This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is significant in both the Old and New Testaments. The word “Pentecost” is actually the Greek name for a festival known in the Old Testament as the Feast of Weeks. Pentecost literally translates as “fifty” and refers to the fifty days that have elapsed since Passover. The Feast of Weeks celebrated the end of the grain harvest.
On Pentecost Sunday in AD 33, however, the Feast took on a whole new meaning. It was now fifty days after Jesus rose from the grave, signaling the beginning of a new harvest. Jesus gives His disciples this charge, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). He told them this was the planfrom the start. When He called His first disciples. In the gospel of Mark we read, “One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, ‘Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people’” (Mark 1:16-17)! This is what He meant. Go and make disciples. But, how? How were they to do this? What would they say, do? He had already told them that too at the Last Supper, “I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative – that is, the Holy Spirit – he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:25-26). Yes, He wasn’t going to leave them alone. To figure it all out by themselves. Right before He ascended back to heaven, Jesus says, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4-5).
That’s what happened in the upper room. Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, the promise of the Holy Spirit arrived. “On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability” (Acts 2:1-4). These disciples knew how to speak Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew. However, all of a sudden, they were speaking in the native languages of Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs! How? The Holy Spirit.
We recognize this day as the birth of the “church.” The day we (“the church”) became to “body of Christ.” As the Bible says, “All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are the ones Jesus called to be fishers of people. To make disciples of all the nations. How? The same way the disciples did. By receiving the Holy Spirit and doing and saying whatever He tells us to do or say. Going wherever He leads.
When do we receive the Holy Spirit? The instant we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior. Yes, everything changes at that very moment. We think differently. Feel differently. Love differently. Serve differently. We are different because we are now His. We are now children of God. As John wrote at the beginning of his gospel. “To all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).
Praise the LORD for Pentecost Sunday. For the Holy Spirit and for being able to now claim to be a child of God.
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