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Acts 2:1-13 Read it here so we can chat: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%202%3A1-13&version=NLT
The day of Pentecost! Being a 21st century Christian and not a 1st century Jew, I had to have it brought to my attention that the feast of Pentecost was a celebration long before the Holy Spirit came. I always associated it with this passage of scripture in Acts and kind of forgot the part where Jews had been celebrating this for generations. How terribly religio-centric (is that a word?) of me!
Pentecost was a feast scheduled exactly 50 days after Passover. It was one of the big three feasts that all Jewish men were supposed to attend. They were to parade into Jerusalem bringing the first fruits of their harvest which would provide for the priests whose vocation was serving in the temple. In a society that largely lived off their land, the priests and Levites relied on the sacrifices of their fellow Jews to feed their own families. So, it was a happy time where gratitude and generosity were celebrated as essential to their culture. It is also a celebration during which cheese is frequently eaten, so sign me up!
So Pentecost is a feast that happened when people brought the first fruits of their harvest, especially the wheat harvest. And I thought that was the whole point. I was wrong.
Do you know what the Jews were celebrating? They were celebrating the giving of the law. They were remembering how God gave Moses the Torah on Mount Sinai. This was huge, because the Torah was full of instruction on how to live in such a way that God could live among them. God had chosen a nation through whom he would reveal himself and eventually reconcile the whole world to himself, and the Torah, taught them how to live with him. There is so much that could be unpacked here, and by the time the disciples were celebrating this feast it had taken on entirely new hope-filled overtones, but let’s just stick with the text and acknowledge that they were celebrating that God had revealed himself in a whole new way.
In that context, it’s just so much more amazing that God picks this day to send his Holy Spirit to dwell in his people. This is Pentecost Part 2.
If Pentecost 1 was God living among his people, Pentecost 2 was God living in his people. Come on, that’s pretty cool right?
But that’s not even everything! The feast of Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Torah, right? It was in the Torah that God spelled out how people needed to live in order to be right with him. And, just in case nobody has told you yet, the whole point of the law was to help us recognize that we couldn’t do it. No human can live perfectly before the presence of God. We can’t live a life that pleases him. That was the whole reason Jesus came and died. Every single one of us sinned. Not even one of us could live in God’s presence. We broke the law in one way or another (most of us in many ways). We needed Jesus’ sacrifice to pay the penalty for our evil behaviour and thoughts because we could not keep the law.
So, if Pentecost 1 was Reconciliation with God through the law (which didn’t work), Pentecost 2 was Reconciliation with God through Jesus! It was God coming to live in his people not on the basis of our good behaviour making us right with him, but on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice that finally made it possible for us to be declared legally right with him. The Holy Spirit could live, not just among us, but in us. And God chose to send his Spirit on the very same day he had given the law centuries earlier.
I am in a season where God is helping me see his sovereignty. He is showing me that he has always been in total control of everything. I am learning that, when life feels entirely chaotic and absolutely nothing makes sense, that feeling is only a feeling. God has orchestrated every moment towards his good purpose for his people and for his own glory. When I have no clue what God is up to and I’m feeling pretty discouraged by it all, I am learning to trust that my God is at work. I am learning to trust that he is completely in control and truly, deeply cares for each of his children, me included. I say that because it’s stuff like this Pentecost timing that reinforces this belief in me. The timing is endlessly perfect. It always is. It’s just the kind of God he is. And I am so grateful that he is that kind of God.
Anyways, back to the passage, this wasn’t only a very cool tip of the hat to history. It wasn’t even just a beautiful illustration of the way God had graciously demonstrated both that we couldn’t be reconciled to him by our own merit, and that he had provided a way that reconciliation could happen completely apart from our merit.
It was also just great timing (almost like God had been planning this for all of eternity!) As I said, this was a busy time in Jerusalem. It was one of three annual feasts for which all Jewish men were expected to gather in Jerusalem. In verses 8-11 there is a list of all the places from which the Jewish people and converts to Judaism had come. My NIV Study Bible has a map with little arrows pointing outward from Jerusalem to the places from which these people came. It looks like a sunburst with Jerusalem at its centre. The message these people were about to receive was poised to explode throughout the empire in literal days as these people went home from the festival. And what I love is how many of these people lived in areas dominated by Gentiles.
You see, as far as anyone can trace my ancestry, I’m not Jewish. So when I see things that suggest this message is for me, I am really happy about it. I feel like the coming of the Holy Spirit is this monumental event for us Gentiles. We can see all along that the salvation God was bringing through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Jesus was intended for all people, but suddenly BOOM it’s happening. God has orchestrated all the events of time to converge on Jerusalem at this moment so that his gospel could become available to the world. And it’s not even like it will trickle slowly as missionaries travel. No! Suddenly thousands are saved in a day, and they all head out in every possible direction to spread the word. God spent centuries preparing humanity for this moment when salvation was revealed and offered to the world. And now that his moment has arrived, he is wasting no time!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a look at the sermon that brought hope to the ends of the earth…next time!
