The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me;
he has sent me to
announce good news to the poor,
to proclaim release for prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind;
to let the broken victims go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Luke 4:18–19
We are beginning a new series of studies in the six weeks leading from Easter up to Pentecost.
Three points at the outset:
1 The Spirit is given to none of us individually, but to all of us collectively, as people joined together by the Spirit of Christ, in the Church
2 The gifts of the Spirit are not given so that we can exercise power over others, impress our friends or create a pecking order within the church, or between churches
3 The gifts of the Spirit or workings of the Spirit are not confined to a few specific “works of power”. Scripture teaches us that, and it’s one of the things we’ll see this morning
In that context, let’s first of all speak about the gift of tongues
The Church celebrates Pentecost as the day when the Holy Spirit came, inspiring the apostles to speak in tongues, as the Spirit gave them power of utterance (Acts 2:4).
Did the apostles not find themselves speaking in a heavenly language that no one on earth could understand? No, they didn’t – quite the opposite.
Let me remind you of the scene that day
Luke says they were in a house – maybe the same house where they ate the Last Supper
The doors and windows must have been open, because people outside the house could hear what was happening inside
Who were those people? They were Jewish pilgrims
Pentecost was one of the great harvest festivals, and Jews from all round the Mediterranean came to Jerusalem to celebrate it – speakers of many different languages.
When these pilgrims heard the apostles speaking they were astonished, and asked, How is it that each of us can hear them in his own native language?’ (Acts 2:7)
The miracle isn’t that the apostles are speaking in an unknown tongue – it’s that they’re talking in words that make sense, but aren’t meant for themselves
Their words are individually targeted at each of the people listening to them
This was a powerful symbolic event – which is why we’re still talking about it
It was a prophetic demonstration of how God would equip the apostles to preach the gospel to all nations, through the gifts of the Spirit.
Jews today refer to Pentecost by its Hebrew name, Shavuot.
They remember how it originated, but they celebrate it primarily as a commemoration of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai
Some spend the whole of that night studying the Torah
As such, Shavuot shows how ancient things can take on new meanings
That is what has happened in the our own celebration of Pentecost, when we remember God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church
The events of that day begin the fulfilment of the final words of Jesus on earth, as recorded in the Book of Acts: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will bear witness for me in Jerusalem, and throughout all Judaea and Samaria, and even in the farthest corners of the earth’ (Acts 1.8)
It’s such a powerful event, with such a sense of a new beginning, we almost forget Pentecost’s Jewish origins
If Pentecost is not new, neither is the Holy Spirit
If we want to make sense of the Spirit, we have to begin in the Hebrew Scriptures
From the Book of Genesis, we see that the Spirit of God is there at the very beginning, when the earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water (Gen 1.2)
God formed Adam from the clay, then breathed life into his nostrils
The Hebrew word for breath is ruach, and it’s the same word used for the Spirit
The Spirit is still at work now, sustaining the world in being, supplying life and food to all creatures: When you hide your face, they are dismayed. When you take away their spirit, they die and return to the dust from which they came. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you give new life to the earth (Psalm 104:29–30)
Jesus repeats this act of God after his resurrection, in John 20, when he breathes the Spirit into his disciples:
Jesus said again, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father sent me, so I send you.’ Then he breathed on them, saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit!’ (John 20:21–22)
And again, in Acts 2, that’s why the Holy Spirit comes with a sound like a strong, driving wind (Acts 2.2)
The creative Spirit of God the Maker manifests itself in human craftsmen whose work serves the divine purpose
God commissions Moses to build a tabernacle for worship, and he says to Moses, I have specially chosen Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with the spirit of God, making him skilful and ingenious, expert in every craft, and a master of design (Exodus 31.1-5)
That might help us understand the thinking behind the building of our great cathedrals – they’re not just statements about someone’s ability to wield power and command resources
When we think of the Spirit in the Old Testament, we probably think of prophecy
Not just the the latter prophets , the ‘writing prophets’ like Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah – but the ones whose deeds and sayings are recorded in the books we call the Histories, but Jews call the Former Prophets – the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings
Balak, the King of Moab, tries to invoke the help of the prophet Balaam, by asking him to curse Israel
But God sends his Spirit on Balaam and commands him to bless Israel instead
Now that Balaam knew that the Lord wished him to bless Israel, he did not go and resort to divination as before. He turned towards the desert, and before his eyes he saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe; and, the spirit of God coming on him, he uttered his oracle:
The word of Balaam son of Beor,
the word of the man whose sight is clear,
the word of him who hears the words of God,
who with opened eyes sees in a trance
the vision from the Almighty (Num 24:1–4)
Prophets are not just people who hear a message from God
They are seized at the moment of prophecy by the Spirit of God
That’s the significance of the trance state – God takes command of their body and mind
Jews especially remember Moses as the first prophet, and Scripture celebrates him as someone who had a more constant and immediate relationship than anyone before Jesus
The prophet Isaiah remembers Moses
What Isaiah says about Moses reminds us that we shouldn’t just think of the Spirit as God’s special gift to chosen individuals
The Spirit is God’s presence with his people, intervening at crucial moments, appointing prophets to lead them, and, at the appointed time, delivering them:
No envoy, no angel, but he himself delivered them,
redeemed them in his love and pity;
he lifted them up and carried them
through all the days of old.
Yet they rebelled and grieved his holy spirit;
so he turned hostile to them
and himself fought against them.
Then they recalled days long past
and him who drew out his people:
where is he who brought up from the Nile
the shepherd of his flock?
Where is he who put within him his holy spirit,
who sent his glorious power to walk at Moses’ right hand?
Where is he who divided the waters before them,
to win for himself everlasting renown? (Isaiah 63.10-12)
Isaiah is in anguish because the people have turned away from God, so God appears to have turned away from his people
Let’s leave aside the irony, that the one lamenting God’s absence is Isaiah, Jesus’ favourite prophet, who we believe heard more clearly from God at that time than probably anyone else
Let’s instead just listen to the questions Isaiah is asking, on behalf of God’s people
Where is the God of Israel in the people’s situation of exile?
Where is the God who put his Spirit on Moses, and walked with Moses?
Where is that God who proclaimed his own greatness by bringing his people through the waters?
The answer to these anguished questions comes in the New Testament, in Jesus Christ
Jesus returns to the Father after his resurrection
But he returns to the Father so that the Father will send the Holy Spirit
The New Testament also refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus, or the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of Jesus Christ
The Christ whose resurrection we celebrated a couple of Sundays ago is present with us now, through the Holy Spirit
That is the great and joyful truth we will be exploring in the weeks ahead.
Scriptures cited from the Revised English Bible. Image from wikimedia.org.
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