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Pentecost Sunday

Scripture: Acts 2:1-21

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Today is Pentecost! And then, next week is Trinity Sunday. After that nearly six months of “Ordinary Time” begins.  Our Christian year appears divided almost in half: about six months of holy seasons (Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter), and about six months of Ordinary Time. I love how one commentary describes it: “Like a pendulum swinging back and forth, or a pair of lungs breathing in and out, the church alternates between these two movements each year: high holidays and everyday life, the joys of celebration and the grunt work of growth.” (SALT project)

And here we are today where the pendulum swings to one of the joys and celebrations! Pentecost Sunday! The birthday of the church! Happy Birthday! But before we get into party mode…lets unpack Pentecost (historically, first). 

The text tells us that the disciples are celebrating Pentecost. While Pentecost for the church is about this passage in Acts, Pentecost for the Jewish community was a different celebration. It marked the day Moses received the 10 Commandments on Mt Sinai, 50 days after the Passover flight from Egypt-as well as a celebration of harvest. The word “Pentecost” translates as “fifty”. They’d been celebrating the harvest/Moses receiving the law for nearly 1500 years. 

It was one of the three great pilgrim festivals when everyone who was able traveled from wherever they were in the world to bring their gifts to God in Jerusalem. It was like Thanksgiving with in-laws and outlaws crowded into family homes and inns and elbowing each other at the table. The traffic was terrible, especially around the temple. You could hardly get two donkeys side-by-side down the street. The festival was so important that even when Paul was traveling around the world spreading the gospel the next year in Acts 20:16, he stopped and came back to Jerusalem to observe the feast. It was an old, old feast, but in our lesson it was about to be given new meaning. (Will Gafney, https://www.wilgafney.com/2015/05/24/pentecost-something-old-something-new/)

And it certainly was! 

If you recall, last week we left our disciples standing there, jaws dropped, staring into Heaven as Jesus ascended up to God. But before Jesus ascended, he told them to go and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.

It is hard to wait for things ---especially when we are excited about something, and easier to wait for things we aren’t too excited about. I wonder what that the waiting was like for the disciples.

I’m guessing that for some of them, they were wondering if they really wanted God’s Holy Spirit to come upon them. It sounds great to have God’s Spirit with us, but the Spirit can’t really be contained or controlled. So perhaps there was some trepidation about the unknown and the uncontrollable. Maybe the Spirit will be a great thing. But maybe it will take us where we’ve not wanted to go. 

The disciples are all together in one place in Jerusalem. Perhaps they’re afraid, probably feeling a little abandoned, and most of all, I think, they’re just confused. Jesus was here, he died, but Jesus is alive, but now he’s gone? Now what? What’s next? Last week we explored that the what’s next is about being witnesses to all they have experienced. But perhaps there aren’t quite ready for all of that. YET. 

Earlier, back before he was arrested, Jesus had promised them he wouldn’t leave them alone. He promised to send them an advocate, the Holy Spirit, to help them, to teach them, to keep reminding them of all he’d said to them. But I don’t think they had any idea what that meant. 

And then the Holy Spirit shows up. Something extraordinary happens.  Ordinary people, transform into apostles, messengers carrying the good news to everyone. They encounter the Holy Spirit- the same Spirit that was blowing over the waters at creation, the same Spirit breathing into humanity at creation, the same Spirit Jesus promised to send to his disciples as their helper and advocate. The Holy Spirit shows up and something happens, something so dramatic a crowd gathers to watch. The disciples start speaking in other languages (that they didn’t know)  so that those gathered from all places understood.  

We’re familiar with this story, so we lose how odd all of this is. We read that the people in the crowd were trying to figure it out. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ Some even thought they were drunk. Peter sets everyone right and assures the crowd that they were not drunk. 

The Holy Spirit comes and fills the disciples with courage and the words to say. Then they start preaching and proclaiming, and by the end of the chapter, this brand-new church has grown by over 3,000 people.

The birth of the church.  Powered by the Holy Spirit to BECOME the church! 

And that same Holy Spirit empowers us today and gives each of us gifts to BE THE CHURCH. 

It seems rather appropriate that Pentecost falls this year shortly after the convening of our United Methodist General Conference where we voted overwhelming to usher in a new day in The United Methodist Church.  The day of Pentecost is the day that God’s Spirit came to dwell among the diverse people that make up the world. 

Pentecost is considered the birthday of the church, but in reality it is bigger than that. It is a new day for all of creation when God comes to dwell in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

May today be the day we celebrate the birth of the Church as well as this new beginning in our denomination as we look to see what new thing God might be doing in and through us!

We were intentional in having the Ministry fair on this day of Pentecost because we are the church---together! We are the body of Christ in this time and place. How will we use our hands/feet/voice—all of ourselves-serving and loving in the name of Jesus? Not sure? Explore all the ways that Fairport UMC ---Christ’s body in this place, empowered by the Holy Spirit is changing the world. 

Amen.