Pentecost- Acts 2
In our reading from Acts, the disciples are in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, there was a festival called Pentecost taking place. Pentecost was a Jewish festival. It was the second of three harvest festivals. It is also sometimes called the Feast of Weeks because it took place seven weeks (or ~50 days) after the Passover (Pentekostos means ‘fiftieth’). It was also considered to be the anniversary of the giving of the Law and the establishment of the covenant at Mount Sinai, which was believed to have happened 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt.
Faithful Jews would gather from all over the known world to give offerings at the Temple. 1st century Jewish writers (like the historian Josephus and the philosopher Philo) retell the story of the giving of the law, and as a part of that story they speak about strong winds,[1] and a kind of mysterious fire.[2]
Later medieval rabbinic sources make some interesting comments regarding the giving of the Law. In the 5th century Babylonian Talmud we read, “Every single word that went forth from the Holy One, blessed be He, split into seventy languages.”[3] It’s helpful to know that in the Old Testament they believed there were 70 nations (or 72 depending on if it is the Hebrew or Greek text). These descriptions of the giving of the law seems to parallel the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in the languages of the various nations.
We read in Acts that,
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.”
In the context of this festival, we see this experience is mirroring the giving of the law and the establishment of the covenant at Mt Sinai. In Acts we see the establishment of a New Covenant, and it is being done in such a way that it is reflecting the covenant made with Moses and the Hebrews. We see a continuity with what we read in the Old Testament, as if to say this is the kind of thing God has been doing all along.
In Numbers we read about God sharing the Spirit that had rested on Moses, and Moses not being jealous that others were filled with God’s spirit, but instead declaring how he desired that
“all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!" (Numbers 11:29).
“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).The Spirit that empowered Jesus in his ministry is now filling his disciples, making them into the Body of Christ as they share his Spirit. A new covenant was being established, which is in continuity with the Old Covenant, and the disciples were being commissioned to declare it’s availability to the people.
The Spirit is drawing all people into a loving relationship with God, and into a community of love. God’s Spirit is at work undoing the consequences of the Fall that have divided people from each other and from God. We read about the disciples speaking in a way that everyone can understand them- Language was no longer a barrier. The Tower of Babel story was being overturned, where everyone was divided by not being able to understand each other, and where they were understood to have been divided into the 70 nations.[4]
Another interesting aspect of this new Pentecost is that the Spirit fills all the disciples. In the Old Testament the Spirit seems to have filled individuals for particular tasks, and it didn’t seem to be a permanent filling. Here the Spirit is uniting humanity across all kinds of boundaries.
The Spirit speaks through ordinary people. God’s message didn’t come through the High Priest, or the king, so the stratification of the classes was bridged. It was an experience shared by men and women. As Paul says,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).
“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.” (Joel 2:28-32).
It’s maybe worth saying that this kind of experience of miraculously speaking in different languages isn’t something that has to happen to every Christian who has the Holy Spirit. This moment in Acts is the start of something new that God is doing. God’s work in Jesus is being declared to Jews who have gathered together from all over the world. The scattered have gathered.
There are some who see this as the actual end of the exile- both the Assyrian exile (of the northern tribes), and the Babylonian exile.[5] They thought the exile ended when they returned to the land and rebuilt the Temple (though, without the Ark of the covenant), but the presence of God hadn’t returned to the Temple in the way it was present in Solomon’s Temple. Now, on this Pentecost, Israel has gathered from all over the known world. The scattered people have gathered together and God has made Himself known and started something new.
We will see this experience of miraculously speaking in other languages once more with the Gentiles, which shows the disciples that this new era is not just for the Jewish people, but is meant to draw all people into Christ (Acts 10:46). Jesus is declared to be the messiah, but not just for Israel. He is the Messiah for all the nations and those who have gathered will bring this news with them to whatever nations they live in.
So, this experience of miraculously speaking a language is like the giving of the Covenant and isn’t necessarily meant to be something that is repeated for every Christian. In a similar way, not every Hebrew had to ascend Mt. Sinai to receive the Law from God. That was a moment that happened with Moses. It was when a covenant was formed. Similarly, the Age of the Church has now begun. This is the time of the New Covenant. This is the last days, or the last age, where no major new developments or covenants will take place before Jesus comes again to judge the world.
The evidence of the Spirit’s work within us isn’t necessarily in miraculously speaking a language we have never studied, though there are unusual cases where I have heard about such things happening. Paul tells us that the evidence of the Spirit’s work within us is expressed through the fruit of the Spirit-
“Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).
At Pentecost a new covenant was given. It was a declaration that God’s mission would now expand beyond what he was doing with Israel to include the rest of the nations. God’s desire is for humanity to be united under the loving Lordship of Christ, worshipping one Father, and made one body through sharing in the one Spirit. AMEN
[1]
Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews,
Ch 5.2. “So they passed two days in this way of feasting;
but on the third day, before the sun was up, a cloud spread itself over the
whole camp of the Hebrews, such a one as none had before seen, and encompassed
the place where they had pitched their tents; and while all the rest of the air
was clear, there came strong winds, that raised up large showers of rain, which
became a mighty tempest. There was also such lightning, as was terrible to
those that saw it; and thunder, with its thunderbolts, were sent down, and
declared God to be there present in a gracious way to such as Moses desired he
should be gracious.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm
[2]
“Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended
upon it in fire” Ex 19:18
Philo, on the
Decalogue,
“IX. (32,33)
… it was the Father of the universe who
delivered these ten maxims, or oracles, or laws and enactments, as they truly
are, to the whole assembled nation of men and women altogether. Did he then do
so, uttering himself some kind of voice? Away! let not such an idea ever enter
your mind; for God is not like a man, in need of a mouth, and of a tongue, and
of a windpipe, but as it seems to me, he at that time wrought a most
conspicuous and evidently holy miracle, commanding an invisible sound to be
created in the air, more marvellous than all the instruments that ever existed,
attuned to perfect harmonies; and that not an inanimate one, nor yet, on the
other hand, one that at all resembled any nature composed of soul and body; but
rather it was a rational soul filled with clearness and distinctness, which
fashioned the air and stretched it out and changed it into a kind of flaming
fire, and so sounded forth so loud and articulate a voice like a breath passing
through a trumpet, so that those who were at a great distance appeared to hear
equally with those who were nearest to it.”
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/book26.html
[3]
B. Shabbat 88b
And there are places in the Bible where God’s voice is described as
being like fire (Ps 29:7). Jeremiah 23:29 says, “Is not my word like fire, says
the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” The Talmud (B.
Shabbat 88b) interprets this verse to mean, “Just as a hammer [blow] is divided
[into] many sparks [as it strikes a rock], so every single word that went forth
from the Holy One, blessed be He, split up into seventy languages”.
In an 11th or 12th century Jewish commentary on Exodus we read, “God’s voice, as it was uttered, split up into seventy voices, in seventy languages, so that all the nations should understand”.
[4]
Gen 10-11 has a table of nations that numbers 70
[5] Mchael Heiser. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqxW-d2RsVI
Stephen de Young, https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/02/11/pentecost-birthday-of-the-church/
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