Acts 2:1-41 "What Shall We Do?"

Today we're celebrating Pentecost. How many of you knew it was Pentecost when you got up this morning and thanked God for this special day? Pentecost is not celebrated like Christmas or Easter where we can see in our mind's eye what is happening because Jesus is physically present as a child or God raising him up from the grave. On Pentecost Jesus is also present, but not in a way we can physically see him, this is the day of his Spirit coming, the day of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is not a new festival; the Jews celebrated Pentecost 50 days after Passover to remember the gift of God's Law given to them at Sinai after they left Egypt and slavery. God gave them the Law to shape them into his people and into his image as a people distinct from the other nations of the world. It was one of the more popular festivals for the Jews to attend because it came at a good time of the year for traveling.

The disciples are all together in a house in Jerusalem because Jesus had told them to stay in Jerusalem. Luke writes in chapter 1, "On one occasion, while Jesus was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." While the disciples are all together, a sound like a violent wind blowing came from heaven and filled the house. In Greek and Hebrew, the words for wind, spirit and breath are the same. Because we live after this happened, we can translate this as, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind, spirit, or breath came from heaven." It fascinates me that they understood right away that this is a God thing, something coming from heaven.

Luke records that what looked like tongues of fire settled on each of their heads and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, immediately beginning to preach in various tongues or languages so that everyone around them could understand what they were saying. This is an echo back to the tower of Babel where God gave multiple languages to the people so they could not understand each other and would therefore spread across the earth. Now languages are given so everyone can understand the gospel news of Jesus Christ. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples feel compelled to move out into the streets to share the gospel message of Jesus Christ in the language of the people; so different from today where we keep the gospel message so often hidden inside the church because we are afraid to talk about Jesus wherever God has placed us.

There are always some who will mock the gospel story and the messengers, even the apostles are not immune to having this happen to them. Jesus made it a point to tell his followers that exactly this would happen, that it will even go beyond mocking at times right into persecution and even death for Jesus' sake. Mocking and criticizing is easy, listening and understanding is harder. Even in the church we are not immune to this. Often I hear Christians make fun of other Christian traditions because they might be quite different from how they worship or understand who God is. It is not unusual to hear Christians criticize others, even within their own church because they wish to do something different, wish to express their faith in a way that is not how it was done in the past, or exploring different Biblical images found in the Scripture and looking to see how these images of God might help us understand God better, or do some who wish to explore doings things in ways different from how it is presently being done. It's a shame that there is too often little grace found in churches who name themselves after Jesus who taught and modeled extreme grace. So we should not be surprised to hear that there are Jews who mock Peter and the other disciples as they preach the gospel news of Jesus.

Peter, the one who betrayed Jesus stands up and addresses the crowd. Jesus has forgiven Peter; it's amazing how forgiveness and grace can change a person. Peter now preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ; the good news that God has sent the Messiah, the saviour promised to Israel and it's the very man they had arranged to have executed by the Romans on a cross. this has all been talked about by their own prophets hundreds of years earlier already. Peter points to the prophet Joel, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy." This is the Spirit being poured out, the beginning of the last days, waiting for the return of Jesus while making disciples and inviting people to join them following Jesus.

For Peter, the proof that Jesus is the promised Messiah is found in the miracles, wonders and signs Jesus performed in front of them all, and yet they still killed him, just as it had been prophesied. However the good news is that God raised Jesus from the dead because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. This was,  and is all part of God's plan. Jesus is at the center of all this.

Peter uses the Hebrew scriptures to show how the prophets and the great King David had all pointed to Jesus and what was happening. All that happened and was going on, happened just as the prophets had pointed to, all under the guidance and will of God, from the death and resurrection of Jesus to what was happening with the Holy Spirit, "Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear." This is a God thing happening and the people can accept or reject it, but God is moving and inviting them to be part of what's coming. The gift Jesus had told them to wait for has come, the Holy Spirit. God is there with them again, now in the presence of the Holy Spirit while Jesus sits at the right hand of God, the place of power.

This gift has come on the day the Jews celebrate the giving of the Law, the tool God used to shape his people and now God has given the people the Holy Spirit to shape them into the people of God; into the family of God with God as our Father. The Law taught the people how to live with God and each other, the Holy Spirit now points us to Jesus who taught us how to live with God and each other, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself." The Law was given as a gift to teach the people about who God was, and now the Holy Spirit is given to the people as a gift to help them do as Jesus had commanded them, "Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

The Jews who were there that Pentecost heard the gospel message and many of them cut to the heart, hearing the truth in what Peter was preaching; they knew their Scriptures and how God has called them to live since Jesus simply summarized what God had been saying for thousands of years. They know they need to respond, they know that how they've done things in the past hasn't worked somehow, after-all, they had been part of the crucifixion of the promised Messiah and Lord. So the people ask, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 

The answer is simple, "Repent and be baptized, everyone one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins." Repent. A message going back to the prophets, it was John the Baptist's message and Jesus came with the message, "Repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is near." This is not a new message, but for the prophets, for John, for Jesus and now for the apostles, repentance is at the heart of being a disciple. But repentance is hard because you then have to admit that you have sinned and made God less and yourself more. Repenting means confessing that you have made something other than Jesus you Lord and master and turning back to Jesus. It's about turning to God and what he has done; it's not about what you can do, it's about what Jesus has already done.

Repenting is tied to forgiveness and forgiving; forgiveness from God of your sins and your forgiving others. And as Jesus teaches in Mark 11, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." Repenting is more than feeling bad, saying sorry and than doing exactly the same thing all over again; that's what my grandson does, but he's only 3. Repentance is about changing. Confess and change. Change your priorities, change your focus, change your values, change your lifestyle, change your habits and desires, change so that you line up with Jesus' teaching and life examples. Give up who you are and become who Jesus is commanding you to be. Stop looking in the mirror and look to Jesus and allow him to transform you. This is what the Holy Spirit has come to do that the Law was unable to do. And then while you are being transformed by the Holy Spirit, it becomes a joy to invite others to change with you and explore what that change needs to look like. This is making disciples, this is what Pentecost is all about.

Repentance is about humility, about putting Jesus first, putting his agenda for your life as your highest priority, humbling yourself to his plan for your life, to pursuing his kingdom rather than building your own. Humility gives the Holy Spirit space in your heart and life to begin the process of change within you, creating a deeper desire in you to be more like Jesus, working deliberately to imitate Jesus. Just as Jesus invited others to be his disciples, so the Holy Spirit is able to give you the wisdom and courage to invite others to become disciples along with you, investing in them, making them into disciples, teaching them to obey all that Jesus taught by showing them how to do this in your own life.

Pentecost is often seen as the birth of the church as we know it today, but Pentecost is about the acceptance of the gift of transformation from God. Just as the Law at Sinai was the beginning of the transformation of a slave people into a nation shaped by God, so Pentecost reminds us that God has given us the Holy Spirit in order to be transformed into a family or body made up of people from all nations and backgrounds to reveal to the world who God is. The Holy Spirit has a way of turning lives upside down in positive up building ways where your life begins to take on new meaning and purpose as the Spirit turns you more and more to Jesus and taking on Jesus' call to make disciples while becoming deeper more intimate disciples of Jesus yourself. I will never promise easy when it comes to following Jesus and accepting the challenge of the Holy Spirit to be transformed through repentance and transformation, but I can promise that your life will never be the same again.

So this Pentecost, repent and believe and accept the gift of the Holy Spirit. Keep your eyes on Jesus as his disciple and partner with the Holy Spirit to become a disciple maker for Jesus.