“Pentecost Power”
“Pentecost Power”
Acts 2:14, 36-41
Acts 2:14, 36-41
Back in the year 1900 there wasn’t much excitement in Beaumont, Texas. So the Sunday School class of Patillo Higgins loved it when their teacher would take them out of the classroom to a place called Spindle Top, a knoll south of town. Higgins had a passion for geology and his students would be fascinated by the eerie way the natural gas burned when he poked a small hole in the ground and lit a match. But Patillo Higgins also had a sense that where there was gas, there was also oil, and he wasn’t alone. In October of that year investors hired Jim and Curt Hamill to dig a well. Then on January 10, 1901, mud and debris shot into the air with an explosive roar followed by a geyser of oil more than twice the height of the derrick. Oil spewed out at a record 80,000 barrels a day and no one knew how to stop the flow. Nine days later the well was capped and Beaumont, Texas would never be the same.
Nor would Jerusalem or the nation of Israel after the Pentecost explosion described in Acts chapter 2, which would change the course of world history forever. Who would have guessed such a kaboom? No, in this matter hindsight would be better than foresight. It would take a sustained meditation of the Scriptures to gain an understanding of what precipated the upheaval that would cause the message of God’s grace to overflow into all the nations. A huge indicator arose eight hundred years previously when the prophet Joel promised a pouring out of God’s Spirit on the nation’s faithful that would enable their sons and daughters to prophesy. Then six hundred years prior, the prophet Ezekiel promised that water would flow out from Jerusalem, the navel, the belly of the earth, and become deeper and deeper - thus bringing life, fruitfulness, and healing wherever it went. However, it was Jesus Who took these understandings and brought about their ultimate fulfillment when He shouted out to a crowd of spiritually drained pilgrims:
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘out of his heart’ (literally, his belly or innermost being) shall flow rivers of living water.
Ultimately, it was Jesus Himself Who brought forth this living water from His cross where the love and grace of God would abundantly flow from His pierced Body bringing abundant life, fruitfulness, and healing to the nations. St. John went on to explain that Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit as the One Who would empower this process that those who believed in Him would later receive. Indeed, that’s exactly what happened two thousand years ago on the Pentecost of our lesson. It was like an explosion of a dam, but in this case, it was the bursting of God’s grace of new life as the 120 disciples manifested visible tongues of fire. Dynamically they spoke praises to God in languages they had never learned, and each of the Pentecost pilgrims from various language groups heard one specific voice among all the cacophony of sounds in their own specific dialect without headphones.
It was an outpouring of explosive power and most dramatically exhibited in Peter. Picture him in his sermon declaring that death was no match for Jesus and defying someone to challenge His claim. What an opportunity to destroy Christianity in its infancy. But no one defied Peter. No Pharisee objected. No soldier or cynic protested. No, instead people began to realize their mistake. The gravity of their crime settled over them. God came into their world and they killed Him. That was the thrust of Peter’s sermon. You killed God. You took Him and had evil men put Him to death. You, you, you. Imagine Peter pointing his finger and all the power in the moment. So much so that they are cut to the heart. “What shall we do? Is it too late?” No, they were now ready to receive the living water as Peter makes the invitation:
“Turn back to God. Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven. Then you will be given the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit – the sign of new life – born again of water and the Word. We now live after Pentecost – the Spirit has been poured out. Every single Christian receives the promise of the Father. It’s no longer for a particular people. We have the Holy Spirit’s explosive power within us now, which turned the world upside down back then. But have you noticed that unlike Christmas and Easter, Pentecost for most people today is a non-event that doesn’t even get on our secular calendars? The Holy Spirit worked transformative power in the early believers to make them exuberant messengers of the Good News, but what does that have to do with you today? Personally, have you thought much about the Holy Spirit in your life? How do you picture Him or visualize what He does? That’s been a challenge for me when I start thinking about it. Don’t we more easily picture God the Father with long white hair seated on the throne? Then for Jesus – don’t we all have a favorite image like that of the Good Shepherd or the bold rabbi who took some cords fashioned into a whip to chase out the money changers from the temple, or the fun-loving man at the wedding feast in Cana Who was willing to let His hair down and enjoy the wine and dancing? But what about the Holy Spirit Who dove-like hovered over the cosmos before the first day of creation? How do you picture in your mind the gathered Trinity? For most of us the Holy Spirit is a more difficult Being to personify. I once heard the explanation given by a college student:
As a child I first learned about the Spirit through Sunday School flannel-graph lessons. They portrayed Him as a miniature human being living deep inside our bodies. I still carry that image with me. The Spirit lives somewhere inside me, in my brain perhaps, or my heart. Like a janitor trapped inside a building, He gets my attention by banging on the pipes of my conscience or subconscience. If I ignore Him, He shrinks. If I attend to Him, He grows larger until He fills me.
