John 7:39 and Acts 2:1-4 - Pentecost Happens

John 7:39 “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

Acts 2:1-4 “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 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.”

We can imagine that the day dawned bright and clear, the maroon sky fading to a blue only interrupted by fluffy, white,  cotton-ball clouds. We can also only imagine the despondent feelings the disciples and their friends felt. After all, their Master, teacher, and Saviour, Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem until...until what? He came back? He said He'd send His spirit to guide and teach and all that, but its been 50 days since the passover, and 10 days since His ascension to Heaven,  and nothing has happened! Did He mean it figuratively? Would His ghost appear? What? What was going to happen, and more importantly when would it happen!  I'm certain the disciples were trying to cheer each other up as they sat and prayed, fervently, desperately for something, anything to happen. The Master had never lied, not once about things, He wasn't going to lie about this either. But still, 50 days! Nearly two months!  And it was in the midst of this despair that God's third gift to fallen mankind occurred.

God gave the first gift, himself as a newborn some 33-odd years earlier. We celebrate that day now as “Christmas”. The second was His death and resurrection, about 50 days earlier which today we celebrate as Easter Weekend. This third gift was the Holy Spirit, the arrival of which would change the history of the church, taking it's practitioners from hiding in their buildings, not meeting eyes on the street, and remaining quiet to being loud, brash, unabashed, filled with excitement and joy, and unable to contain their Peace. We celebrate this gift as “Pentecost”. It marked when the disciples became apostles.

Pentecost occurred in God's time, not the disciples time, and it occurred just as the Feast of Weeks (a feast of first fruits) was starting up. Much like Passover, Jews from all over the world would show up in Jerusalem for this, and this was the crowd that the newly minted apostles spoke to, people from all over the known world gathered together to celebrate the first fruits of the year. God's got such a sense of humor! Just as the Jews were celebrating their first fruits, so God was celebrating His, and His were people coming to know Him through Jesus' Disciples and their first steps in their ministry!

Throughout our lives, from when we first become believers and followers of Christ to the end, we will be able to find one point, a point of Pentecost when we really truly changed from who we were before to being really and truly realized in the knowledge of Christ. Sure, we have that point, that beginning when we realized that we could not do it on our own. We have that moment when we prayed for forgiveness and understood Christ's sacrifice was for us, me especially. But there is a point a little later in some, a lot later in others where that magnificent work of God's that is us turns a corner from being shy and retiring, from where and who we were to being internally changed, from reticent to sharing to glad to be sharing the Gospel of Jesus! There is that point in our lives. It may not be as exciting as Pentecost was for the disciples, there may be no tongues of fire dancing on our heads, nor the tongues of all men coming out from our mouth, but it will most certainly be just as transformative, but until then, we continue in our Fathers work and in the commands He gave us – to love each other as He loved us, to care for the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, aid the poor, and tell as we can those who we encounter about Him. It's His gift to us, and it comes in His time, one of many gifts that we receive just because He loves us. Its nothing we really and truly need, its nothing we deserve, its just something He wants to give us. So when it comes to you will you be ready?