Today is Pentecost Sunday, also known as ‘the birthday of the church.’ But why is it called ‘Pentecost?’
If you think back to Holy Week, you may remember that Jesus’ death and resurrection happened right around Passover, arguably the largest and most significant Jewish festival – both then and now. But Passover is part of a larger story, and so it’s tied to another Jewish festival called Shavuot. Shavuot celebrates two things: the wheat harvest in ancient Israel, and the giving of the law, the Torah, at Mt. Sinai. After Passover, for seven weeks the people count each day, building anticipation for this celebration.
Because it comes on the 50th day after Passover, the Greek translation for Shavuot was Pentecost – which means 50th.
In the big story of the book of Acts, we’re picking up only ten days after the story we heard last week–Jesus’ ascension into heaven–and just after the 11 disciples (all those who were left after the death of Judas Iscariot) had voted to replace him with a man named Matthias.
These disciples and many others had gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate God’s gift of the Law, and that is where we meet them.
Scripture: Acts 2:1-31, 41-42
When the day of Pentecost had come, the apostles were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, like fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit,
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
The human brain is a fascinating thing, on many levels – but one of the things that fascinates me most is our primal need to find an explanation for the unexplainable. This is why conspiracy theories are so popular in times of turmoil – they give us something, anything, to cling to that would explain why this chaos is happening.
Something similar happens here. All of a sudden, in the middle of this huge festival, there is a loud noise and now there are at least twelve Galilean men and probably more standing there telling them stories about some guy the Romans killed a couple months ago.
But instead of their local Aramaic dialect with a Galilean accent, these guys are speaking languages they’ve never learned. Everyone gathered hears what they’re saying in the language of their hearts. The language they dream in.
And their initial explanation is: “ha, they must be drunk.”
It’s Peter who stands up—because of course it’s Peter.
Peter stands up and says: they’re not drunk.
This is what happens, he says, when God pours out God’s Spirit – like a hurricane or a wildfire, it cannot be contained. The Holy Spirit will spread to every corner, to every person, to every piece of our lives.
What we see on Pentecost is that the work of this Holy Spirit is not always ‘decently and in order,’ as Presbyterians tend like things. This Spirit defies all our attempts to explain and contain.
If you listen closely, you’ll notice that the writer of Acts keeps using the word ‘like’ – there was a sound LIKE the rushing of a violent wind. There were divided tongues, LIKE fire, that came to rest on each of the apostles.
The people are amazed, astonished, and perplexed. They are somehow both curious and dismissive.
But this is not the only time the appearance of the Holy Spirit has been so nebulous that we have to rely on similes and metaphors to explain what’s happening.
When Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends – LIKE a dove.
In Genesis 1, when God begins to create the heavens and the earth, Scripture says “the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
In Hebrew, the word for wind, breath, and spirit are all the same word: ruach. That ‘wind from God’ sweeping over the chaos of primordial waters could just as easily be translated ‘a spirit of God.’ Some translations, like the New American Standard Bible, just skip the formalities altogether and say “the Holy Spirit.”
A chapter later in the second creation story, when God breathes the breath of life into the humans God has created, it is this same ruach from God that gives life to Adam and Eve.
Also, fun fact: in Hebrew, ruach is grammatically feminine, so it is absolutely biblically accurate to call the Holy Spirit ‘she.’ (In Greek the word for spirit is grammatically neuter, which is why that word is often translated as ‘it.’, and to make things less confusing, Bible translations often carry that over to the Old Testament. So you have options.)
Each of you got a pinwheel as you came in today. Go ahead and grab yours, hold it toward you, and blow on it gently.
It moves because your breath is pushing on it, right? This tiny little gust of wind from our lungs is making something happen. Even though we can’t see the wind (it’s not cold enough right now to see our breath, thank goodness!), we can see its effects.
From wind to dove to fire to ‘maybe they’re just tipsy’, from the very beginning we have grasped at the things we know to try to explain the presence and work of the Holy Spirit.
We can’t see her, but in the same way that we feel the gentle breeze outside, that we see the birds coasting on the wind, that we hear the rustle of the leaves on the trees, that we see the destruction of high winds and tornadoes, that we see the pinwheels move with just the lightest touch of our breath—so we know that the Holy Spirit is alive and at work.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul outlines what he calls the ‘fruit of the Spirit.’ You can’t see the Spirit herself, working and mending and building up our hearts, but you can see the emotional skyline change after a while. You can’t see the Spirit, but you can see what happens when we build up our capacities for joy, patience, gentleness, peace, self-control, kindness, and love.
When Peter stands up to preach, he quotes the Old Testament prophet Joel, where God promises that one day, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all people – regardless of age, gender, social or financial status.
He says ‘this is what’s happening! The presence of God that was once reserved for kings, priests, and prophets is now loose in the world, and like the wind, nothing and no one will ever be able to fully contain her again.’
Precisely because of this, when we go looking for the Holy Spirit and her work in us and in the world, we are most likely to find her in the places we least expect.
Later in Acts, these same apostles have multiple encounters with people who by all of their standards, should not have encountered the Spirit of God: people like Roman military officers, Gentile tradespeople, pagan philosophers, and Ethiopian eunuchs.
Nevertheless, it becomes obvious to them that these people have been claimed and called by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, and so after much debate, they throw up their hands and say ‘what else is there to do, but welcome them warmly and fully into this community of faith?’
Much like the wind, our job is not to contain or explain or predict the actions of the Holy Spirit – but to extend last week’s metaphor, if we pay attention, if we can feel and see her work in our midst, then we can hoist the sails and catch a ride to wherever she’s going.
Thanks be to God.