About the Spirit
Commentary
Perhaps it is inevitable that as Christians we focus on the second article of the Apostles' Creed so intently that we often lose sight of the first article about God the Creator and of the third article about the Holy Spirit. Yet this day and the season of the church year that follows help us focus on the Holy Spirit within the so-called "normal time" in which Jesus lived and taught and in which we, too, live out our lives.
As we discuss these three lessons for the Day of Pentecost, we have opportunity to reflect upon the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's essential role in our faith. Indeed, without the Spirit the first two articles of the creed make no sense. Some scientists over the years have insisted that one can explain creation without God, and people in all times and places regard the forgiveness of the world's sin through the death of a craftsman from Nazareth to be mere superstition.
Gratefully we have the opportunity this day to celebrate our faith in the absurdity of it all.
Acts 2:1-21
The account of the events on the Day of Pentecost contains many significant pieces worthy of study. However, when they are all put together, they spell "Day of the Lord" or, if you prefer, "kingdom time."
The attention-getting device that day -- some fifty days after the Passover when Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead -- was the not so subtle appearance of the Holy Spirit. Wind and fire accompanied the Spirit just as those natural phenomena marked the presence of God at Mount Sinai (see Exodus 19:16ff.) and at Mount Zion (see Isaiah 31:9).
The effect of the Spirit's arrival that day in Jerusalem led not to the disciples speaking in tongues, that is, glossolalia, but to their speaking in the languages of the people from many lands who were gathered in Jerusalem for the festival. The visitors were amazed that they heard these Galileans speak their own languages and naturally wondered what it all meant.
Peter responded to their questions by eliminating the obvious explanation that the disciples were drunk. Indeed, he said, it's only nine o'clock in the morning. No, he said, the explanation is the prophecy of Joel that in the Day of the Lord to come, when God establishes the kingdom, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. This miracle that they witnessed was the fulfillment of Joel's dream about the kingdom to come (Joel 2:28-32).
On another level the miracle fulfills Moses' wish, uttered in the wilderness when the Spirit of God came upon Eldad and Medad. Far from catering to Joshua's request that they be stopped, Moses uttered the wish "that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them" (Numbers 11:29). His wish moves us to consider the church not merely as the priesthood of the baptized but also the prophecy of the baptized.
This gift of the Spirit marks the beginning of the New Day. As the author moves us through the Book of Acts that Spirit will be manifest in many ways, both in terms of the miracles the apostles perform and in their preaching. The Spirit makes possible the ability both to believe the absurd and to announce it to people everywhere.
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
"No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." Martin Luther, in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed, repeated that thought in a powerful way. "I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ or come to him." Luther then goes on to explain that the only way we can believe in him is through the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church.
Having stated the necessity of the Spirit for faith, Paul moved on to address the problem of disunity that defined the church at Corinth. All those factions mentioned in the first chapter were losing sight of their God-given unity. For Paul, the Spirit that united people of many lands and languages on the day of Pentecost would provide the centripetal force that would keep them together in spite of their differences. Like any other community, this one was filled with people of different gifts, different forms of ministry, and different abilities. Paul wanted them to understand that they all received their gifts from the same Spirit. They all served the same Lord, Jesus Christ. They all worked with the talents given by the same God. One Spirit, one Lord, one God made them one community.
From that understanding Paul did not sweep their differences under the proverbial rug. On the contrary, the common good is served by their differences. The Spirit, in fact, is responsible for their different gifts, and the Spirit is the means by which they are united.
John 7:37-39
In terms of the flow of John's Gospel, the time of the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, and so Jesus' brothers encouraged him to go to Judea along with them in order to show publicly the wonders he was performing in Galilee. But Jesus stayed behind until they had left, then went alone to Jerusalem (7:1-13). "About the middle of the festival" Jesus went to the temple and began to teach publicly (vv. 14-24). The reviews of the people were mixed, some believing in him, and some, the Pharisees among them, wanting to kill him (7:25-36). Now we arrive at the last day of the festival. Before discussing the details of 7:37-39 the interpreter will do well to consider some of the information about the feast as it is given in the Old Testament.
