Begin Their Work
Acts 2:1 – 21
Last week we celebrated Ascension Sunday, the day in which Jesus left his Disciples to return to His divine place next to the Father. If you remember in our message lesson from last week Jesus was praying to God with the Disciples with him in the Upper Room. Jesus “reported in” to God telling Him that Jesus had ‘finished the work you gave me to do’ including his sacrifice on the Cross. Jesus said that he was leaving to return to the Father but that he was leaving those that God had chosen for him, had given to him, the Disciples to stay in the world to “Begin their Work”.
Jesus’ words were more like teaching, more like a sermon than it was a prayer to God. There in his final discourse to this band of Believers, Jesus is seeking to equip them for their Work to Finish. He had finished His work but their worldwide evangelical work was just about to begin.
Jesus left them with two enabling expectations in our Epistle lesson last: first “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” And second “when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That brings us to Pentecost and today’s lesson.
Pentecost, which is also called the Feast of Weeks, is was one of three major annual feasts for the Israelites and is held 50 days after Passover. It is a festival of thanksgiving for the harvested crops. Because they had been told by Jesus to stay in Jerusalem and because all Jewish men were expected to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks the Disciples remained there.
By Pentecost Jerusalem would have been alive and busy with all of the people that were milling around. Thousands of devout Jews would have come from all over the world, from many different countries, speaking many different languages.
The city would have still been abuzz with the details of how this Jesus character had been crucified and supposedly resurrected. But the religious elite had been able to knock down the talk of the resurrection and the stories of his after death appearances in order to reestablish their control over the local Jews and to keep the scattered Jews from other nations from learning too much about the new Christian movement.
The Disciples and other followers were doing what Jesus had asked them to do, wait for the promise from God for the arrival of the Holy Spirit but they were getting anxious and uneasy. Jerusalem was not a comfortable place for followers of Jesus. They were not clear what this Counselor, this Advocate would do for them. How could he help them to Begin Their Work that Jesus had left them alone to do?
To add to that, the Temple Palace guards were still on the look-out for followers of this rebel Jesus. The Disciples had very few friends and much of the Jewish community shunned them. They trusted Jesus but it had been forty days since Jesus had promised them the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room and ten days since he had reminded them of that promise at the Ascension. The Disciples were an uneasy and nervous bunch but three different signs from God ushered in the arrival of the Holy Spirit into the world. The first was The Divine Wind.
Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. The sound of violent rushing wind was a demonstration of enormous invisible power. As we know wind exerts incredible power during a storm and the disciples heard the noise and felt the power come upon them. The noise was so loud that it grabbed the attention of the thousands that were in Jerusalem for Pentecost and they came to see what was happening.
Interestingly both the Hebrew and Greek words for wind and spirit are the same. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, “wind” is associated with the arrival of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, like the wind, is a mighty power, that we cannot see but it is an irresistible force when He comes upon us and we can feel His effects. The Divine Wind was the first sign of the Spirit, the Holy Fire was next.
Then they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that came to rest on each of person and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Throughout the Bible, Fire symbolizes God’s holy presence. For example Moses in the wilderness saw the bush that was burning and yet not consumed. God Himself was in the bush. Similarly Israel in the wilderness was guided and protected by the pillar of fire.
- Jesus said that He had come to cast fire upon the earth (Luke 12:49).
- Hebrews 12:29 says that our God is a consuming fire.
- And John the Baptist predicted that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Now on the day of Pentecost the Holy Fire and the Spirit arrive for the believers. The fire came to symbolize God’s Holy power through the direction of the Holy Spirit, burning into people in a way that purifies their soul. Fire was the second sign and the third was the Apostolic speaking in all languages.
When He came the Holy Spirit gave the Disciples ability to speak in languages different than their own language. The apostles were completely under the control of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit spoke through them in languages they did not know.
It was quite a miraculous attention getter for the international crowd that had gathered in town for the celebration of Pentecost. They heard the apostles, men from Galilee, who had never left the vicinity of Palestine speak to them in their own languages.
Unbelievers from all of those nations recognized their own language being spoken and for the first time they heard the Gospel story in their own language. These people, these souls were witness to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit and took it home with them.
If the Gospel was to be preached to all people throughout the world, what better beginning could there have been than to have it announced with simultaneous voices of different languages each preaching the truth of the Jesus miracle.
Thus on the Day of Pentecost, the disciples were baptized with the Holy Spirit, in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. It was the transition from the earthly completed mission of Christ to the beginning and the still on-going ministry of the followers of Christ.
On Pentecost the wary and frightened Disciples were turned from students to teachers. The Holy Spirit transformed these followers who did not always fully understand what they had heard or witnessed, into evangelists whose actions and words were in perfect agreement with the will of God, and for the purposes of God.
The Holy Spirit marks each one of the apostles with fire and breathes His windy breath into them and transforms them into the called and equipped teachers of the faith that they were.
Even the dejected Peter, whose last promise to Jesus before the Cross was that he would never reject him was empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach with authority, connecting the astounding phenomenon taking place to what the prophet Joel in the Hebrew scriptures had promised. It was a new Spirit filled beginning for Peter and the other disciples.
But the effects of the arrival of the Holy Spirit was not only on the Disciples and the followers of Christ but also on the thousands of people from all around the known world that were witnesses to the largest ever multilingual evangelistic event ever.
Inspired in his own right by the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them” “No one can claim that ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
Martin Luther wrote “I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in this one, true faith.”
On Pentecost the arrival of the Holy Spirit enabled and empowered the unbelievers to come to understand and accept the mystery and ministry of Jesus Christ and to accept him as Lord and Savior. Without the Prevenient Grace of the Holy Spirit, the preceding grace that opens our hearts and souls to the Truth of Jesus, we simply would not be able to understand and accept the Gospel story and we would be lost into an Eternity of despair.
Hear the Good News my friends………..
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you. 1 Peter 1:23 – 25
You have probably all heard me say, certainly those that were in Bible Study last year when we studied the Acts heard me say it on multiple occasions, the Book is known as the Acts of the Apostles and certainly we see in those pages the evangelistic actions of the Apostles that transformed the world
But from my point of view the Book should be known as the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Beginning here, today on Pentecost the arrival of the third person of the triune God came to earth to stay with us, to guide us, to comfort us, to advocate for us to the Father. We invoke t name of the Holy Spirit throughout worship service, in prayers and in song.
You know many say that to today, Pentecost, is the birthday of the church, the Body of Christ. We celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Jesus because that is when he came into the desperately broken world in human form. As we know He was with God in the beginning, from eternity past but we celebrate Christmas as his birthday into the world as flesh and blood.
But today is the birthday of the Church of the body Jesus Christ. We, mankind, are the living stones of the church of Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in the world.
It is His arrival into the world on this day, Pentecost Day that allowed each of us, and billions of others throughout history to live “re-born” lives as both Believers and Witnesses to the power of the rushing wind, the burning fire in our hearts, and the willing and empowered tongues which testify to the Good News of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice which allows all people, everywhere to find the salvation that they desperately need. Dear Friends it is time to Begin our Work with Holy Spirit guiding us! Amen.