Pentecost

5..28.23 Pentecost Sunday homily on Acts 2:1-21 and John 20:19-23 by Pastor Galen

Waiting for the Holy Spirit

It was the feast of Pentecost, and Jesus’s disciples were gathered together in the Upper Room. The same place where, 50 days prior, they had celebrated Passover and had their Last Supper with Jesus.  The same place where he’d washed their feet, the same place where he told them that one of them would betray him, the same place where, after his death and Resurrection, he had appeared to them and said “Peace be with you” and had shown them the scars in his hands and his side, and breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).

10 days before Pentecost, Jesus had ascended up to heaven after promising his disciples that he would send them an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who would be with them and who would guide them into all truth. How exactly this was going to happen, and what it would be like when the Holy Spirit came, they had no idea, but Jesus had told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. And so there the disciples sat, longing, waiting, hoping. The disciples numbered about 120 at that point. Men and women, young and old, I imagine families with young children, teenagers and young adults, drawn together by their mutual love and affection for Christ and the fact that Jesus had forever changed their lives. 

Prior to this, the Holy Spirit had rested upon people for a specific time and purpose. People like Moses and the 70 elders and Eldad and Medad in Numbers 11 were filled with the Holy Spirit for a particular season. But the Holy Spirit seemed to be given in limited supply, since Numbers 11 tells us that God “took some of the spirit that was on [Moses] and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again” (Numbers 11:25). Prophets like Joel foretold a day when God’s Spirit would rest on all God’s people. Even Moses says,  “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:29).

Pentecost

While Jesus’s disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, outside there were throngs of people gathered to celebrate the Jewish festival of Pentecost. Pentecost was the anniversary of the day when God had given the law to the people through Moses at Mt. Sinai. Jewish people and converts to Judaism from all over the known world, from many different cultures and languages, would gather in Jerusalem every year for Passover. And many—particularly those who had come from quite some distance, some on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Jerusalem, would stay the 50 days until Pentecost.

The throngs of people gathered to celebrate Pentecost had seemingly no awareness of the relatively small band of Jesus’s disciples gathered together in the Upper Room until all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, there came the sound of a mighty rushing wind. Tongues of fire appeared to rest on each and every person in the Upper Room, and they “were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts 2:4). 

The people outside were amazed and astounded because they heard the disciples speaking in their own native languages. Acts 2:7-12 says, “Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 

And so the Apostle Peter goes out to explain, saying that what the disciples were experiencing had been predicted by the prophet Joel (in Joel 2:28), who said that in the last days, God would pour out the Spirit on all flesh, that sons and daughters would prophesy, and young and old alike would dream dreams and see visions. Peter proclaimed the way of salvation, urging all to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that day 3,000 people were added to their number.

He Breathed on Them

Now, the Holy Spirit doesn’t always appear in such a fantastical way, with the sound of a mighty rushing wind, or with tongues of fire. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is given quietly, unobtrusively, as in John 20 when Jesus appeared to his disciples and said “Peace be with you” (John 20:21) and breathed on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). There Jesus simply breathed upon them, and the evidence of the Spirit’s power in their lives is that they were empowered to forgive others. In other places in Scripture the Fruit of the Spirit is seen to produce such things as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23)—perhaps a bit less exciting, but no less spectacular than tongues of fire and the ability to speak other languages.

The Miraculous and the Mundane

But we might wonder, if God’s spirit can come in ways that are more subdued and quiet, why did the Holy Spirit come on the Day of Pentecost in such a tangible and visible way? And what can we take away from these two accounts of the giving and receiving of the Holy Spirit?

The Spirit Does Not Discriminate

One reason, I believe the Holy Spirit came in such an outward, tangible, and visible way on the day of Pentecost was to squelch any notion that the Holy Spirit may only be given to one type of person. If there had been no outward sign or physical manifestation of God’s Spirit coming upon them, then it is extremely likely that the early disciples would have drawn certain lines around who they thought had received the Holy Spirit and who hadn’t. No doubt their own personal prejudices may have precluded them from believing that the Spirit had been given to women or to men, or to the young or to the old, or disciples from a certain background or station in life. 