At Leviticus 23:34-43 the Lord orders that a festival of booths be held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and it shall last seven days. The first and the eighth days of the festival will be holy convocations on which the people shall not pursue their daily work. On each day of the festival the assembly will "present the Lord's offerings by fire" and rejoice before the Lord with fruit from the trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook. For seven days all the people of Israel are to live in booths as a reminder of the camping experience when the Lord "brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." The festival itself is a harvest festival (v. 39), and so one might expect the basis to lie in the creation activity of God. Instead the motive for the festival is the salvation act of freeing the people from the bondage in Egypt.
At Deuteronomy 16:13-15 the festival is listed as one of the three when the males shall make pilgrimage to Jerusalem, although the rejoicing throughout the land is to include sons and daughters, male and female slaves, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows -- in short, every resident in the land. At 31:10-13 the festival is to include public reading of the Code of Deuteronomy so that the people and their children "may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God...."
At Zechariah 14 the prophet describes the events and effects of the eschatological Day of the Lord. The Lord will combat in fierce battle. The Lord will conquer the nations that have been gathered against Jerusalem. Part of the description of that day includes the elimination of winter, as well as of the darkness of night. Then comes the promise that "living waters shall flow out of Jerusalem" (v. 8) and the command that all among the nations who have survived the Lord's defense of Jerusalem shall honor the Lord as King by annually keeping the Festival of Booths. Failure to do so will result in drought upon that nation. Thus the passage connects the kingdom of God with the Festival of Booths/Tabernacles, and part of the environment for the festival is the gift of "living water" for those who acknowledge "the King, the Lord of hosts."
Occurring in September or October, the Festival of Booths immediately precedes the season during which rain is expected to fall on the land, enabling the crops to grow the following spring. As a result part of the ritual for the festival included prayers for rain so that the benefits for crops, livestock, and people might be experienced.
In that context Jesus cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink." The invitation to the thirsty sounds like that of God to the exiles in Babylon: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters" (Isaiah 55:1). Even closer to home, however, is the discussion of Jesus with the woman at the well in Sychar (John 4:1-15). There Jesus indicates the source of the water he promises: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Further, Jesus contrasts the water of the well-known well with the water from himself: "The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (4:14).
What is confusing in Jesus' speech at 7:38 is his use of the scriptural quotation. Its precise background is not clear, and as a result it is variously translated. RSV renders the Jesus saying and the quotation as follows: "He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.' " The possessive pronoun presents the problem: does "his heart" refer to God or to the one who believes? NRSV removes the ambiguity by translating the same words as "Let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.' " The notion that the living waters have their source in the heart of the believer can be inferred from Isaiah 58:11: "and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail." Yet the notion that the source of living water is God and God's Son is much more frequent (Jeremiah 2:13; John 4:13-15; 19:34; 1 Corinthians 10:4). It is indeed likely that the author of John's Gospel considered the latter to be the interpretation, for he adds, "Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive." It seems to this interpreter that the heart out of which the living waters flow is that of God -- Father (Jeremiah 2:13), Son (John 4), and Spirit (here).
Considering all that background and the perplexity of the words themselves, we cannot avoid at least two conclusions thus far. First, Jesus is the answer to the prayers of the people as they asked for rain during the early autumn Festival of Booths. His invitation to come to him to drink implies that he is the source of the living water. Second, the drinking to eternal life is connected to faith. Believing in him as the prerequisite for the water seems to reflect the notion of the Zechariah prophecy that only those who acknowledge the Lord as King will be nurtured with the water; all others will be parched in drought.
In our discussion of the story about the well in John 4 (Third Sunday in Lent), I mentioned the astonishing fact that this same Jesus who was the source of the living waters for eternal life is the one who from the cross cried out, "I am thirsty" (John 19:28). That Jesus so became one of us that he, the source of living water, became thirsty as we do demonstrates in vivid detail what this author of John's Gospel meant when he wrote that the word "became flesh and lived among us" (1:14).
