Acts 2.14-28
People say all sorts of things to a preacher as they leave church on a Sunday, most of which is unmemorable or at least (I’m sorry) I can’t remember it days let alone weeks later. One Pentecost Sunday after I preached on Acts 2 a person commented that I had had the ‘boring bit’ in the middle of the chapter between the pyrotechnics of the Spirit coming and the emergence of the radical new community in response to Peter’s preaching at the end of the chapter. I think they were excusing me politely. Just this week I was asked to do the Bible reading for the regional Thy Kingdom Come Pentecost Sunday event and not untypically the preacher, asked to speak for an unfeasibly short time on such a great text chose, only the beginning and the end of Acts chapter 2 as the bible reading.
But we’re going to focus on Peter’s sermon. The first Christian sermon is not everything that Peter said on the day of Pentecost as 2.40 indicates.
But Peter starts his proclamation by refuting the allegation that just because they are not paying attention to people around, because they are being very loud in public and because they are speaking incoherently to most people’s ears the early Christians are in fact partying and drunk. When we lived on the Bailey in Durham our family got used to looking out of the kitchen window in the mornings seeing bedraggled survivors of some College ball or other, shuffling home through the cobbled streets the next morning. The exuberance of the night before was universally overcome by the need to find a pillow. All this commotion, Peter says, is God’s Spirit, not the other kind at nine o’clock in the morning.
Peter then describes the phenomena of the mighty wind, tongues of fire and God being praised loudly in unlearnt languages in terms of Joel’s prophecy of the day of God’s coming. The Spirit of prophecy will be poured out indiscriminately and God’s coming will be accompanied by heavenly portents with echoes of God’s appearance to Israel at Mt Sinai.
I don’t usually remember my dreams, which is a good thing because when I do they are usually nonsense. I have only once had a spiritual, or prophetic, dream. When I woke up I not only remembered it, but it seemed to make good sense. I wasn’t feeling especially spiritual awaking to this dream at 6.30 in the morning, but there was just a confident sense that this was different and that it was God. I’d never talked about a prophetic dream in church before because I’d never had one before (nor have I since) but this was so striking that it was easy to share and as it was Sunday I summarised the dream for the hundred or so people I was preaching to. 99 of them looked back blankly – but one caught my eye as they immediately filled up with tears. Later the same guy sobbed his way through the personal prayer ministry he was offered at the end of the service. But for myself, I mainly went away with the nagging feeling that I should embrace middle age. It was time to grow up – it’s old men that dream dreams.
It’s a pattern all the way through Acts – the Spirit makes believers bold to speak: in praise, in prayer, in tongues, in prophecy, and most of all, in proclamation of the gospel. It is the prophetic Spirit that comes upon them on the day of Pentecost.
The Spirit’s coming is also part of preparing his people for the final coming of God. God appearing on Sinai rumbles across the pages of Acts. Honestly, on any given day my answer to the question: are you looking forward to seeing Jesus? swings wildly. I know that the right answer is ‘yes’ and some days I embrace with wholehearted and expectant joy the wonder and blessing it will be to see the Lord face to face. Other times, I’m too busy with other things, or hiding the messiness of my life from other people, to want Jesus to turn up and undo my petty evasions.
When the Spirit comes, he reminds us that Jesus absence is only temporary. And he also reminds us that when Jesus comes, he comes with a mixture of blessing and examination. Whether at school or University, or in some other context, we all know the dynamics of exams: we are tested so that we can enjoy some future benefit. And so that is what the coming of Jesus’ Spirit coming is like: a huge blessing, but one that also shines the searchlight of God’s truth on all the highlights and shadows of our lives. That’s why when Peter is asked to outline a response to the sermon at the end, his first word is: repent, and he follows this with be baptised for the forgiveness of your sins. When the Holy Spirit comes, he puts us in touch with Jesus and comes as the Spirit of holiness into our lives.
Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, 2000 years later you are still pouring out your Spirit from your heavenly throne on your people. So, stir up your Spirit in us that we may be bold to speak for you and humbly prepared for the searching joy of your final coming.
Amen.