But as it was, it was abundantly clear to all present that “a tongue rested on each of them. [And] all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” There was no denying that day that the Holy Spirit had been given in equal distribution to each and every person in that room—women and men alike, from all ages, and stages and stations of life.

Throughout the history of the Church God’s Spirit has sometimes moved in similarly visible and tangible ways among groups of people who may otherwise have been written off or excluded. In those instances, God’s Spirit moved in such tangible ways that even those on the outside looking in could not deny that God’s Spirit was at work. I think, for example, of the Azusa Street revival that began in Los Angeles, California in 1906 and included people from various denominational and cultural backgrounds. During that revival movement walls were broken down, and deeply entrenched stereotypes and racial prejudices that Christians held towards one another were cast aside, since there was no denying the reality that God’s Spirit was moving among each and every one of them in a similar fashion, despite the diversity of their cultural and denominational backgrounds. 

God’s Spirit often moves, then, in visible and tangible ways in order to break down our assumptions and preconceived ideas of who God can and cannot work through. 

The Spirit Pushes in New Directions

Related to that, the Holy Spirit often works to push and expand the boundaries of the Church in new directions and among new groups of people. 

It was no coincidence that the early disciples were given the ability to speak in all sorts of different languages right at the moment when there were throngs of curious people who spoke many different languages right outside their door. It’s like someone being given the gift of healing and then immediately encountering a sick person, or having an overabundance of food and then encountering someone who is hungry.

It’s possible that the people would have understood enough Hebrew or Aramaic so that if Peter has explained what was happening to them in his own language they could have all eventually heard the message through a series of interpreters. But God chose to work in a miraculous way such that each and every person was able to hear the Good News about Jesus Christ and the mighty acts of God articulated to them in their heart language. And that was an incredible gift, because it allowed the message of the Gospel to go straight to their heart without them having to do a whole lot of mental gymnastics in order to try to wrap their minds around the message.

Similarly today, one of the ways the Holy Spirit works is through inspiring God’s people to proclaim the Gospel message in ways that those currently on the outside can hear and understand. This is why I love Christian musical artists who proclaim the Gospel using what might typically be considered “secular” musical genres. It’s why there are evangelists who are using TikTok to spread the Gospel message. It’s why we need more Christians to enter the industries of film and visual arts, and music and dance—because so many people in our culture and society who may never set foot inside the doors of a church consume hours and hours of media and social media every day. They need to hear the Gospel in their heart language. God’s Spirit empowers God’s people to go to the physical and digital and virtual spaces where people are hungry, and longing, and curious, and proclaim the Good News in ways that they can hear and receive. 

The Spirit Brings Lasting Transformation

And lastly, we see here in the accounts in both Acts and John that no matter how the Spirit comes, the Holy transforms. Whether the Holy Spirit comes in an outward, visible, tangible display of power as on the Day of Pentecost, or whether the Holy Spirit is experienced more as a gentle breath of God, once we are touched by the Holy Spirit we are never the same. The transformation may be gradual, and indeed takes place over the course of our lives, but no matter what, the eventual fruit of the Holy Spirit is that we become more loving, joyful, peace-filled people, who grow to be more patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and self-controlled. 

And so this morning, know that the Holy Spirit so often moves in ways and among people we least expect. May the Spirit push us out into new directions, inspiring us to proclaim the Gospel message in ways that those currently on the outside may hear and understand, so that they too can be drawn in and can receive the message with joy. May the Spirit break down the dividing walls between us, removing our prejudices and preconceived ideas, and may God’s spirit transform us to become more loving, joyful, kind, and peace-filled people, who proclaim the mighty acts of God through word and through deed.

Amen.