Finally, this passage was selected as the gospel for the day because of the reference to the Spirit. He interprets Jesus' words about the living water in terms of the Spirit whom "believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified." John's timetable is set. Jesus must be raised up, that is, crucified and ascended, for his glorification. When that single act of glorification is accomplished, then the Spirit will come. In John's Gospel, of course, the Spirit comes upon the community not on the Day of Pentecost but on the evening of Easter Day. It was when the disciples were gathered behind closed doors that evening that the risen and glorified Jesus greeted them and then bestowed on them the promised Spirit: "he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit' " (John 20:22).
No matter whether God sent the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (so Acts) or on the evening of Easter Day (so John), the fact is that God did send the Holy Spirit. The proof of the pudding is the existence of the church, the diversity of gifts within the church, and above all the unity of the church, as we were all baptized into one body and were all made to drink of one Spirit.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 2:1-21
On the previous Sundays of this Eastertide, we have heard the risen Christ tell his followers to remain in Jerusalem until he sends the Holy Spirit upon them. That will enable them to be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Having promised that, he ascended into heaven, to rule over all at the right hand of the Father. That promise was spoken during the forty days that the Lord was with the apostles and disciples after his resurrection.
Now, in our text for the morning, the Lord keeps his promise. It is the day of Pentecost, that is, the day of the Jewish festival celebrating the wheat harvest, which falls fifty days after Passover and, in our calendar, after Easter. So the apostles and disciples have been waiting ten days for the fulfillment of Christ's promise. During that time, they have been at prayer, praying for the fulfillment of the promise that their Lord has given them.
Jesus Christ always keeps his promises. When Christ's followers are all gathered together in one place, probably in prayer, there are the sound of a mighty wind rushing upon them and tongues of fire resting on each of their heads. And they begin to speak in the various languages that were current throughout the Mediterranean world, telling about the mighty acts that God has wrought in the life of Israel and of Jesus Christ. As a result, the devout Jews from all over the Near Eastern world, who have come to Jerusalem for the festival, hear the disciples speaking to them in their own languages. The miracle is one of speaking and of hearing.
Who can say exactly what happened at Pentecost? We are as amazed by the account as were those Jews who experienced it, and like them, we try to give a naturalistic explanation for the happening. "They're drunk," some of the Jews said, "babbling in their stupor." We like to scale down the miracles recorded in the scriptures to our level of understanding.
Whatever we think about this text, however, certainly it is meant to convey three facts. First of all, its author Luke intends it to be a reversal of the biblical account of the Tower of Babel, in Genesis 11:1-9. In that Old Testament story, God brought his judgment upon the sins of all of us -- for it is our story -- by confusing our language and scattering us abroad upon the face of the earth. That is, our sin brought upon us the destruction of human community. And we have only to read the morning headlines to see how true that is. We can't get along with one another any more. Nations can't understand one another's language or live in peace with one another.
But now, here in the story of Pentecost, that confusion of language and the strife between nations is overcome by the gift of the Holy Spirit. And Acts is telling us that it is the Spirit, prompting the proclamation of the gospel, that can overcome the brokenness of human community and our sinful inability to understand one another and live at peace. As Paul earlier put it, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, so you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). By the work of the Holy Spirit of Christ our warring madness can be overcome.
Second, the author of our text is certainly pointing to the fulfillment of Christ's promise to his followers. Christ has not left us desolate; he has come to us, as the Fourth Gospel would put it (John 14:18). He promised that if we would wait for him, he would send his Holy Spirit to be with us -- his abiding presence. And now to his fledgling church, he keeps that promise. The rushing wind and the tongues of fire are symbolic of the Spirit's presence.
But where do we receive the Holy Spirit? Has the gift been given to us, too? Yes indeed! When each of you was baptized, the water poured upon you was the outward symbol of that gift, and all of you now are recipients of the Spirit of your Lord Christ. The power of God in Christ has been given to every one of us and to this church's congregation.
