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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I’m sure you’ve had the wonderful experience of an anticipated ARRIVAL. Perhaps you waited at an airport or train station and finally your loved one appeared with other weary travelers. Or maybe you waited for a check that was promised to be in the mail. Of course, pregnancy is all about waiting and the wonderful arrival of a new baby. Life is filled with waiting and arrivals so today let’s look at one of the most significant arrivals of all time. It has probably touched your life in a big way!!
I left you yesterday with the disciples and friends of Jesus waiting in Jerusalem about 2000 years ago. They were waiting for something they really couldn’t describe, nor did they know exactly how it would happen! Jesus had told His disciples to “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.” (Acts 1:4,5)
Shortly after He said this, Jesus was taken up into the sky and disappeared into the clouds, in full view of His disciples! (Acts 1:9-11) Angels appeared informing the disciples Jesus had returned to heaven and the disciples should get on with life! So, they returned to Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives, and together with Jesus’ friends, they waited.
For 10 days they waited… and while they waited Jerusalem filled up with pilgrims again. Why? This time Jewish pilgrims came to Jerusalem for ‘Shavuot’, also known as “Pentecost“. 50 days after ‘Passover’ Jews gathered this time for the festival which celebrated two major things in Israel: First, God’s faithful provision of crops which fed His people. In Exodus 23:16 God instructed His people to: “Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your fields.”
But also “Shavuot” celebrated the unique experience of the Jewish people receiving directly from God His Covenant, the Commandments of God for Israel, while they were at Mount Sinai. Exodus 19 gives us the account of Moses gathering the people, who had been delivered from Egyptian slavery, at the base of Mount Sinai, and God speaking His Commandments to them audibly, for all to hear. Moses recorded those 10 Commandments in Exodus 20. Do you see my friends that ‘Shavuot’ celebrates God providing His people BOTH the spiritual food for living God honoring lives and the physical food for survival?
Jesus had told His disciples that after He left them, He would ask God the Father and the Holy Spirit would be sent to them to live WITH them and IN them, providing the daily spiritual guidance they would need to live the God honoring lives of purpose as Jesus had instructed them. (John 14:16,17,26; 16:13 & Acts 1:8)
Acts 2:1-11 gives us the record of the arrival of the Holy Spirit in great power. For 10 days they had waited and suddenly “a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the house…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 (languages) as the Holy Spirit enabled them.”(Acts 2:2-4)
Now we’ve all experienced a violent windstorm so we can imagine that sound, and we’ve all seen things being burned so it’s not hard to imagine what ‘tongues’ of fire looked like to them. But tongues of fire on people’s heads without their hair catching fire? And we’ve all heard people from other countries talking in their languages that we can’t understand.
But put all three of those together in a house in Jerusalem, 2000 years ago, and what do you suppose these disciples and friends of Jesus were thinking and feeling? What words do you use to explain this miracle being experienced by more than 100 people simultaneously!?
Are you struggling with the question WHY? Why the sound of a violent wind? Why the tongues of fire that didn’t burn people? Why did they suddenly speak languages they didn’t know? The answer is found in the next verse in Acts 2: “Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard the sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment…” (Acts 2:5,6)
Ok so the sound of a violent storm was to get people’s attention and draw them together fascinated to understand what the sound meant! Evidently there was no rain, no hail, no tornado or hurricane, no damage, just the noise.
I presume the tongues of fire was a temporary thing visible only to those gathered together inside the house when this arrival of the Holy Spirit happened. By the time any of them left that house, I cannot imagine they walked outside with fire on their heads! So why the tongues of fire? These were all Jewish folks gathered together reflecting about their friend Jesus and what they had experienced with Him through these months. They’d all seen the miracles and some of them had actually experienced Jesus’ delivering power in their own lives, like Mary Magdalene! (Luke 8:1,2)
They knew the significance of ‘fire from heaven’ in Israel’s history. Do you remember?
* God sent fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifice when King Solomon dedicated the Temple. (2 Chronicles 7:1-3)
* God sent fire from heaven to burn up the prophet Elijah’s sacrifice on Mount Carmel in the showdown with the prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 18:36-39)
* When Moses led the people to meet God at Mount Sinai, fire burned at the top of the mountain as it trembled as with a great earthquake. (Exodus 19:16-19)
* The prophet Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire with horses of fire! (2 Kings 2:11)
Fire from heaven was evidence of God’s mighty power and His sacred purity. Therefore, these tongues of fire setting on the heads of the friends of Jesus seemed to indicate God was pouring out His mighty power but also a sacred anointing of purity, His holiness, with the arrival of the Holy Spirit of God. Now think about that for a few seconds. As the Holy Spirit empowered these friends of Jesus, they would be taking the message and story of Jesus to the world, and of course Satan and His demons would oppress them and oppose them at every turn, so God’s power and purity would be essential for them!
Ok so I think we understand the wind and the fire, but what about the languages? Acts 2:7 says: “Utterly amazed the people asked: ‘are not all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language…we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues! Amazed and perplexed they asked one another, ‘what does this mean’?” (Acts 2:7-12) That is a very good question. What does it mean?
Why would God give the disciples, and more than 100 close friends of Jesus, the sudden ability to speak languages they did not know? Because this is so significant, let’s wait until tomorrow to wrestle with understanding what God was doing in Jerusalem at ‘Shavuot’ time only 10 days after Jesus had ascended back to heaven. For today, let’s praise God for what we’ve seen so far in Acts 2 with the arrival of the Holy Spirit of God and here’s a brand-new song to help us worship…
Today’s Scripture: Acts 2:1-12.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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