The Gift - Acts 2:1-13

Last week we focused on Ascension Day when Jesus returned to claim the throne as King of kings and to send the promised gift of his Spirit. This morning, we remember and celebrate the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has returned home and told his disciples to go wait for the coming of his Spirit. The disciples go from Galilee and head to Jerusalem. It’s Pentecost, the big harvest festival 50 days after Passover, which is why it’s called Pentecost, which means 50. The disciples go to Jerusalem as Jesus had told them, “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…. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The coming of the Holy Spirit is connected to the harvest, reminding us of Jesus’ comment that the fields are white with harvest, just needing workers.

The Holy Spirit comes with the sound of a rushing wind. For Israel, the wind is a familiar symbol of the presence of the Holy Spirit. In Ezekiel 37 we read of the Valley of Dry Bones, “The Spirit of the Lord set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones…. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones…. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; … So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army….”

The Lord goes on, “you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’” The Lord uses word play here as the word for wind, breath, and Spirit are all the same word. In John 20, when Jesus met his disciples in the upper room right after his resurrection, Jesus breaths on his disciples, “And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” The Holy Spirit is God, a gift and presence, bringing new life and new hope, a sign of forgiveness.

Luke writes, “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” This is another play on words, the word for tongues and languages are the same, similar to English; an echo back to the Tower of Babel when the people’s languages are confused because they’re building a “tower that reaches the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” The Lord responds, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” The Holy Spirit now gives them the ability to communicate in order to gather all people together into the body of Jesus. The new church is equipped through the Holy Spirit to go to the nations to share the gospel news: the “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.”

The Heidelberg Catechism talks about the work of the Holy Spirit in gathering together the church in Question and Answer 54, “I believe that the Son of God through his Spirit and Word, out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life and united in true faith. And of this community I am and always will be a living member.” The wonderful thing is that the Holy Spirit uses and equips us to gathering God’s chosen community as we share our faith in Jesus with others and live out that chosen-ness in our day-to-day lives. This is all part of what God promised Abram back in Genesis 12 when he says he’ll make Abram a blessing to all the nations of the world. God does this through Jesus, and now through us, the body of Jesus in the world. What greater blessing is there today than to introduce people to Jesus and all that he’s done for us in washing our sin away on the cross, bringing us healing from our brokenness and pain. We often look to the things of the world to find hope, healing, and meaning, and yet through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we don’t need to look outside ourselves for healing or hope, the Spirit within us brings us what we need, a renewed relationship with God.

I love how Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit points us to telling others about Jesus and building the kingdom of heaven. However, the coming of the Holy Spirit isn’t just about sharing the gospel; the Holy Spirit’s also given to strengthen the church and guide us into a closer relationship with Jesus. Derek Vreeland reminds us, “The church is not merely a gathering of the baptized to be scattered in the world. The church is a gathering of the baptized energized with the Spirit and then given to the world.” The church as the body of Jesus is a gift to the world, that gives the world a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven, of God’s shaping of a body that lives together, loves, forgives and offers grace, and invests in each other so we might become more and more who God calls us to be. 

Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 55 asks, “What do you understand by “the communion of saints?” The answer is, “First, that believers one and all, as members of this community, share in Christ and in all his treasures and gifts. Second, that each member should consider it a duty to use these gifts readily and joyfully for the service and enrichment of the other members.” To be a church that goes out into the world with the good news of Jesus, we need to be healthy together as we bring the healing hope-filled message of Jesus that brings new life. The Belgic Confession picks up on this in Article 24, “We believe that this true faith, produced in us by the hearing of God’s Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates us and makes us new creatures, causing us to live a new life and freeing us from the slavery of sin.”

This is the heart of the good news of Jesus, it’s not that we’ll never face trouble or hard times, it’s that we’re freed from the slavery of sin; freed from the lie that we need to save ourselves, or that our value comes from what we do and offer; our value comes from being made new through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our sin, washing us clean from our sin, and being adopted into the family of God and body of Jesus. Paul writes in Galatians 3, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

What does it mean to be a healthy church able to reach our neighbours with the good news of Jesus? The early church gives us some good insights into what a solid foundation looks like, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer... praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Learning together, hospitality and friendship, generosity and compassionate care for each other, worship of God, and generously sharing our faith are always at the heart of a strong church and this leads to a church well-equipped to build the kingdom of heaven through the gift and power of the Holy Spirit.