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Over the last fifty days, we have celebrated the risen Christ. We have heard about many of the encounters that different disciples had with the risen body of Jesus. During these encounters, Jesus spoke again of many of the things he had taught to the disciples before his death. These encounters filled the disciples with new life, encouraging them and enlivening them to both continue the work he had started with them as well as to enter into new ministries in the world.
Before he ascended to heaven, Jesus promised them that he would send to them the Holy Spirit who would dwell within them and continue to guide them.
So here we are, fifty days after Easter on the day of Pentecost. Now the word Pentecost comes to us from Greek and translates more or less literally as fiftieth. Originally, this Greek word was used to refer to a Jewish festival, the Feast of Weeks, that occurs fifty days after the start of Passover, or (as the Hebrew people understood it) a week of weeks after Passover. So when our text today tells us that they were all together on Pentecost day, this is what it means. It was the fiftieth day since the Passover, and, as observant Jews, they were all together to celebrate the holy day. This holiday is a combined celebration of the wheat harvest as well as the day observed as the day that God gave the law to Israel.
Due to the story we read today, we in the Christian tradition now observe Pentecost in the church. However, instead of celebrating it as the day God gave the Torah to Israel, we celebrate the day that God gave the Holy Spirit to all people.
And so, the disciples were all together in one place when the house was filled with wind and individual tongues of flame alighted on each of them. From that moment as they spoke, the others gathered there in Jerusalem for the festival were able to understand the disciples each in their native languages. The Jews and converts gathered in Jerusalem were from all over the Empire. And yet they could all understand the disciples as they told of the mighty works of God.
This refers us back to another story from the Hebrew scriptures, the story of the tower of Babel. In that story, people tried to build a tower that would reach all the way up to heaven and make them equal to God. Instead, God mixed up their languages so that they could not easily understand each other and scattered them across the globe.
But here in our story today, we see that story reversed. People from all over the globe are gathered, and they can all understand the disciples. And all this not because the disciples were trying to ascend to God, but because God descended to them, alighting on them in tongues of flame.
Can you imagine how terrifying this must have been for the disciples? After all they have been through over the past two months, a fierce, howling wind blows through the house they are in and then they see tongues of fire descending on each other. Try to imagine what that would be like for us today. What if we were gathered here in this place to celebrate and suddenly the space was filled with wind and sound and tongues of fire? I suspect we would all be running for the nearest exit.
And perhaps that is what the disciples did for the very next section of the text tells us that others heard the sound and gathered around the disciples. No longer in the house, the disciples are now out in public. The people that gathered around could hear the disciples in their own languages and were understandably confused. It would be one thing for a few people to understand the disciples in their native languages. But for everyone to understand them? There were probably more languages represented than there were disciples present. So how is it possible?
So there was surprise and confusion even though at least a few of those present just laughed it off as a drunken display. And why not? At least some of those present surely knew who these men were and all that had happened in the last few weeks. They knew these men had followed Jesus, knew Jesus had been executed as an enemy of the state, and had probably heard the wild stories the disciples had been telling about Jesus raised from the dead. No matter what Peter says about it being impossible for the disciples to be drunk because it is only 9:00 in the morning, it is unsurprising that some might think the disciples are constantly drunk as a way of explaining the outrageous stories they are telling.
But then Peter quotes the prophet Joel as a way to explain what is happening. This is not drunkenness, but the work of the Spirit as promised by God through the prophet Joel and by Jesus to his disciples. This is the day on which God’s spirit is poured out on men and women, young and old, free and enslaved. All have a place in God’s kingdom and all have a role to play. Diversity is no longer an excuse for separation; diversity is what brings the people together. They each hear in their own languages, but they all hear the same stories, stories of God’s mighty acts in the world and the good news of God’s relationship with all people as revealed in Jesus.
I keep trying to imagine what that was like. The rushing wind, the tongues of fire, the sudden ability to understand one another no matter what language was being spoken. As they realized what was happening, I am sure the disciples became more and more excited. The energy in that place would have been amazing. They would have recognized the same energy they had felt in the presence of Jesus, particularly in their recent encounters with him after the resurrection.
But I think it is hard for us to imagine what that was like. It is hard because sometimes we think God no longer appears in the same ways, that these stories are all in the past. We sometimes forget that the Holy Spirit is still moving among us today. God didn’t stop showing up 2000 years ago. The story didn’t end on Good Friday or on Easter or on that first Pentecost. The story didn’t end with Peter or Paul or any of their immediate followers or even their followers followers. After that day of Pentecost the disciples spread throughout the known world, gathering other followers throughout the Empire and beyond. Followers of Jesus spread out from Jerusalem throughout northern Africa, southern Asia, and into Europe. And the story still continues today.
We look back today on that first Pentecost as the birth of the church, the day that Christianity as something distinct from its Jewish roots was born. I think we sometimes like to look at this as a natural progression, but when we do we miss how truly radical this shift was for those early followers. Those that had been with Jesus were all Jews. They did their best to keep to the law and observe the holy days and festivals. They weren’t trying to start something new. They were trying to learn how to be better followers of God's ways.
But on Pentecost the Holy Spirit breaks in with something new. And as observant Jews, they would have recognized all the nuances at play here. Peter points to the prophet Joel. We have the reversal of the Babel story. We have the sound and the wind from the appearance of God to Elijah. We have the Spirit descending on the same day they were gathered to observe the gift of the Torah from God.
And we cannot forget the fire. A pillar of fire led the Hebrew people through the wilderness. And fire figures into several call stories in the Hebrew scriptures, especially fire which does not consume. Fire is part of the appearance of God to Elijah. An angel touches a burning coal to Isaiah’s lips. And Moses is called to lead the Hebrew people to freedom by a burning bush.
Though the reversal of the curse of Babel is most often touched on in relation to Pentecost, it is the burning bush that came to mind for me as I prepared these last couple of weeks. Moses who was watching his father-in-law’s sheep. Moses who was content in the life he had found for himself after fleeing the Pharaoh's household. Moses who wanted nothing more than to hide away from any prying eyes and live simply for the rest of his days. Moses sees a bush that burns without being consumed. He approaches and is told to remove his shoes for he is walking on holy ground. And then God speaks to Moses from that bush and places Moses on the path that he will follow for the rest of his life.
It is this same fire that descended on the disciples that day in Jerusalem. It was a fire that did not consume them. It was a fire that called them and set them on the path that each of them would follow for the rest of their lives.
And it is this same fire that empowers and enlivens us today. It is a fire that does not consume us, but one which calls us to follow Jesus for the rest of our days. It is a fire that leads us and shows us the way.
And just as the Holy Spirit led the disciples in new directions, the Holy Spirit can still lead us in new directions today.
So what about you? Where have you felt the Spirit still at work in your life? What has the Holy Spirit empowered you to do to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ here in the world today?
The Holy Spirit is present with us, here, now, today. This Spirit burns with holy fire, a fire that gives energy but does not consume. This Spirit guides us, leads us, sends us forth in service to the word.
Are we ready?
Are we ready to go where the Spirit moves us to go?
Let us go together.