“The Renewed Hope of Pentecost, Part I”

Scripture: Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost was originally a Jewish holiday, celebrating the time when the Lord gave the law to Israel. It is known collectively as Shavuot, or the Festival of Weeks (50 days after Passover), or the Day of First Fruits. Pentecost is one of the three main Jewish festivals, along with Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, and as such, many people would come to Jerusalem from near and far to make their offerings at the temple.

This holiday also marked the end of the first grain harvest, so it was a celebration in many different ways. It marked the end of heavy labor for the harvest, and it also was a reason to thank God for a successful season. But most importantly, it was a reason to remember and rejoice over the fact that God had come to them on Mount Sinai to personally gave them his commandments.

This was the setting for the first Christian Pentecost, and it relates to the Jewish significance in so many ways.

Read Acts 2:1-4

“.. they were all together in one place.” In Acts 1:4-5, we read that the faithful had been directed to remain in Jerusalem and wait for the gift that the Father would be sending to them. They were staying in an upper room, very possibly the same one where they had celebrated that last Passover with Jesus, and Luke 24:52-53 also tells us that they spent a great amount of time in the temple, praising God for all that had been revealed to them.
But how long would they have to wait for this unknown “gift”? For most people, waiting is the last thing they want to do! Time drags, we get impatient, we have better things to do. What’s taking so long? We have busy lives, and waiting sits very low on our list of priorities. But for the faithful, as they waited for God’s gift, it was a joyful time, and their waiting was well occupied.

Other than praising God, the only other activity that we read about during this time, is that the 11, through God’s inspiration, chose a replacement for Judas. Other than that, they just worshipped and praised! Waiting was not a chore - they knew that something wonderful was on its way, and that it would be bringing a blessing into their lives.

And then it came! It came with a roar like the sound of a violent wind, and it appeared visually like tongues of fire that touched each and every person in the room. Do you think the wait was worth it? You had better believe that it was! The Holy Spirit had arrived and life would never be the same again. And every one of the people in that room began speaking in languages that they never had spoken before.

God had arrived once again. For Israel, this festival celebrated Jehovah’s coming to give the people his laws. Years later, Jesus would come to earth to teach the world what the law was all about. But on this day, the Holy Spirit arrived to provide the next step in the lives of those who believed in Jesus Christ. The Spirit came to empower the faithful to become one body, one Church, one voice on behalf of Almighty God. Before this day, it would only be the prophets who would carry the message of the Almighty, but now, the Church Universal would inherit that responsibility.

Read Acts 2:5-13

The rush of the Spirit, combined with the voices of the men would cause quite a uproar that day. Remember that people from all over the known world would have come to Jerusalem to worship the Lord and to make their offerings at temple. We read that at least 15 different nations were present in the neighborhood that day, and the amazing thing is that every single one could perfectly understand every single word that was being spoken. Many of these people, even though they were all Jews, could only speak their own country’s language – Hebrew had long been replaced with the local tongue.
But that would never be a hindrance to God! And the fact that the faithful had never been able to speak these languages wouldn’t be a problem, either. In Luke 12:11-12, Jesus tells his followers that whenever they are pulled into court and have to defend their faith, and by extension, whenever they are called on to speak the word of God, the Holy Spirit will provide all the words that are necessary for the moment, and at the moment, that they are necessary.

And on Pentecost, that is exactly what happened. The disciples, and most likely anyone else who was in that upper room, were uneducated people. They would know their own language, but nothing more than that. And yet, the Spirit gave them words they didn’t know, to teach people they had never met, about the truth of God that these Jews from other places had yet to know.

But there will always be those who will deny the word of God, and this day was no different. The accusation was that the men were all drunk, and therefore the message that was being offered was just one big joke. But if it had truly been the alcohol that was speaking, how could the message be understood by anyone, let alone everyone?

Remember the cartoon strip “Cathy”? In one strip, Cathy's father is meeting her at the airport.
“Are you sure Irving was picking you up, Cathy?” her father asked.
Cathy responds, “Who knows?
Once I waited down here for half an hour while he was waiting on the upper level.
Once he went in to meet me at the gate and it took us half an hour to find each other.
Once he waited for 45 minutes at the wrong airline.
Once I got the dates mixed up, and he spent two hours paging me while I was in a different city.
We never run out of ways to miss each other.”
- Homelitics OnLine

And it seems that we never seem to run out of ways to miss God, either! Too much wine? Not on your life!

Read Acts 2:14-21

And Peter reveals a completely new side to his nature. This is the same man whose faith only allowed him to take a tentative step or two on the Sea of Galilee before he began to sink beneath the waves. (Matthew 14:22-33) But in Caesarea, he would be the one who confidently proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah. (Mark 8:27-30) On the night that Jesus gave himself up, Peter would proclaim “I will never desert you, … and even if I have to die, I will never deny you.” (Matthew 26:33-35) And then a few short hours later, he would do the very thing that he claimed he never would. (Matthew 26:69-75)
In faith, Peter had been all over the board, but now, there is no hesitation, no uncertainty, no bravado, no false step. Peter would be completely filled with the Spirit of God, and the message would be clear and true and unmistakable. And he begins by quoting a passage from the Book of Joel (2:28-32). He calls the people to listen closely to what he is about to say, because they all may have been familiar with the words of Joel’s prophecy, but not with the timing of the message. All who will serve in the name of Jesus will receive this outpouring, and the day had finally come.

The speakers were under the influence of the Holy Spirit, not the wine. Those who stood there that day were hearing the very word of God, and not the incoherent rambling of a bunch of ignorant, intoxicated men. Peter was announcing to all that this was a new day, one that had been foretold 800 years before. “The last days” had begun, and Israel could no longer claim to have exclusive rights to the Lord’s favor. The Spirit would be poured out on all people, and all who believed in Jesus Christ would be saved.

Hope had been renewed, not just for Israel, but for the entire world, and salvation was now available to all who heard and believed the word of God. Messiah now has a name, and it is Jesus! He had come to prepare all the earth for his final coming, and even though he had returned to glory, he will, one day, return to claim the faithful of earth as his own. And Peter begins to lay out the message of salvation for all who had come that day, and for all who would hear in the centuries to come. And next week, we will look at the significance of that message for the people who heard it that day, as well as for the people of all days.

Pentecost is the day of the Church. It is the day of “first Fruits”; it is the day when the first harvest of souls occurred; it is the day to rejoice in the proof of prophecy; it is the day to celebrate the coming of the Spirit of God to begin working the Lord’s ways in our lives.

Pentecost is our day, and it is the day when we celebrate the Holy Spirit by seeking his work for each of our lives. Hallelujah – may he work in every possible way, in every possible life, just as God sees fit.