Acts 2:1-21
Today is
Pentecost. One of the great days
of celebration in the church calendar.
You know the
main story of Pentecost, I hope.
We heard it in today’s first reading from Acts. It’s about the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ disciples were gathered together
inside. They heard a sound like
that of a mighty wind. Tongues
that looked like fire rested on each one of them. And they were transformed.
Pentecost was a
Jewish holy day in Jesus’ time and continues to be celebrated today. In Hebrew, it is called Shavuot. It falls 50 days after Passover, and
Greek speaking Jews in Jesus’ time called it Pentecost (Pente = “five”). It was and is a festival of first
fruits. In the spring, the earth
is just beginning to offer fruitfulness.
It also commemorates the God’s giving of the Torah to God’s people.
But for
Christians on Pentecost we remember the promised giving of the Holy Spirit. It’s
worth noting that it was a physical event, heard and seen by the disciples and
even the people outside. It
happened in the physical world; it was not an interior, “spiritual” event. And the effect was amazing. It brought the disciples together into
community. They were no longer a
group of individual followers of Jesus.
They became a community, bound together by the Spirit. And that community was given a mission,
and the courage and means to pursue it. They were empowered for proclamation. Given the strength and skill to spread
God’s Good News with others.
As fabulous and
important as the event of Pentecost is, this year I’ve been thinking about a
different piece of it. I’ve been
thinking about the importance of the prologue.
As the author of
Luke/Acts tells it, Jesus appeared to his disciples several times after his
resurrection and before his ascension.
Just before his ascension he said to them: ‘This is what you have heard
from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:4b -5).
Then he was
gone. Gone from their sight. Gone from their presence. Ascended to heaven. They just stood there, staring upward
until the two “men in white robes” prodded them to move, to return to Jerusalem.
They went to the
upper room and “constantly devoted themselves to prayer.”
I have tended to
think of the disciples at this point as fearful, uncertain, and passive. John’s Gospel says that after Jesus
crucifixion, the disciples huddled in the upper room, afraid of what was
outside. Passive. Afraid.
This week I read
reflections by William Willimon on this portion of Acts (Interpretation Commentary).
The community, rather than taking matters into its own hands, getting organized and venturing forth with banners unfurled, has withdrawn to wait and to pray. The next move is up to God. It is up to the risen Christ to make good on his promise to bestow the Spirit and to restore the kingdom to Israel. In a sense this is what prayer is—the bold, even arrogant effort on the part of the community to hold God to his promises. In praying, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we pray that God will be true to himself and give us what has been promised. Prayer is thus boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he makes, confidence that God will be true to himself.
So the disciples
gathering in the upper room for prayers wasn’t an act of fear and uncertainty,
but one of boldness and confidence.
And the prologue that set Pentecost in motion.
The prologue to
Pentecost is prayer. Corporate
prayer.
“Prayer is
boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he
makes.”
And on Pentecost
God did fulfill God’s promise to send the Spirit. And the Spirit empowered and enabled the disciples to
undertake God’s mission. Our
collect today describes it as “shedding abroad” the fullness of eternal life
found in God to the ends of the earth.
“Prayer is thus
boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he
makes.” Our prayers, our corporate
prayers, are acts of boldness.
Have you noticed
that every Sunday when we celebrate the Eucharist, the invitation to the Lord’s
prayer mentions boldness? “And
now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are BOLD to pray…”
It is a bold
prayer. I remember being taught
once how bold it is of us to address God as Father. Our Father. But Jesus has promised us that God
takes on that roll. So in boldness
born out of confidence in God’s faithfulness, we pray: Our Father.
We boldly pray: That God’s kingdom will come. That we will receive the Holy Spirit as promised
in Baptism. That God will fulfill God’s purposes through
us.
The disciples’
prayers in the upper room were the prologue to Pentecost… the giving of the Holy Spirit and
empowering the church for mission.
God knows what our prayers today are prologue to.
