Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA
Presented during Easter Season in 1995
Last week we listened to a reading from the gospel of Luke. It retold the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. And if you listened closely, you know that Jesus stopped before ascending and turned to his disciples. He blessed them and as he began his final charge to them, he began with the words, “You are witnesses.”
As he charged them with what he expected of them, he prefaced it all by declaring to the world and to them that they were his witnesses. This small group of disciples knew what happened. They had seen the signs. But most importantly, they had seen, touched, talked with and ate with the risen Christ. These followers of Jesus knew the truth. And now they were responsible to tell that truth. So, he said to them, “You are witnesses.”
This week we read the text from the book of Acts. As a follow up to Jesus’ charge before his ascension, we retell one of the most exciting events in Christian history. That is of the first Christian Pentecost. The meaning of Pentecost for Jews was to mark a seven-week period after Passover when God gave Moses the Law. For Christians, we celebrate it as the day Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit.
It begins with those witnesses hiding in a room in Jerusalem for fear of their lives. They were cowering behind locked doors for fear that the authorities would hunt them down and make every attempt to silence them from speaking out about this Jesus. But after the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the upper room and touched them with those tongues of fire, they became emboldened. Confident in what they believed they were able to walk out onto the streets and marketplaces of the city to tell the story of their witness to the risen Christ. And by the end of the day 3,000 people were baptized and came to believe in Jesus as God’s Messiah and that he had in fact risen conquering his death on the Cross.
Imagine if you will the disciples sharing the good news and telling of their witness and then 3,000 people responding by coming to the Lord. Imagine it and become excited about it. It is recorded for us by Luke in the book of Acts as part of our history as a young start up church.
Can you imagine something like that? The sight of people sharing their witness and then other people listening – being so moved by it that they stopped everything that their lives were about and turned in another direction to believe in the Christ and to follow Jesus?
I experienced something like that many years ago when I attended a Promise Keepers event at Shea Stadium in NYC. After two days of witness, song and praise to the Lord, late on the second day, a speaker called to the more than 50,000 men gathered in the stadium and asked those who had not already to come down and dedicate their lives to Jesus. Come on down and stand here in front of the stage and before your brothers in faith and bow yourselves to Jesus.
It was a chilling and a most moving moment. I watched as waves of bodies rose up out of their seats and began flowing down the isles and ramps of the stadium down on to the playing field at Shea. And as the tide of men and boys flooded the area in front of the stage the speaker called to them to give their lives to Jesus. He prayed over them and blessed them and all of us looking on. Tears were running from my eyes. It was the most spiritually amazing thing I had ever seen – to witness what was possible when the Holy Spirit moves people of courage to tell their witness. I saw what was possible when the Holy Spirit moves people to respond to God’s call.
Awesome!
And that was only a little bit of what it must have been like on the first Pentecost Sunday.
Imagine first to be hiding for fear of your lives – of being arrested and stoned to death like Stephen. In a somewhat similar way, we are hesitant to share our witness because –you know- its personal – not something we would want to get up on a soapbox and speak out about. But imagine overcoming not only that but a fear of execution, too; and then walking out boldly in public and professing what you believe in. Well, that’s what the Holy Spirit can do to you.
On that first Pentecost day, the Holy Spirit – the great enabler, the great encourager, the great counselor came to the people hiding in that upper room in Jerusalem and filled them with the confidence their faith, that their witness was true. It put the words in their mouths and sent them rushing out on to the street to share all that with anyone and everyone that they met.
And as they walked out into the street of Jerusalem, they began to speak out to the people that they encountered. And it didn’t matter whether they were Greek or Roman, Arab to Egyptian everyone understood what being said in their own languages. It was a miracle of Faith. I’m not going to try to give you an explanation of how that happened other than to say that the message of the risen Christ is a universal one. One that needs to be shared with all people of all nations. The Holy Spirit spoke the words universally through the mouths of the disciples. The message is meant for all. To all, it is spoken. And by all it needs to be heard.
On that day, critics of what was happening said that the disciples and the rest of the faithful were drunk. But Peter, Simon – the Rock [the same failed man who denied Jesus before his execution], came forward and spoke in their defense. No, they are not drunk because it is only 9 am. No, these people are filled with the Holy Spirit of God and what they speak is true witness that Jesus is the Christ. They are saying that although he was crucified, he is not dead. They are saying that although he was buried, God has raised him up. They are saying that he lives, and they are saying we are witnesses to the fact that he is alive. We saw him with our own eyes.
And they told the story of their witness with enthusiasm and fervor. And the result was on that first day 3,000 people came to the Lord.
Awesome!
Can you imagine how excited Peter and the rest of those first witnesses were to see the results of their efforts as wave upon wave of people came and bowed down to accept Jesus and to be baptized.
Now this Sunday we celebrate again that first Christian Pentecost. We celebrate it as a great mystery and miracle of our faith. But if that is all we do, we will never experience its true meaning – and this is my fear – we are complacent and settle to celebrate it as a date in our church history. We celebrate that it happened. But we don’t celebrate that it is happening. We don’t participate in it. We hang banners. We begrudgingly wear red to signify our being touched by the Spirit when the truth be known we prefer that pastors and sessions didn’t come up with these corny ideas in the first place. Why can’t we just come to church and worship in peace and quiet without being bothered by all this hoopla.
Well, if the truth be known, Christian faith and witness is not supposed to be peaceful or quiet. Jesus told us that faith in him would be difficult. It would split up families. It would set father against son and mother against daughter.
He told us that it would take great courage to be a follower of the Christ.
But the Holy Spirit – yes, that spirit of God that was to be our guide and protector, revealer and encourager – would fill us with a burning fire that would burn off our iniquities and that would refine us into pure spiritual gold empowering us to make difficult choices. Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would fill us with the knowledge and courage of our faith and enable us to walk out and witness. Jesus said don’t worry about the words. I will put the words in your mouth. All we need to do is let the Spirit take control and go where it leads us.
So, now the question I ask this Pentecost Sunday is how will we live out the call of the Spirit this Sunday and throughout our lives? What must we do in order to live Pentecost rather than just celebrate as a day on the church calendar? We can remain behind locked doors sheltered in our upper rooms, or we can submit to the Spirit’s calling and ask God to breathe that Spirit into our hearts, to light a fire in our souls so that we can be cleansed and filled. So that we can step out to be his witnesses. To tell the story of God’s steadfast love and God’s promises to heal the rift between our sin and God’s righteousness and bring all of Creation back into Shalom with God and that the risen Christ has fulfilled those promises.
