Pentecost 2002

Week of Monday, May 20, 2002

Since the early second century Christians have celebrated Pentecost as one of its three most important feast days of the entire year (along with Easter and Christmas), although if your primary Christian experience is not in a Catholic, Orthodox or mainline Protestant tradition it would be very easy not to know this. Perhaps we have a vague notion about Pentecostalism, that part of the Christian family (and the fastest growing part all around the world, for that matter) which speaks in tongues and wants you to speak in tongues too.¹ But Pentecost? What is that?

Pentecost takes its name from the Greek word pentekostos which means “fiftieth.” In the Old Testament, the Hebrews celebrated the Feast of Weeks on the fiftieth day after Passover (Exodus 34:22, Deuteronomy 16:10). For Christians, this same day of Pentecost marks the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the first believers as recorded in Acts 2. Jesus had instructed his followers not to leave Jerusalem until they had received the Spirit whom He had promised (Acts 1:4). In Luke's remarkable narrative, we read how a small band of 120 followers of Jesus were “constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14) together in an upper room . Suddenly the sounds of violent winds and the visions of tongues of fire fell upon them, and “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).

Judging from Paul's letters to the Corinthian believers, there was considerable debate among the earliest Christians about the nature and significance of speaking in tongues, and even more basically about what it means to be “spiritual” (Greek, pneumatikos) and to be filled with the Spirit (Greek, pneuma). And we know the unfortunate acrimony with which these same debates continue today among Christians. Further, just as back then, so too today people mocked the first Spirit-filled followers of Jesus, and even accused them of being drunk.

In addition to derision, the author Luke records another reaction on that first Christian Pentecost. He writes that some bystanders were amazed and perplexed, asking one another, “what does this mean?” (Acts 2:12). I have always loved this verse. I like to ask myself the same question: what does Pentecost mean for me today? What does it mean, what would it look like for me too to be filled with the Spirit? A few decades later, Paul, after all, commands all Christians to be continually and repeatedly filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

On the corporate level, Pentecost marks the birth of the church. When the crowds mocked the first Christians, Peter responded with a sermon, the result of which was that 3,000 people believed and were baptized (Acts 2:41). A few days later the number swelled to over 5,000 (Acts 4:4), and if you read the book of Acts carefully, you see how Luke repeatedly inserts summaries of the numeric growth and geographic expansion of the emerging church. In Acts 6:7 we read, “So the Word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” Or take Acts 9:31: “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.” Jesus, after all, had promised that Spirit-filling meant witnessing with power to his resurrection “in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Today, about a third of the world identifies itself as Christian, and no religion can claim more adherents.²

So, Spirit-filling means, first of all, that as a follower of Jesus I take my place among all those who have believed before me and who believe now. I willingly, gladly and gratefully take my place in the church and acknowledge my need for the help of other believers. I remind myself that the journey with Jesus is impossible on my own. There is no such thing as a lone ranger Christian. Now, if I view the church as a mere coincidental collection of like-minded people, then it is likely to have little significance for me. But if I view Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, and the formation of the Spirit's community of people, as a very calculated part of God's work of salvation in history, well, then, as John Calvin once said, “it is always disastrous to leave the church,” no matter what its faults (and do I not add to its faults by my own presence?!).³ Put in more theologically robust terms, just as in the Old Testament Israel was God's chosen people to carry out His plan for salvation in history, today the Spirit-filled church does the same.

On the personal or individual level, Jesus said that the ministry of the Spirit was “to bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 16:14). The Spirit is our teacher, guide or counselor who helps us to fully understand, follow and experience what it means to journey with Jesus. Here a bit of linguistic work is helpful. New Testament scholars struggle how to translate the word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit (paraklete). In its most literalistic sense a paraklete is “one called alongside to help.” If you check various translations, you catch a glimpse of the semantic range of this word, and, more importantly, just what it is that the Spirit wants to do in our lives. He is our Comforter, Counselor, Guide, Advocate, Mediator and Intercessor. I take special comfort that He does all of this even though He knows my many weaknesses (Romans 8:26). How fitting that Scripture portrays the Spirit as a gentle dove coming to us (Matthew 3:16).

In the Old Testament there is a fascinating passage about the work of the Spirit in the life of Israel's first king, Saul. We read in 1 Samuel 10:6 that when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul with power, “he was changed into another person.” Even so, I believe that the Spirit wants to make me into a new person, to renew and recreate me, to restore the fallen, distorted image of God that I now bear so imperfectly. Whatever gifts of the Spirit I might have, far more important are the fruits of the Spirit that He wants to impart to me: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22–23). I don't think there is any doubt that if I could but “keep in step” with the Spirit, as the NIV so nicely translates Galatians 5:25, then like King Saul of old I would be a radically changed person.

How does this happen? In the original passage about the first Pentecost, we catch an instructive glimpse of the early Christian community: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). Today we refer to these habits of life as “spiritual disciplines” and without them it is difficult to think about living and being truly Christian: instruction and study, community and accountability, then prayer. There are other disciplines, too, that wise Christians have found helpful, such as fasting, alms, meditation, the practice of solitude, finding a mentor and so on.⁴

So, what might I expect this side of heaven and final perfection should I live a life of the Spirit? Some Christians teach that we can become fully and entirely holy in this life. I wish I could say that this has been my experience, but more often than I would like to admit the opposite has been true. And I guess that when I read the New Testament epistles and learn about the life of the early church with all of its problems, I take some sort of perverse comfort. There you read about lawsuits, worldliness, petty factions, false teachings, personality struggles, immorality, disorder and fights about how to conduct the worship service, and on and on. But neither do I want to become what a friend of mine called a “functional deist.” The deists of the eighteenth century, you might remember, believed strongly that God exists, but for them He was an absentee landlord who never interacted with the world he created. God save us from low expectations.

My progress on the journey with Jesus feels slow, and it is rarely easy. Recall the justly famous allegory Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, and all its many plot twists. But by God's grace I want to be facing and heading in the right direction. This Pentecost, I invite you to pray an ancient prayer that I have always found inspiring. In A Century of Spiritual Texts, St. Theodoros (9th century?) records the prayer of Arsenios, a fifth-century desert father of Egypt: “My God, do not abandon me. I have done nothing good before Thee, but grant me, in Thy compassion, the power to make a start.”

The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself Copyright ©2002 by Dan Clendenin. All Rights Reserved.