Wasn’t that a good effort? It reminded me of the old movie, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. How best do you try to explain the One Jesus describes as the wind – an invisible Presence with no shape or form? We dare not ignore the Spirit Who made the dramatic appearance on earth at Pentecost with power to bring about transformation of the world back then. But it’s daunting! How can you believe in a God you cannot see? The Old Testament Israelites failed the task miserably! Israel repeatedly turned to pagan idols they could touch and see. They were looking for something more personal, and at Pentecost the Spirit took the word “personal” to a new level. No other religion makes such an extravagant claim: that the God of the universe exists not just as an external power we must obey, but as One living inside us. The God Who took on human flesh so that we could experience Him in our material world – Jesus at His incarnation – now takes on human flesh – our flesh. Christ within you – the hope of glory. He now lives within to transform you from inside out while opening a channel of direct correspondence to God.
With this in mind, how can we best visualize the Holy Spirit’s Presence in our lives? There’s a man named John Taylor who suggest it’s like hunting for your glasses. They’re my “cheaters” – non-prescription glasses that I have in the car, in the church, and at home in various places. It seems that I’m always looking for them, and I remember that it was my first meeting before I took an assignment at a church that the head elder was taking me home, and as I was about to get out of the car I said: “I don’t have my glasses.” He replied: “They’re on your forehead.” Good first impression! But John Taylor says that’s the way it is with the Spirit. Just as with my glasses, we don’t have to search. His function is like that of glasses or contacts for the purpose of increasing our spiritual awareness. The Spirit is what we perceive with rather than what we perceive – the One who opens our eyes to underlying spiritual realities.
So, it’s not so much as the Spirit touching our lives with a supernatural wand as it is bringing the recognition of God’s presence into places we have overlooked. The Spirit may bring a jolt of recognition to the most ordinary things. Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air, look at the flowers of the field.” He urged His hearers that in contemplating these creatures, it could reveal God’s care and reduce anxiety.
Suddenly the Spirit opens your eyes to underlying spiritual realities where God’s truth, promise, or Presence becomes very personal and applicable to your life. Jesus called the Spirit the Counselor because he makes God’s Word come alive with its logical implications. He brings to remembrance things from the past and you suddenly see God’s Hand in it all like an accident where you would otherwise be dead or meeting with someone that you thought was by chance, but then later recognized that God’s Hand was in it. The Spirit helps fill in the blanks for better understanding, balance, and a godly perspective on life. He convicts you of sin – what exactly it is (cosmic rebellion). What are the consequences (eternal judgment), what is righteousness – the way out through faith in Christ as Savior from sin. It’s the Spirit Who is right there working with us as we battle with anger, lust, pride, greed, and the need to apologize or forgive. The Spirit helps us break down addictive behaviors and so set us free in spirit. He empowers our faith to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God’s promises. He leads us to Jesus’ finished work at the cross and the promise: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” As the Spirit makes us aware of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness despite the rebel within us, the power of that love enables us to overcome the idols of money, possessions, and selfish desires. In this way the new nature arises over the old, and with it, the fruits of the Spirit – love for the unlovable, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control.
As I said at the beginning, just as things were never the same in Beaumont, Texas, neither would it be for Jerusalem, or, for that matter, the rest of the world or our personal lives. The Pentecost power of the Holy Spirit. He operates like glasses. He enables you to recognize things as God sees them. He increases your heart-felt awareness that God will use even evil to fulfill His great plan of triumph through the cross. In the meantime, the Spirit continues His work in progress to transform you into the nature of our Savior. It is a promise – He Who began this good work will bring it to completion. The Spirit of Jesus is the treasure of grace. Let Him do His work. Let grace trump your guilty conscience. Let it, Him, seep into your life, and flow through the cracks of your life. Let Him bubble up to the surface through words of kindness and deeds of generosity – steadily, stronger, through His grace upon grace.