That has tremendous implications. It means that we now are enabled to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth, obeying our Lord's command to go into all the world and to make disciples of all nations. We have been empowered, as were the first apostles and disciples, and as every Christian since has been empowered, to tell of the mighty acts of God -- not only through our missionaries, but individually, to our neighbors and families, our social circle and city, our state and our nation. And we become those witnesses, acting in the power of the Holy Spirit, not only by what we say, but also by what we do everyday -- in home and business, school, and social circles. "You are my witnesses," our Lord says to us, and we, in his Spirit, now have the power and the ability to fulfill that role. In the Spirit granted to us, we can live Christian lives and thereby witness to the world what God is able to do for all people.
Third, as our text proceeds, it is also clear that Luke intends this account of Pentecost to be the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Old Testament. The prophet Joel, back in the fifth century B.C., had proclaimed to Israel that the Day of the Lord was coming (cf. Joel 1:15; 2:1-2) -- that day when God would bring his last judgment upon all humankind, that day when the Lord would separate the sheep from the goats and do away with his enemies and take into his kingdom those who had been faithful to him (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). But before that fearful day came, Joel had promised, God would pour out his Spirit on young and old, and those of high and low estate, and all in the covenant people. But, the prophet announced, all who turned to God in faith and worship would be saved in the final judgment (cf. Joel 2:28-32).
That prophecy, proclaims Peter in our text, has now come to pass. God has put his Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ. But that means, you see, that the Day of the Lord still lies ahead of us in our history. We have been made recipients of the Holy Spirit. That is a foresign of the final end of our history, of the time when God will, indeed, come in judgment to separate the evil from the good, and give everlasting life to his own. How can we stand before that judgment? In Christ. Through our faith in the love of God in Jesus Christ, who has forgiven us and reconciled us to the Father, and, despite all of our sins and weakness, promised us eternal life in his good kingdom.
So this day of Pentecost brings us a wondrous fact, good Christians -- the fact that we have been given the Holy Spirit to enable us to be Christ's witnesses -- to take a gospel to all the world that can heal the nations, and that can offer to all persons everywhere their salvation in the final judgment.
As we discuss these three lessons for the Day of Pentecost, we have opportunity to reflect upon the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's essential role in our faith. Indeed, without the Spirit the first two articles of the creed make no sense. Some scientists over the years have insisted that one can explain creation without God, and people in all times and places regard the forgiveness of the world's sin through the death of a craftsman from Nazareth to be mere superstition.
Gratefully we have the opportunity this day to celebrate our faith in the absurdity of it all.
Acts 2:1-21
The account of the events on the Day of Pentecost contains many significant pieces worthy of study. However, when they are all put together, they spell "Day of the Lord" or, if you prefer, "kingdom time."
The attention-getting device that day -- some fifty days after the Passover when Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead -- was the not so subtle appearance of the Holy Spirit. Wind and fire accompanied the Spirit just as those natural phenomena marked the presence of God at Mount Sinai (see Exodus 19:16ff.) and at Mount Zion (see Isaiah 31:9).
The effect of the Spirit's arrival that day in Jerusalem led not to the disciples speaking in tongues, that is, glossolalia, but to their speaking in the languages of the people from many lands who were gathered in Jerusalem for the festival. The visitors were amazed that they heard these Galileans speak their own languages and naturally wondered what it all meant.
Peter responded to their questions by eliminating the obvious explanation that the disciples were drunk. Indeed, he said, it's only nine o'clock in the morning. No, he said, the explanation is the prophecy of Joel that in the Day of the Lord to come, when God establishes the kingdom, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. This miracle that they witnessed was the fulfillment of Joel's dream about the kingdom to come (Joel 2:28-32).
On another level the miracle fulfills Moses' wish, uttered in the wilderness when the Spirit of God came upon Eldad and Medad. Far from catering to Joshua's request that they be stopped, Moses uttered the wish "that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them" (Numbers 11:29). His wish moves us to consider the church not merely as the priesthood of the baptized but also the prophecy of the baptized.
