What a day! - Pentecost

Acts 2: 1-13

What a day it must have been. The Jewish festival of Pentecost was special - a sort of Harvest Festival with the religious spin of being a day to rejoice in the giving of the Law to Moses. It was a festival for which observant Jews would travel to Jerusalem. The streets would be full.

Unlike our often dull celebrations of Pentecost which seem to so lack the special foods or gifts of Christmas and Easter, the Jewish celebrations were very much alive and a celebration of the good things in life. People made bread from the first spring wheat and they drank wine made from the grapes of the last fall. Indeed this could be a celebration of excess with some rabbis of that time teaching that Jewish men should show their gratitude to God by drinking sufficiently to be intoxicated. I cannot help but wonder why with a background like this, Pentecost hasn’t taken off big time in binge drinking Britain! Still, perhaps it explains why Methodism tends to be a little shy of this particular Festival.

Indeed, I cannot help but wonder how having become intoxicated, people were able to stay awake all night reading the Torah in the hope that God would once again speak to Israel. It is certainly something beyond my capacity! And yet perhaps it explains why scoffers suggested that the followers of Jesus who became so transformed, were drunk rather than inspired.

So Pentecost was a time of excitement and religious enthusiasm. Yet, this particular Pentecost was like no other. Let us go for a moment to a room where the followers of Jesus are gathered. I assume that they were praying. These were a people who had been through a lot. They had seen Jesus betrayed and knew only too well of his crucifixion. Then they had encountered the good news of Resurrection. They had met a Risen Christ. But now he had gone from them once again. They were once more alone and vulnerable. But more than that, it was in such a state that they were wrestling with a farewell instruction from Jesus to be his witnesses in Jerusalem and more than that, in Judea, Samaria and even to the ends of the earth.

How could it be? After all, only weeks before that had failed the test when Jesus was taken to the cross. Oh sure, they had good intentions but good intentions are rarely enough. And yet, there was a possibility that it could happen for Jesus had made promises to them. Look back to the Last Supper where we find Jesus promising them;

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live you will also live.”

And as part that instruction to be witnesses, Jesus had made a promise:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

Really, we need to relate the promise and the call for they are inextricably bound together. Without the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Great Commission merely sets the followers of Jesus up for a big time failure - nothing could be crueller. But the Great Commission becomes a possibility because the Gift of the Holy Spirit is to enable precisely that to happen. So Jesus promises the Holy Spirit not to simply make us feel good. He promiseds the Holy Spirit so that we might be useful, so that his work may continue not just in one locality but on a global scale.

And now it happens! The gift of the Holy Spirit which has in the past been for a select group of people , now comes upon the house and in great force. It is really hard to recreate exactly what happened. This is one of those times when the human descriptive capacity is limited. And yet in the drama of the description found in Acts there is incredible meaning that would have been understood by its earliest readers even if lost on us today. We hear of wind which reflects the word for Spirit in both Hebrew and Greek. We hear of fire which is traditionally understood as that which refines and purifies. And now comes a cacophony of sounds as those gathered begin to be able to communicate in a wide variety of languages. It is as if the divisions brought about at the Tower of Babel where language served to divide people, has been powerfully reversed. For here now, the followers of Jesus have a message that is for all people.

Well in little time it would seem that the followers of Jesus are out in the streets. Once timid in the face of power, now there is no holding them back. They have a message. They have a purpose. And nothing, absolutely nothing is going to hold them back. And all around there grows a sense of wonder as people gathered for the Festival begin to hear these people predominantly from a backwater, proclaiming boldly the good news of God.

Now of course the Gospel is not exactly accepted unanimously. It never is. And some knowing the reputation of the day suggest that they have got drunk a little bit earlier than the rest. I can empathise with how the disciples might feel at this unfair suggestion as some 20 years ago when staying with cousins (Steve was a Baptist minister in London at the time) I was taken ill just outside the Houses of Parliament in the middle of the morning and ended up having to lie down on the pavement. The first question that the policeman who was notified of my state asked me was whether I had been drinking. I remember distinctly failing to impress him by muttering, “If only! If only!” And yet in this case it is an understandable reaction. But soon, it will be answered. For Peter will preach that great sermon of Pentecost when he will link what is happening with Old Testament prophecies before in a challenging way telling the story of Jesus - affecting people in such a way that three thousand people will be baptised that very day.

And what of us? Pentecost belongs as much to today as to all those years ago. Listen to the words of Fred Pratt Green which we sang a little while ago;

The Spirit brought to birth
The Church of Christ on earth
To seek and save the lost;
Never has he withdrawn,
Since that tremendous dawn,
His gifts at Pentecost.”

Yes, the gift of the Holy Spirit is for today. For we like those early followers are not and cannot be up to the task in our own strength. We like them, need the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to fire us into action and to give us the discernment and all the other resources we need as we seek to continue the work of Christ. We need the third person of the Holy Trinity, what Bishop Taylor describes as “The Go Between God.”

For our faith is not just about a past. Yes, it is rooted in happenings in time and place. But it is also dynamic. Jesus has given us glimpses of the Kingdom of God. He has shown us a vision of the potential of God’s world. It is a vision that can thrill our very souls. And he invites us to dream dreams and to see visions. But not alone for these things are the product of his Spirit and can only become reality with the help of God’s Spirit.

So this morning, I invite you on a journey. It is a journey that involves are being connected with God and his being made flesh, in Jesus. Ask yourselves, how can the work of Jesus continue? How do we connect people with the Gospel in a comprehensible way with today’s world? How do we follow Jesus in bringing hope and dignity? How do we make a stand against the violence and prejudices that surround us to build a home for love? Big questions indeed! And yet questions we face in the company of God, the Holy Spirit.

What a day it must have been all those years ago. What days it makes possible in the here and now!



This sermon was preached at Parkham on Sunday May 27th 2007