Bulletin: 28 January 2018
The 50th day after the Sabbath of Passover week is known as Pentecost. This is also called the Feast of Weeks. It was a time for offerings and thanksgiving. In Jesus’ time, it was associated with the renewal of the covenant made with Moses. It is celebrated as the anniversary of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. It is divine timing that the events in this passage occurred on Pentecost – exactly 50 days after the perfect unblemished Lamb of God – Jesus – was sacrificed. Ten days after the ascension of the Risen Lamb of God – “he (Jesus) was taken up before their (disciples) very eyes”, – the New Covenant came into force in a dramatic way.
Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit – “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” – and the 120 disciples had gathered in anticipation in the Upper Room. They had known the presence of Jesus in the three years prior and during the forty days between his resurrection and ascension, and had no doubt been visited and taught by the risen Jesus. Now in the last ten days, they were all alone again and felt empty. They would have talked among themselves and reminded each other of what Jesus had said on multiple occasions earlier about the Holy Spirit in his teachings – “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16, 17). They were full of expectancy. They were hungry to be filled and their cups were ready to receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
As they waited as a Jesus’ community in prayer, a mighty rushing wind roared through the whole house and hit them like a huge gust. The Holy Spirit of God had come upon them! The Hebrew word for wind, “ruah”, is used to describe the Spirit of God (Ezekiel 37:9, 10). The Greek word is “pneuma” and is used for the Holy Spirit. Fire is a symbol of God’s presence as indicated with the Biblical recordings in Exodus of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3:2-4) and the consuming fire on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:17). This “tongues of fire” at Pentecost divided into separate flames and landed on each one of the disciples present in the room. The significance of this is the presence of God in the person of God the Holy Spirit in each individual disciple. The Holy Spirit now indwell the disciples in the Jesus community enabling them to be witnesses for Jesus “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. On the anniversary of the giving of the Law by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, God the Holy Spirit was given to this nascent group of 120 disciples of Jesus in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.
The manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s presence is a breaking out into different tongues (languages) as those gathered proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth in the languages of the day – “each of us (crowd) hears them (disciples) in our native language?” (Acts 2:8). The Holy Spirit brings new life in Jesus to the disciples of the Jesus community then and it brings new life to the disciples of the Jesus community – the Church – now. The Holy Spirit transform disciples and embolden them to be witnesses for Jesus for: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
