A New Pentecost: Acts 2:1-21 - Pentecost Sunday

¹When the day of Pentecost had come, [the apostles] were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
  ⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
  ¹⁴But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
 ¹⁷‘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.
 ¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
  in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
   and they shall prophesy.
 ¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above
  and signs on the earth below,
   blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
 ²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness
  and the moon to blood,
   before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
 ²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ” (NRSV)

John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

As a Christian, I would argue that “God is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Time and time again, throughout Scripture, we witness God showing up and doing the unexpected. Today’s first reading from Acts is no exception. 

It’s fifty days after the Passover, and God’s people are celebrating Pentecost, which is also known as the Feast of Weeks—a time of thanksgiving to God for the first-fruits of the wheat harvest.

Jesus’s disciples are in Jerusalem staying as guests in someone’s house. Suddenly, a violent wind from heaven comes and fills the whole house—like tornado or a hurricane. Immediately, the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other tongues. 

Meanwhile, the city is full of pilgrims who traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles by land and sea to celebrate the festival. Suddenly, they hear God’s Word spoken in their own native tongue. 

What I want to know is: what words were being spoken? What was so compelling that thousands came to faith? 

Surely, they heard about Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, who was crucified, died, and raised from the dead. That is, of course, the very core of our Christian faith. But if you stopped a random stranger on the street and spoke those exact words, I doubt very much that they’d immediately convert. The neighbor simply isn’t that interested what you believe.

There must be something greater; something more to what was spoken at Pentecost.

Consider this: most people could neither read nor write back then. The “foreigners” were Jews as much as anyone else, but they likely spoke little if no Hebrew or Aramaic, which most Jews (including Jesus) spoke. 

Suddenly, you hear something you had never heard before: words and language which communicate the gracious, compassionate, unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ. It does not matter to God that you’re a “foreigner,” or that you weren’t born into the Jewish faith. This kind of radical acceptance and inclusion was nowhere else to be found in the world.

How many of these persons had been taught that it was up to them to make themselves right with God by offering up the proper sacrifices? Now, they hear that God’s action in Jesus Christ makes them right with God! That forgiveness a gift, freely offered, with no strings attached…

How many of these persons had been told all their lives that their pain and suffering were punishments from God? And now they hear that Jesus Christ bore his cross in solidarity with suffering, persecuted, helpless people?

Where once there was distance and alienation, there is now love, relationship, and community. the fires of God’s gracious, compassionate, all-consuming love are turned loose upon the world. And it’s no accident that the Pentecost event ends with a sharing: people giving generously of their abundance so that no one is in need. This is what Pentecost is all about. 

So why did some people dismiss God’s activity as drunken revelry? They heard what everyone else heard… Why wasn’t it good news?

I believe it was because they had too much to lose. Believing the Gospel would have cost them their power and privilege. It meant admitting to the world that what they had spoken as truth was not true. That all their achievements, their power, and their holiness did not put them on higher standing over the poor, the outcasts, and the sinners. 

We are mistaken if we think that same resistance to the Gospel does not exist inside our own hearts. It does. The world has so much to offer. The lies are so easy to believe: that money buys happiness; that your personal worth is defined by the sum of all your achievements; that greed is good, and winning is all that matters…

Can radical love and unconditional forgiveness really conquer evil? Can you really trust God to carry you through this impossibly hard time? To forgive you when you know the depth of your sin? 

We need a new Pentecost, dear Church. The world is hurting, the neighbor is hungry, and we are broken and discouraged. We need the Spirit, who rides the winds of change, to rouse us up from sleep, to shake us free from fear, to bring resurrection and rebirth out of all the death and decay we live with every day. 

The good news is that God’s love for you is a consuming fire. What happened at Pentecost is still happening now: God is so eager to be in loving relationship with people, that God will give people the power and ability through the Holy Spirit to do the impossible. 

Your challenge and mine is to be ready and willing to speak, to act, and to share. When God’s radical and unconditional love bind us together in relationship, God becomes both real and visible. When your heart breaks for the struggles and suffering of your neighbors, you will feel the Spirit raising you up to do whatever you can do to show them just how much they matter to God. The Spirit will give you language to raise them up into new life. 

God is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. There is no question: God is going to show up, and do the unexpected, to love God’s people.