A reflection for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

²When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵ Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ ¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

Peter Addresses the Crowd

¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
¹⁷“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
   and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
   and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
   in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
     and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above
   and signs on the earth below,
     blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness
   and the moon to blood,
     before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

I am indebted to the commentary by William Barclay for much of this reflection.

My text this morning is written in Acts 2.21:

… everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved …

Pentecost was originally a Jewish festival. Literally it means 50^th - because it fell on a ‘week of weeks’ after the Passover – so it is also sometimes referred to as ‘The Feast of Weeks’. The weather was mostly good at this time and a great many people travelled to Jerusalem for the occasion, and so never was there a more international crowd in Jerusalem than at this time. God’s timing was perfect – something special and significant would happen - and the news would be taken to the four corners of the then known world.

Pentecost, for the Jews, had two main significances: (i) a reminder of the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai and (ii) an offering of the first omer of the barley harvest to God – two barley loaves were offered to God in gratitude for the completed harvest. On this day, no ‘servile’ work was to be done and so it was a holiday for all and there was generally a great crowd in the streets. There would, therefore, be no better time for God to reveal his truth to the people of the day – especially something as important as the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai – the giving of the new law of love.

Notice how on the first Pentecost, the people were all together in the one place. It is so vital that people come together, because this is a time of special blessing and encouragement. People claim that it is not important to attend worship regularly. I beg to differ. Without regular worship, prayer and the study of the Scriptures together, we begin to starve, spiritually and we will struggle to keep going. Luke gives us the recipe for spiritual growth and renewal as he explains later in this chapter – in verse 42: ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.’

In the past the Spirit of God had been given only to special people for special occasions. In the days of the Old Testament, it was also a temporary gift. The people in the Old Testament times longed for a time when the Spirit would be present all the time and be available to all people and so Moses prayed – as recorded in Numbers 11.29: “Would that all the Lord’s people be prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!” In their foretelling of the coming of the Messiah, the prophets hoped that he would be different from all others in that the Spirit of God would rest on him (Isaiah 11.1-3). On the first Day of Pentecost the longing of the Old Testament was fulfilled for the Spirit came, ‘... not to some individual in crisis, but to an assembled people ...’ and not temporarily, but to dwell in their midst, to be their bond of fellowship, the secret source of their common life, the inspiration for their mission to the world, and to be the power of their preaching.

The disciples were so overwhelmed by the presence of the love of God that they could not express it in ordinary words and so they burst into ecstatic speech. You cannot speak in this way by trying to do so, because it is not the work of normal human faculties – it is a gift of the Spirit of God – and it has recurred in the Church from time to time as we read in 1 Corinthians 14 as well as Acts 10.46 and 19.6, and it continues to the present day, especially in times of revival.

I had this experience of ecstatic utterance when I was an undergraduate. I believed then (as did the people of the New Testament) that the unintelligible utterances were directly inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. But this is no longer part of my spiritual experience! Why? I cherish it as part of the important time when, in my spiritual youth, God gave me this gift to encourage me and help me on my way. I still cherish the time of deep and meaningful experience. But it is not something that we should focus on too much as other things matter much more. The teachings of the New Testament makes this point clearly.

St Paul was sceptical of all these ecstatic utterances, preferring intelligible words, making the important point that, if a stranger came in to an assembly and this was happening, he would think he had stumbled across a gathering of the insane. A message that all can understand is much more important. But we must not dismiss this gift too quickly.

In my first pastoral appointment, a retired minister and his wife were a wonderful support to me. After one Pentecost Sunday service, Mel told me the story of a time when she was nursing in Port Elizabeth. A very ill patient was admitted from a Russian trawler and was in a coma. She felt called to pray for him and, having the gift of tongues, began to pray in her ecstatic language. When the sailor recovered he asked for the nurse who had prayed for him in Russian and it turned out to have been Mel!

On this first occasion the gift was the ability to speak in other languages. We know that such a miracle was unnecessary as all the people present would probably have understood Aramaic – as we see when Peter explained everything in the second part of our reading – he just used his normal language and all the people there understood him. There is also no evidence that there was any need to use this special gift in the later ministry of the Apostles.

Why then did it happen? Because it symbolised something important– the healing of the nations by bringing people together and reversing the divisions as symbolised by the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.1-9. All divisions can be healed when people come to Christ.

In all my many travels throughout the world – whenever I have met Christians – Amish, Mennonite, Brethren, Roman Catholic the experience has been the same, one of immediate kindred spirit and a sense of fellowship. Paul is so right when he explains in that, in Christ, we are one (Galatians 3.28).

It also symbolises the importance of people being able to have access to the truth of God in their own language – so that they can be nourished, blessed, encouraged, challenged and be given the gift of God’s truth for their own lives that they too ‘... can hear the message in their own languages telling of the mighty works and love of God.’

This has inspired missionaries to reduced languages and dialects to writing – and to make illiterate masses literate – so that they can find things out for themselves, and make free decisions for themselves, by studying the Scriptures for themselves.

Peter’s sermon was more important than this miraculous gift. The Greek word translated as ‘addressed’ in verse 14 is the same word used in verse 4 to speak of the gift of tongues. It is the explanation of things that matters most, because faith comes from understanding and deciding for oneself. We read in Romans 10.17 where we read: ‘So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ’, and again in 2 Timothy 2.15: ‘Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.’ Judaism has a lovely image of a pious Jew being covered by the presence of God as they study the law – the shekinah – the glow of God that accompanied Moses when we he returned on receiving the Law from Mount Sinai. As people prayerfully study scripture today, this can be their experience as the Holy Spirits refines – like fire – and inspires with depth of insight and understanding.

Peter explains that what happened was in fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecy of Joel.

This prophecy speaks of the last days – and these clearly have not happened yet. Does this mean that Joel and Peter got things wrong? I do not think so. Rather, the event of Jesus and Pentecost ushered in a new kind of time. We live in a time when the ‘Kingdom of God’ could reign and where there could be peace and the end of poverty; a time when justice and fairness could prevail. A small percentage of the defence budget of each country could end poverty. But then people would all need to accept the ways of Christ: repent of the sins of selfishness and pride, be willing to admit fault and apologise, attempt to right the wrongs we have done and work for a better world.

But sadly the people of the world have chosen to reject the ways of Christ and so in reality we still live in the kingdom of this world and injustice, suffering, poverty and warfare remain the order of the day. But this need not be so for Jesus came to show us a different way, the way of love, and he gives us His Spirit to be able to live in the ways of his Kingdom.

Pentecost is a time of the giving of a new law – the law of the Kingdom of love. It is a time to be reminded that we can live as citizens of the Kingdom of God, because God’s Spirit enables us, equips us and empowers us. It is a time when we are inspired to go out with the message to the world – extolling – “Things need not be this way, there is a better way ...” for as Peter quoted from the prophet Joel for as Luke wrote so many years ago ‘...everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved …’

Amen.