Spring Festivals, Pt 5(a): Shavuot
Acts 2:1-4 1On the day Pentecost was being fulfilled, all the disciples were gathered in one place. 2Suddenly they heard the sound of a violent blast of wind rushing into the house from out of the heavenly realm. The roar of the wind was so overpowering it was all anyone could bear! 3Then all at once a pillar of fire appeared before their eyes. It separated into tongues of fire that engulfed each one of them. 4They were all filled and equipped with the Holy Spirit and were inspired to speak in tongues—empowered by the Spirit to speak in languages they had never learned!
Acts 2:22-24 22Peter continued, “People of Israel, listen to the facts. Jesus, the Victorious, was a Man on a divine mission whose authority was clearly proven. For you know how God performed many powerful miracles, signs, and wonders through him. 23This Man’s destiny was prearranged, for God knew that Jesus would be handed over to you to be crucified and that you would execute him on a cross by the hands of lawless men. Yet it was all part of his predetermined plan. 24God destroyed the cords of death and raised him up, because it was impossible for death’s power to hold him prisoner.
Acts 2:37-38 37…..they were crushed and realized what they had done to Jesus. Deeply moved, they said to Peter and the other apostles, “What do we need to do, brothers?” 38Peter replied, “Repent and return to God, and each one of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus, the Anointed One, to have your sins removed. Then you may take hold of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:41 41Those who believed the word that day numbered three thousand. They were all baptized and added to the church.
(Note to the reader: the above verses, all from the Passion translation, are taken from Acts Chapter 2 and have been selected to present the flow of thought from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room to Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost. Much of the chapter, although extremely important, is not presented as it would make this posting much too lengthy.)
Lest there be any confusion, the title of this posting Shavuot, a Hebrew word, and Pentecost, a Greek word derived from the word for fifty, both refer to the same thing. Shavuot was a Jewish festival which mandated that all adult male Jews travel to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the gathering of the wheat harvest, the giving of the Torah, and to praise and give thanks to God. This Festival occurs every year 50 days after Passover, hence the Greek name of Pentecost.
God is a god of timing and it is no accident that He chose Shavuot/Pentecost to release the power of the Holy Spirit upon His people. There were many thousands of people in Jerusalem for the Festival. The times were fraught with excitement and anticipation. Fifty days prior Jesus had been crucified and rumors were flying that He had been raised from the dead and that he had appeared many times in the ensuing 50 days to certify His resurrection. One of those appearances had been to 500 people at once. But in spite of the overwhelming evidence that Jesus was the Son of God, the twelve disciples (Matthias had been elected to replace Judas Iscariot) were cowering in the Upper Room afraid of being seized by the Romans. They were afraid of going out into the crowds and certainly were not behaving like men about to change the world. But that whole situation was itself about to change.
Jewish tradition holds that 1500 years to the day prior to Shavuot God gave His Law, including the 10 Commandments, to His people through Moses. That Law is written by Moses in the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah. So the Jews were in town that day to celebrate the harvest and also to commemorate God’s revelation of himself and his Torah. As a prefigure of what would happen 1500 years later in the Upper Room, that revelation on Mt. Sinai was accompanied by thunder and lightning, a trumpet blast and the Lord descending in fire. It was a happening beyond dramatic.
We must not minimize what happened in the Upper Room. Here were twelve men who, although having witnessed Jesus’ miracles, heard teaching beyond their understanding, and had seen God’s power in action, were nonetheless cowed and fearful. Peter had, after all, rejected Jesus in public in spite of having been warned he would do it. I imagine they were having profound difficulty understanding what was going on. They were convinced Jesus was God in the flesh, yet they had seen Him killed. “How can a God be killed?”, they must have thought. They were just barely starting to get it. For forty of the fifty days since Passover they were still expecting a political Kingdom, that Jesus would conquer the Roman Empire. Then it happened: With a wind-like noise that was so deafening it hurt their ears, the Holy Spirit entered the room. He descended upon, engulfed really, each of them in a non-consuming flame, much like that of the burning bush to Moses, and anointed and empowered each of them for the Kingdom mission God had planned. The experience was so powerful the men raised their voices in praise and adoration and spoke in heavenly languages none of them had known before. These men eventually traveled to the far reaches of the known world. We have letters from some of them like Peter, and John, and Jesus’ brother James, but if any of the rest wrote anything it hasn’t survived the centuries. As of that moment these men were changed. Where once they were fearful, now they were emboldened. Where once they were bewildered, now they were firmly convinced. Where once they were short-sighted, now they had a firm grasp of God’s plan for His Kingdom.
And as evidence of that anointing Peter left that Upper Room and delivered the most powerful human sermon in history, second only to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, from the steps outside the Temple. Those steps still exist today as part of the Western Wall complex in Jerusalem. That sermon in itself was a miracle. It was not prepared as sermons are now, and as I have done, with books everywhere, screens on, and notes scribbled in margins. It was spontaneous, fully empowered by the Holy Spirit, with memorized quotations from the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. It was not humanly derived but divinely inspired and from the crowds of hearing people came 3000 salvations. Praise God!
But this posting is not just a history lesson. Theologians refer to this day as the day the Church began. As we all have faith to join in the Kingdom of God we are also joining in the Church begun that day. Shavuot/ Pentecost is important for every believer. On Sinai, God’s presence came to the Jews as a group, as a nation. In the Upper Room God’s presence came to individuals. And this happening was not a one time event. Every day, even in the 21st Century, the Holy Spirit comes to teach, encourage, counsel, and comfort us as individuals. God is concerned about our lives, our successes and our failures, and He wants us to grow in holiness and righteousness. So, believe it or not, the Holy Spirit is in the business of changing us into the likeness of His Son Jesus. None of us is yet the person God wants us to be, so all of us have room to grow, but because of the power of Shavuot/Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is now active in the world helping all believers come to know Christ more fully and grow to be like him more completely.
So let’s live our lives differently than the world, for
… the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions:
joy that overflows,
peace that subdues,
patience that endures,
kindness in action,
a life full of virtue,
faith that prevails,
gentleness of heart,
and strength of spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23 TPT)