Pentecost!

Acts 2:1-21

Today is the day we celebrate the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was one of the seven Jewish feasts which God called for the people of Israel to celebrate as part of their covenant which they made with God at Sinai. The festival of Pentecost was celebrated 50 days after feast of Passover. It was a harvest festival also known as the feast of weeks. The early believers who gathered following Christ’s resurrection and subsequent ascension gathered together that day just as all the other Jews had gathered. They came together to celebrate the grain Harvest that occurred at the beginning of the Summer and to give thanks to God for providing for them and to give to God the first fruits of the grain harvest. So it was for this reason, which the disciples had gathered all together on this particular day.
Before Jesus had ascended into Heaven, he told the Disciples to return to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit. On the day that Pentecost was being celebrated all over the Jewish world. The Disciples were gathered together in the upper room. Disciples ready and waiting. They had done exactly what Jesus had asked them to do. And then on the Day of the Feast of Pentecost there was a mighty rushing wind and tongues of fire and the Spirit of God came upon them all allowing them to speak the truth of Jesus Christ and God’s purpose and love for humanity shown through Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection and be heard in many languages.
This is not the first time God had used wind or fire as a way of speaking, or moving in this world. We first see the wind or breath; of God in the very first few verses of Genesis we find the wind of God moving over the surface the waters. The word used in the Old Testament for wind is the same word used for breath or Spirit. The Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the void and formless earth. The Spirit of God was there where God spoke through The Word and created all that was. The next time we find the wind, breath, Spirit of God in Genesis is in the creation of humanity. When God created the first human, God leaned down over the human and breathed life into that human. When God created us, God breathed God’s own Spirit into us giving us life, giving us breath. The wind of God is the Spirit of God moving and giving life to us all. Later in Ezekiel when God brings Ezekiel to the valley of the dry bones, it is the wind, the breath, the Spirit of God, which moves and brings the bones to life again. Where ever you see the wind of God, in the Old Testament, it is the Spirit of God moving and bringing life.
The Fire of God is also something which is seen throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis we see the power of God made manifest by the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We also see the power of God made manifest to Moses in the burning bush. It was also via a pillar of fire that God lead the people of Israel through the long dark nights of their exodus journey. When the kings men came and challenged Elijah, Elijah called down the fire of God to destroy them. When Ezekiel challenged the prophets of Baal it was through that the power of God came down and proved to all that the Lord God was the one and only true and living God.
On the day of Pentecost the early believers were gathered together and the sound of a mighty rushing was heard and tongues of fire were seen alighting above the heads of each of the believers. The Spirit came upon the early believers, breathing life into and giving power to the early church. When the Holy Spirit came upon the Church the Spirit came with the power and the life giving presence of God. The life giving breath and the power of God was given to the early church, enabling the early church to go out from the place they had gathered, speak the truth of Jesus Christ and share the love of God with those who were gathered in the streets of Jerusalem.
That is what happened, you know, when the Spirit came upon the believers of the early Church, they went out from that place and preached the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with all those in Jerusalem and a miracle occurred there in the streets. As if an indoor wind and floating flames of fire was not enough a miracle happened that day in the streets of Jerusalem was absolutely amazing.
The men and women who left that place that day and went into the streets of Jerusalem and preached and as each of them preached God did a miracle in and through them as each person who passed by that day, or gathered around to hear these men and women speak could hear the in his or her native language.
I have spoken brought up several Old Testament stories this morning; I am going to bring up one more. Early on there was just one language. But at one point humans decided to work together to try to build a tower, so they could reach up and touch God. They wanted to make themselves like God. They wanted to be gods. So God cause them all to speak different languages, so that they would not be able to communicate and they would have to give up work on this tower their tower of pride. And this is exactly what happened. God confused their languages; they were unable to communicate with one another and so they stopped work on the tower which came to be known as the tower of Babel.
What happened on Pentecost was a reversal of the confusion that happened at the tower of Babel. A unity that had not occurred before occurred and the message of the gospel was heard in all that languages of the people who were moving through the streets of Jerusalem that day. Because of the miracle that God worked in and among those early believers and 3000 people came to believe in Jesus Christ that day. The Church was born and because of all that, after some has passed, we are here today. Because of the miracle that occurred on the day of Pentecost nearly 2,000 years ago we are here in Cambridge, in a white building on Franklin Street.
We are here because of the events that happened on the day of Pentecost so long ago in more ways than it being the beginning of the church. But because of that first Pentecost experienced by those first Christians we know today that the presence and power of God is available to us. It means that as the Church God can do miracles in us, through us and among us. It means that we can continue to carry on the work that the Disciples began. We, the Church today, believers today are filled with the Spirit of God and are able to go in to all the earth sharing the love of God the truth of Christ’s teachings and making disciples in our Jerusalem, our Judea, our Samaria and to the ends of the Earth. In Cambridgeport, Cambridge, Boston, Massachusetts and the ends to the Earth
We too can have the breath of God fill us, make us new, help us live and grow, we too can have the power of God; we too can have the miracles of God done through us so that we are able to speak in ways that those outside of our walls can understand the truth of the Gospel and the love of God. We like those first disciples can flood out of this building filled with the Spirit of God and sharing the love of God with those whom we fin in the streets of our lives; in our neighborhood, at our work places, where we shop, with our neighbors, with our friends and our family.
But we need to begin as those early believers began, by waiting on God. The Spirit and the power of the spirit to love, to teach and to make disciples is not something that just came, but it came because they went back to Jerusalem and waited for God, waited for God to speak, waited for God to move. They waited on God. We have to wait on God, because Jesus told them to wait. But lets not fool ourselves they did not just sit around and do nothing during those days, they spent that time praying and calling on God. They listened for God to speak. Waiting on God does not mean sitting around waiting for God to do all the work. It means seeking him, his face, his will. It means praying, reading the scriptures, spending time doing this alone and together as a church. It means being ready for God to do what GOD will do.
When we are listening and seeking the face of God we are putting ourselves into a situation where we are allowing God to fill us with the presence and power of God. But we must begin by being open and ready for God to fill us; being open and ready for God to use us and allowing God to give you and me and each of us a vision of what God can do in us, in our church and in our world – through us.
Once we are filled with the Spirit of God we are filled with the power to go out and do the work of the Lord, to share God’s love, grace and forgiveness with all those whom meet. We are able to leave the upper room – this sanctuary, this church building and go flooding out from here, filled with power and the Spirit so that we are able to speak to our world in way s that make sense to them in words, in language and in actions that speak to them about the truths and the love of our God.
The face of the matter the work of the Church, to preach, teach and share the truth of Jesus Christ and God’s love for all of us is the work of the whole church. It not just the work of pastors, of learned individuals, of the leadership team, but it is the work of the entire church. All of us, each and every one of us are called to bring Jesus to this world. God’s desire is first and foremost for relationship with each of us, but also to fill the Church, to allow the Church to share the truth of God’s first desire with our world. The Spirit came that first Pentecost to enable God’s church to live, grow and to share the truth about God with their world and we continue to remember Pentecost today, so that we never forget that God continues to fill the Church with the Spirit so that we all may live, grow and share the truth of God with our world, so that Church can be the Church, so that the Church can live and grow.