to come and one of the things that I think we can all agree about is that people are almost never very good at patiently waiting and hoping for what is to come!  This is the first miracle of Pentecost.  People aren’t wandering off.  They aren’t finding something petty to argue about.  They are hanging in there and holding it together.  Wow!

While they are waiting—with no warning—the something that they’ve been waiting and hoping for… happens.  Actually, they are totally unprepared for what happens.  First, there is the rush of a violent wind which no one was expecting but in retrospect had to “ring a few bells.”  How many times had they heard the story of creation in which the Spirit of God moved across the face of the earth like a mighty wind?  Who’s thinking of Scripture though when all hell is breaking loose, even if what’s actually breaking loose is a whole new creation, right?  

As this wind fills the room, a second crazy but “not without historical precedent” event occurs:  tongues of fire descend into the room and one of those flames hangs over the head of every person in the room.  What’s the precedent?  Central to the people’s shared story was the moment in the desert when Moses came upon a bush in the wilderness that was burning but it was not consumed.  Throughout the Old Testament, God works through all sorts of things and all sorts of people to get things done.  Still the burning bush is pretty special!  God uses the bush to get Moses’ attention and then tells Moses to go and tell Pharaoh to set the slaves free.

On Pentecost, every person becomes a “burning bush” through whom God can speak and God’s work can get done.  

The point here is not that the Holy Spirit is brand new.  Various special people throughout Scripture had been led or fed or made holy by the Spirit.  They were the select few.  No…the news on Pentecost is that the Spirit hovers over everyone.  If you show up, the Spirit will fill you and you will be empowered.  The Spirit’s presence Is now available to everyone.

To really understand the force of this, we need to remind ourselves that this is the "new covenant” being sealed.  The “original covenant" which Pentecost already celebrated was about a God who would love us conditionally—if we keep the laws and keep our end of the bargain.  The new covenant, which Jeremiah first envisioned, is about a God who loves us unconditionally and forgives us.  The new covenant is about us living our faith simply and wholeheartedly out of gratitude for being loved liked that.  The Spirit is present to help us to actually do that…

The very first thing that happens after the Spirit is present is that people begin to speak in other languages.  You may have seen Christians who “speak in tongues,” languages that only God can understand because they are in the throes of the Spirt.  I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.  I think that people are literally able to speak languages that they weren’t able to speak a few minutes earlier.  (I know it’s hard to figure out what to do with other people’s spiritual experiences.  I’m just saying that this is what they experienced.  This is their report.)

Why does this matter?  Let me make a couple of suggestions.  First, and most importantly to me, this is the Spirit doing what the Spirit does, namely, empowering us to do things we would never be able to do on our own.  That has never included suddenly being able to speak French or German for me.  However, I have been in all sorts of moments where I have prayed like crazy for help in understanding the person in front of me or of finding some way to say what needs to be said and be understood.  Those miracles have happened repeatedly in my life.  

Let me say this super clearly:  the Spirit doesn’t make us all powerful; the Spirit doesn’t give us control over all things; the Spirit doesn’t make us masters of the universe.  No…the Spirit calls to us and says, “You know…I could use someone just like you over here to help with this.” Then, when we stumble in that general direction and answer, “There’s no way I can do this…” the Spirit answers, “We can if we do it together.  Let’s try!”  We find words where they were missing.  We discover energy we didn’t previously have.   We become patient and forgiving instead of staying resentful and holding a grudge.  And when someone says, “Wow what you just did or what you just said was amazing,” we look them in the eye and say, “Really, you don’t understand.  That wasn’t me…” I know this sounds weird but really…it was ‘us.’”

The second reason that “understanding” and “languages” matter is because this “rang more bells” for our ancestors. We may not remember the story of the Tower of Babel.  However, in the ancient world, the questions, “What are there so many languages?” and “Why are there so many nations” are answered by the Babel story.  What’s the story?  People from all over the world were coming together and building a tower like no one had ever seen before.  People were moving in the direction of becoming awfully powerful apart from God.  People were starting to act like God didn’t matter at all. So, God scattered the people and God made them all speak different languages so that the whole human race wouldn’t practice this sort of collective “hubris”ever again.  Dividing people geographically and linguistically was a precautionary step, a protection against human brokenness.

Pentecost, in this sense, is the reversal of the Babel story.  God empowers human beings to understand each other, no matter where they might be from, no matter what language they might speak.  Human beings had been kept apart out of fear of the profane things we might do.  Now, human beings were being brought back together to see how we might be a part of creating something sacred.

The kicker, or course, is that the people don’t always know what to do with what’s sacred in this life.  People who were witnesses on that day watched as unconnected people connected with one another and left tribe and nation behind.  People who were witnesses watched people who had never understood each other actually nod their heads in understanding.  This was revolutionary.  However, many of those witnesses just shook their heads in disbelief and said, “Ha…they must be drunk!”

If you’ve ever looked at creation and thought, “I’d love to create something, too,” or you’ve thought, “I’d love to just take care of creation,” the good news of Pentecost is that there is a power available to you to do that.  If you’ve ever listened to Jesus as he shows us the way to live and thought, “I’d do that for sure…if only I could,” the good news of Pentecost is that there is a power available to you to help you actually live like that.  This power, this guide, this counselor, is the Holy Spirit.