This gift of the Spirit marks the beginning of the New Day. As the author moves us through the Book of Acts that Spirit will be manifest in many ways, both in terms of the miracles the apostles perform and in their preaching. The Spirit makes possible the ability both to believe the absurd and to announce it to people everywhere.
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
"No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit." Martin Luther, in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles' Creed, repeated that thought in a powerful way. "I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ or come to him." Luther then goes on to explain that the only way we can believe in him is through the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church.
Having stated the necessity of the Spirit for faith, Paul moved on to address the problem of disunity that defined the church at Corinth. All those factions mentioned in the first chapter were losing sight of their God-given unity. For Paul, the Spirit that united people of many lands and languages on the day of Pentecost would provide the centripetal force that would keep them together in spite of their differences. Like any other community, this one was filled with people of different gifts, different forms of ministry, and different abilities. Paul wanted them to understand that they all received their gifts from the same Spirit. They all served the same Lord, Jesus Christ. They all worked with the talents given by the same God. One Spirit, one Lord, one God made them one community.
From that understanding Paul did not sweep their differences under the proverbial rug. On the contrary, the common good is served by their differences. The Spirit, in fact, is responsible for their different gifts, and the Spirit is the means by which they are united.
John 7:37-39
In terms of the flow of John's Gospel, the time of the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand, and so Jesus' brothers encouraged him to go to Judea along with them in order to show publicly the wonders he was performing in Galilee. But Jesus stayed behind until they had left, then went alone to Jerusalem (7:1-13). "About the middle of the festival" Jesus went to the temple and began to teach publicly (vv. 14-24). The reviews of the people were mixed, some believing in him, and some, the Pharisees among them, wanting to kill him (7:25-36). Now we arrive at the last day of the festival. Before discussing the details of 7:37-39 the interpreter will do well to consider some of the information about the feast as it is given in the Old Testament.
At Leviticus 23:34-43 the Lord orders that a festival of booths be held on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and it shall last seven days. The first and the eighth days of the festival will be holy convocations on which the people shall not pursue their daily work. On each day of the festival the assembly will "present the Lord's offerings by fire" and rejoice before the Lord with fruit from the trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook. For seven days all the people of Israel are to live in booths as a reminder of the camping experience when the Lord "brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." The festival itself is a harvest festival (v. 39), and so one might expect the basis to lie in the creation activity of God. Instead the motive for the festival is the salvation act of freeing the people from the bondage in Egypt.
At Deuteronomy 16:13-15 the festival is listed as one of the three when the males shall make pilgrimage to Jerusalem, although the rejoicing throughout the land is to include sons and daughters, male and female slaves, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows -- in short, every resident in the land. At 31:10-13 the festival is to include public reading of the Code of Deuteronomy so that the people and their children "may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God...."
At Zechariah 14 the prophet describes the events and effects of the eschatological Day of the Lord. The Lord will combat in fierce battle. The Lord will conquer the nations that have been gathered against Jerusalem. Part of the description of that day includes the elimination of winter, as well as of the darkness of night. Then comes the promise that "living waters shall flow out of Jerusalem" (v. 8) and the command that all among the nations who have survived the Lord's defense of Jerusalem shall honor the Lord as King by annually keeping the Festival of Booths. Failure to do so will result in drought upon that nation. Thus the passage connects the kingdom of God with the Festival of Booths/Tabernacles, and part of the environment for the festival is the gift of "living water" for those who acknowledge "the King, the Lord of hosts."
Occurring in September or October, the Festival of Booths immediately precedes the season during which rain is expected to fall on the land, enabling the crops to grow the following spring. As a result part of the ritual for the festival included prayers for rain so that the benefits for crops, livestock, and people might be experienced.
In that context Jesus cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink." The invitation to the thirsty sounds like that of God to the exiles in Babylon: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters" (Isaiah 55:1). Even closer to home, however, is the discussion of Jesus with the woman at the well in Sychar (John 4:1-15). There Jesus indicates the source of the water he promises: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Further, Jesus contrasts the water of the well-known well with the water from himself: "The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (4:14).
