Today is an important day for the Church and also for us. Pentecost is the day when we remember the amazing events of the disciples being filled with the Holy Spirit and talking in different languages. It is a day for joy and excitement as we think of the difference that God can and does make.
It reminds us of the amazing moment when a group of scared disciples, who had been waiting as Jesus had told them, suddenly had the most incredible experience of God. It has been called the birthday of the Church. So Happy Birthday to us all. It is a joyous time.
The disciples had been through so much. They had followed Jesus, seen Him crucified. Then, just when they would have been wondering how they would cope without Him, He appeared. He had been resurrected. After a time of confusion, they spent time with Him. Then, just as they were getting used to life again, He ascended to heaven. He had promised the Holy Spirit, but they needed to wait. The room they were in needed to be locked because otherwise they could have been attacked. The people who had been against Jesus would not have been happy with them talking about Jesus. They were in danger.
If the disciples had left the room where they were waiting, they could have been killed or at least attacked. After all, they had seen Jesus, their leader, crucified. They showed patience and they waited. Jesus had promised them a comforter and an advocate. Who knows what they were expecting, but a great rushing wind, tongues of fire resting on them, and suddenly speaking in other languages was probably nowhere near what they thought would happen.
The shock, excitement, and joy must have been infectious. This was not a normal day, and after having been scared to leave the room where they were, they ran out into a huge crowd of people, being rather noisy, I expect.
It’s hard to keep a sense of joy to yourself, isn’t it? And what’s more, it’s catching. The excitement would have been clear. Pentecost itself was life changing for all those present; people followed Jesus. They worshipped together after, and these believers kept growing in number. What they had experienced was infectious. So infectious that thousands more believed on that day.
The Church is a gathering of believers worshipping God, and this is what all these new believers became part of. Part of what we would call the Church. A worldwide movement of people worshipping God. This is amazing: through the work of God in the lives of the disciples, the message of God reached out further and further from this group of previously scared believers.
The disciples, empowered by the Spirit, went out, and suddenly there were more and more believers. They, like us all, became part of the body of Christ in the world. The Church, a gathering of believers.
At that first Pentecost, the believers went out to tell people all about Jesus. As they did this, they suddenly found themselves able to speak in other languages. Their message didn’t change, just the communication.
As the people of God, our message is the same as that preached at Pentecost. It hasn’t changed; we communicate differently at times. We use very different words from those used generations ago, but the message is still the same.
That message is that God loves everyone, and to people who are lost, to a dying world, we can proclaim that God loves us and He loves them too. At Pentecost, God gave the gift of tongues to the disciples for one purpose, and that was for the purpose of communication. The gift of tongues is the ability to speak in another language that we don’t know ourselves. Because God wanted each person present to hear the message in their own language, He performed a miracle. He gave the apostles the gift of tongues so that they could communicate His message. If you can remember the story of the Tower of Babel, when everyone spoke the same language and felt they didn’t need God but were suddenly all speaking different languages, this is almost like a reversal. A reminder that we do need God to help us communicate.
This is great; after all, God has commissioned us to share His message. This means that we need to be ready to find the best way to communicate with others the great news of knowing God. We share the Gospel in our own way. We just need to be ourselves and let the joy of being a Christian show for others to see.
I remember I used to have a book called, ‘How to be a contagious Christian.’ This book said that by the way that we live, we can share our faith, and we should do this with joy. We have the best message ever.
As Christians, we are part of the worldwide Church, and we all have work to do. This work is to tell others about Jesus. On the Day of Pentecost, there were thousands of new converts, and they suddenly shared something that had never been shared before. This was the amazing gift and good news of Jesus. These believers had been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were filled with the power to tell others about Jesus. They were full of joy.
We are to be full of the joy and contentment of knowing that God created us, saved us from our sins, and walks with us every day, giving us power through the Holy Spirit so we can be more like Him.
I worked once in a University chaplaincy. It was great fun, and I learnt lots from the other Christian denominations I worked with. One thing which stuck out was from the Pentecostals I worked with.
This was that if someone said God is good to the people in the Pentecostal Church, they would reply, “All the time.” To which the person leading the service would then say, “and all the time,” to which they would respond, God is good. This is quite brilliant. The whole point that in everything God is good. Not just this, but think of the joy that comes from sharing that fact over and over.
God is good - all the time, all the time, God is good. I pray that we will all know that, as well as remembering that God loves us and will never leave us. To Him belongs all glory now and forever. AMEN
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