2026 05 24 Pentecost Year A
Acts 2.1-21 Psalm 104.26-36 1 Corinthians 12.1-13 John 20.19-23
THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!
The feast of Pentecost! and Christians are celebrating the coming of the
Holy Spirit. Also, the Jewish people are
celebrating the feast of Pentecost, but it means something different to them. Fifty days ago the Jewish people celebrated
the Passover which coincided with our Good Friday and Easter. The Jewish festivals are prophetic
announcements of God at work. They teach
us what God has done, is doing and will do. So... what does the Jewish understanding of Pentecost teach us?
At Passover, the Jewish people remembered that God saved
them from slavery in Egypt and saved them from death by the blood of the
lamb. We celebrated at the same time,
that God saved us from spiritual death and separation from God by the blood of
the lamb of God, Jesus. After Passover,
the Jewish people count of 7 Sabbaths (just as we have had Easter 1, then 2,
etc and last week was Easter 7), and then they were commanded by God to offer
their first fruits of the harvest. This
time period between Passover and Pentecost is also considered the time of being
led by God in the desert and the giving of God’s holy law. It is a feast of the Law and of the harvest.
Jesus had told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the
Holy Spirit. They were there at his
command, just 50 days after the crowd had crucified their leader, Jesus. They spent the time in prayer, and they were
altogether in one place when they heard a rush of wind from heaven. To these Jewish followers of Jesus there was
something happening here that they immediately understood, because they were
Jewish. One of those things is the Jewish
tradition that had been taught that when God gave the law at Mount Sinai, God’s
voice was divided into seven voices and heard in various languages. God was present!
Also…. There is something very significant about the
wind. The wind is reminiscent of Genesis
1 when the Spirit hovered over the waters.
The same word is used here in Acts, as was used in Genesis, and as was
used in the book of Ezekiel when he prophecies the breath of God to bring life
to the dry bones. If you were at our
Bible study a couple of weeks ago, you might have some insight also into the
Gospel account we read today, where Jesus breathes on his followers and says,
“Receive the Holy Spirit”. It seems
mysterious that Jesus should say this to his followers, breathe on them and
then tell them to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
There is this thing in the Bible, loosely coined by one
commentator, as the law of first mention.
To understand many things in the Bible, we need to see where it is first
mentioned. Do you recall the first time
someone breathed the spirit of God? It
was in the Garden of Eden when God created man. This was before the fall. God had made all the living creatures, but it
was only mankind upon which God specifically breathed His spirit and scripture
tells us, that mankind became a living being.
This “living” is different from the normal earthly living. This “Living” was eternal. God’s Holy Spirit was breathed in us…. We did
not just have the breath of life in us as every other creature, but we had
something particular of God. But then
came the fall. God said we would
die. Did we die or didn’t we? Some read the story and say, “Adam and Eve
didn’t die”….. not straight away. It
wasn’t the normal life that died that day, it was the eternal spiritual life
that died.
Jesus breathed on his followers and said, “Receive the
Holy Spirit." It is a commission,
but it is also a re-creation. Through
Jesus breathing his Holy Spirit, His followers have His Holy and eternal spirit,
and we are restored to eternal life. His followers are also commissioned, “If you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any,
they are retained”. You might remember
that only God can forgive sin, so what is going on with this?
The disciples of a rabbi are like the student of a great
lecturer…. They are learners. However,
in the Jewish tradition of rabbis and disciples, the disciples live with the
rabbi and do what he does. Jesus
breathes on his followers and commissions them to live as him – his body on
earth. This includes declaring the
forgiveness of sins to those who accept the Gospel. Sins are all forgiven through the sacrifice
of Christ. On this side of the cross it
is simply a declaration of the truth – but also an acknowledgement that, for
those who reject the sacrifice of Jesus, their sins are retained. This is the message of the Gospel. The disciples were sent to continue the work,
with the authority of Jesus.
So why, after this re-creation and restoration and
commissioning did the disciples need to receive the Holy Spirit to the extent
that was witnessed at the feast of Pentecost?
My guess is that they needed it.
My guess is that a restoration is never going to prevent us from going
down the same path as the original creation in the garden of Eden. This “new creation” and restoration, needed
to be different from the first. Jesus
died for our sin so that we could be renewed and restored, and when we fail
again – as we will, we look to cross and find grace to be forgiven, restored
and renewed – again and again…. But it is obvious we need another helper…. For
everything. Enter the Holy Spirit of
Pentecost.
Jesus is Lord!
Anyone can say it, but we are told no one can say it unless they have
the Holy Spirit. In the original
language and culture into which these words were spoken, words and actions were
not separate. What does it mean to say, “Jesus
is Lord”? In the Hebrew this would be
“Yeshua Adonai” – Yeshua is Jesus and Adonai means master, however, it is also the
reverent way of addressing God. In other
words; Jesus is God! This is a
declaration of the divine nature of Jesus – one of those difficult to grasp
aspects of the trinity, and yet we are told no one can say this unless by the
Holy Spirit of God. More than that, it
is a declaration that as Jesus or God is master, we defer to him, follow his
lead – trust and obey. Accept Jesus as
God, and accept God as our Lord and master, we’ve never been very good at
this. We need the Holy Spirit and all
the power that it has to offer which is the very power of God.
God always respects our free will and will not override
our free will. Therefore, we need to
willingly “say” Jesus is Lord, and commit to having God as our master, allowing
him to give us the Holy Spirit. Notice
that age doesn’t disqualify you. Old men
will dream dreams. A dream implies
desiring and working toward something for the future. The Holy Spirit turns what you thought about
life, completely upside down. The Holy
Spirit brings equality because the Spirit is poured out on ALL.
The Jewish feast of Pentecost is a harvest festival and
when the Holy Spirit came there was a great harvest of souls. Many people became followers of Jesus. Do we
need the Holy Spirit to come again pouring out those gifts on the followers of
Jesus? If those taught by Jesus himself,
who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection, needed the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, I’m pretty sure that we do too.
Receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit is up to us. God said he will pour out His Spirit on ALL
FLESH – that means us! Will we say,
“YES – Thank you Jesus”? What that means
is saying, “Yes” to whatever of those spiritual gifts he might wish to give
you. Are you willingly to accept
whatever gift the Spirit brings?
Today we have the opportunity to say, “Jesus is
Lord”! and in doing so, say yes to all
that Jesus wants to pour out on us through His Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit.
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