Pentecost

This coming Sunday, May 19, is Pentecost Sunday on the Christian Calendar. The fifty days after Easter have quickly passed by and it seems impossible that we are already nearly two months beyond that great day of celebration in the family of God.

Acts 2 is the place in Scripture where many Christians will find themselves next Sunday. And what a great chapter it is! It is hard to determine what is most important in that chapter! From the coming of the Holy Spirit, to Peter’s sermon, the response of 3000 people who were baptized (perhaps just counting men), to the earliest description of what the earliest church looked like in 2:42 through the end of the chapter.

It interests me that prior to chapter two, the apostles – now back to twelve in number with the selection of Mathias – seem to be frightened men who wondered whether or not what happened to Jesus could very well happen to them. But something happened on Pentecost that changed them forever!

Luke’s story in Acts 2 suggests that each of them was out on the streets of Jesus preaching a message that could be summarized with “this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ.” In the “video that plays in my head” when I read this text, I would like to think that Peter was standing right under the corner window of the High Priest’s office, preaching his heart out.

But think about what is happening. These men have spent about 40 days interacting with the risen Christ. Yet in Acts 1:6-8, their last question to Jesus is “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Apparently, even 40 days with the risen Christ hasn’t broken through their cultural worldview that the Messiah was all about Israel, the political and geographical nation of which they were a part. 

But on Pentecost, they get it! They understand that the Messiah is all about redemption – the opportunity to make things right with God. They understand that even those who crucified the Son of God can repent and be baptized, having their sins forgiven and receiving the promised gift of the Spirit. 

What happened? If you read the story Luke tells carefully, it seems that the only observable thing that happened was the coming of the Spirit. When the Spirit comes, they finally understand what it means to be a witness to Jesus “in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.” That begins what is best understood to be Luke’s story of the Holy Spirit led movement of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome – a movement that will happen in a single generation in an age without all the opportunities we have in terms of communication, travel, and a whole host of other “modern conveniences.” Acts, if read as the narrative Luke intends it to be rather than an opportunity to proof-text all kinds of theological conclusions, is really an exciting story.

Apparently Jesus was serious when, in John 16, He promised that when the Spirit came, he would “convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.” And that idea is what makes Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 12 sensible when he reminds us that no one can confess that Jesus is Lord apart from the Spirit. 

I don’t want to sound “too charismatic” in the common misuse of that important biblical term, but the simple truth is that the Spirit was sent to bear witness of Jesus – and that witness is a convicting ministry to “the world.” Even though Luke’s description of the Spirit’s gift to the apostles at Pentecost seems to be a unique outpouring of the Spirit, the idea that we can transform the world without the Spirit’s convicting work borders on a kind of arrogance that is heresy. The right response to the abuse of the biblical doctrine of the Spirit and His ministry is not to pretend like He doesn’t exist, or if He does, He does so only in Scripture.

Perhaps on Pentecost Sunday, we might think a moment or two about our own desperate need of the Spirit’s ministry of conviction, regeneration, sanctification, and equipping for ministry. Who knows what would happen to the church if we did – we might write another Acts narrative!