What is confusing in Jesus' speech at 7:38 is his use of the scriptural quotation. Its precise background is not clear, and as a result it is variously translated. RSV renders the Jesus saying and the quotation as follows: "He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.' " The possessive pronoun presents the problem: does "his heart" refer to God or to the one who believes? NRSV removes the ambiguity by translating the same words as "Let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.' " The notion that the living waters have their source in the heart of the believer can be inferred from Isaiah 58:11: "and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail." Yet the notion that the source of living water is God and God's Son is much more frequent (Jeremiah 2:13; John 4:13-15; 19:34; 1 Corinthians 10:4). It is indeed likely that the author of John's Gospel considered the latter to be the interpretation, for he adds, "Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive." It seems to this interpreter that the heart out of which the living waters flow is that of God -- Father (Jeremiah 2:13), Son (John 4), and Spirit (here).
Considering all that background and the perplexity of the words themselves, we cannot avoid at least two conclusions thus far. First, Jesus is the answer to the prayers of the people as they asked for rain during the early autumn Festival of Booths. His invitation to come to him to drink implies that he is the source of the living water. Second, the drinking to eternal life is connected to faith. Believing in him as the prerequisite for the water seems to reflect the notion of the Zechariah prophecy that only those who acknowledge the Lord as King will be nurtured with the water; all others will be parched in drought.
In our discussion of the story about the well in John 4 (Third Sunday in Lent), I mentioned the astonishing fact that this same Jesus who was the source of the living waters for eternal life is the one who from the cross cried out, "I am thirsty" (John 19:28). That Jesus so became one of us that he, the source of living water, became thirsty as we do demonstrates in vivid detail what this author of John's Gospel meant when he wrote that the word "became flesh and lived among us" (1:14).
Finally, this passage was selected as the gospel for the day because of the reference to the Spirit. He interprets Jesus' words about the living water in terms of the Spirit whom "believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified." John's timetable is set. Jesus must be raised up, that is, crucified and ascended, for his glorification. When that single act of glorification is accomplished, then the Spirit will come. In John's Gospel, of course, the Spirit comes upon the community not on the Day of Pentecost but on the evening of Easter Day. It was when the disciples were gathered behind closed doors that evening that the risen and glorified Jesus greeted them and then bestowed on them the promised Spirit: "he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit' " (John 20:22).
No matter whether God sent the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (so Acts) or on the evening of Easter Day (so John), the fact is that God did send the Holy Spirit. The proof of the pudding is the existence of the church, the diversity of gifts within the church, and above all the unity of the church, as we were all baptized into one body and were all made to drink of one Spirit.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Acts 2:1-21
On the previous Sundays of this Eastertide, we have heard the risen Christ tell his followers to remain in Jerusalem until he sends the Holy Spirit upon them. That will enable them to be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Having promised that, he ascended into heaven, to rule over all at the right hand of the Father. That promise was spoken during the forty days that the Lord was with the apostles and disciples after his resurrection.
Now, in our text for the morning, the Lord keeps his promise. It is the day of Pentecost, that is, the day of the Jewish festival celebrating the wheat harvest, which falls fifty days after Passover and, in our calendar, after Easter. So the apostles and disciples have been waiting ten days for the fulfillment of Christ's promise. During that time, they have been at prayer, praying for the fulfillment of the promise that their Lord has given them.
Jesus Christ always keeps his promises. When Christ's followers are all gathered together in one place, probably in prayer, there are the sound of a mighty wind rushing upon them and tongues of fire resting on each of their heads. And they begin to speak in the various languages that were current throughout the Mediterranean world, telling about the mighty acts that God has wrought in the life of Israel and of Jesus Christ. As a result, the devout Jews from all over the Near Eastern world, who have come to Jerusalem for the festival, hear the disciples speaking to them in their own languages. The miracle is one of speaking and of hearing.
Who can say exactly what happened at Pentecost? We are as amazed by the account as were those Jews who experienced it, and like them, we try to give a naturalistic explanation for the happening. "They're drunk," some of the Jews said, "babbling in their stupor." We like to scale down the miracles recorded in the scriptures to our level of understanding.
Whatever we think about this text, however, certainly it is meant to convey three facts. First of all, its author Luke intends it to be a reversal of the biblical account of the Tower of Babel, in Genesis 11:1-9. In that Old Testament story, God brought his judgment upon the sins of all of us -- for it is our story -- by confusing our language and scattering us abroad upon the face of the earth. That is, our sin brought upon us the destruction of human community. And we have only to read the morning headlines to see how true that is. We can't get along with one another any more. Nations can't understand one another's language or live in peace with one another.
But now, here in the story of Pentecost, that confusion of language and the strife between nations is overcome by the gift of the Holy Spirit. And Acts is telling us that it is the Spirit, prompting the proclamation of the gospel, that can overcome the brokenness of human community and our sinful inability to understand one another and live at peace. As Paul earlier put it, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, so you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). By the work of the Holy Spirit of Christ our warring madness can be overcome.
Second, the author of our text is certainly pointing to the fulfillment of Christ's promise to his followers. Christ has not left us desolate; he has come to us, as the Fourth Gospel would put it (John 14:18). He promised that if we would wait for him, he would send his Holy Spirit to be with us -- his abiding presence. And now to his fledgling church, he keeps that promise. The rushing wind and the tongues of fire are symbolic of the Spirit's presence.
But where do we receive the Holy Spirit? Has the gift been given to us, too? Yes indeed! When each of you was baptized, the water poured upon you was the outward symbol of that gift, and all of you now are recipients of the Spirit of your Lord Christ. The power of God in Christ has been given to every one of us and to this church's congregation.
That has tremendous implications. It means that we now are enabled to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth, obeying our Lord's command to go into all the world and to make disciples of all nations. We have been empowered, as were the first apostles and disciples, and as every Christian since has been empowered, to tell of the mighty acts of God -- not only through our missionaries, but individually, to our neighbors and families, our social circle and city, our state and our nation. And we become those witnesses, acting in the power of the Holy Spirit, not only by what we say, but also by what we do everyday -- in home and business, school, and social circles. "You are my witnesses," our Lord says to us, and we, in his Spirit, now have the power and the ability to fulfill that role. In the Spirit granted to us, we can live Christian lives and thereby witness to the world what God is able to do for all people.
Third, as our text proceeds, it is also clear that Luke intends this account of Pentecost to be the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Old Testament. The prophet Joel, back in the fifth century B.C., had proclaimed to Israel that the Day of the Lord was coming (cf. Joel 1:15; 2:1-2) -- that day when God would bring his last judgment upon all humankind, that day when the Lord would separate the sheep from the goats and do away with his enemies and take into his kingdom those who had been faithful to him (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). But before that fearful day came, Joel had promised, God would pour out his Spirit on young and old, and those of high and low estate, and all in the covenant people. But, the prophet announced, all who turned to God in faith and worship would be saved in the final judgment (cf. Joel 2:28-32).
That prophecy, proclaims Peter in our text, has now come to pass. God has put his Spirit upon the followers of Jesus Christ. But that means, you see, that the Day of the Lord still lies ahead of us in our history. We have been made recipients of the Holy Spirit. That is a foresign of the final end of our history, of the time when God will, indeed, come in judgment to separate the evil from the good, and give everlasting life to his own. How can we stand before that judgment? In Christ. Through our faith in the love of God in Jesus Christ, who has forgiven us and reconciled us to the Father, and, despite all of our sins and weakness, promised us eternal life in his good kingdom.
So this day of Pentecost brings us a wondrous fact, good Christians -- the fact that we have been given the Holy Spirit to enable us to be Christ's witnesses -- to take a gospel to all the world that can heal the nations, and that can offer to all persons everywhere their salvation in the final judgment.
