Pentecost – the feast of the harvest

Pen­te­cost ori­gi­na­ted from the Jewish fes­ti­val of Shavuot, which is also cal­led the «fes­ti­val of the har­ve­st». It is the­r­e­fo­re obvious that Pen­te­cost in turn heralds a time of har­ve­st. By recei­ving the Holy Spi­rit, the fol­lo­wers of Jesus are equip­ped with a power through which they can be wit­nesses for the cau­se of Jesus to the fur­thest cor­ners of the earth. Through this, peo­p­le beco­me at home with God. Wel­co­me home!

When the Israe­li­tes left cap­ti­vi­ty, it took them exact­ly seven weeks to reach Mount Sinai, whe­re they recei­ved the «Ten Com­mandments». The libe­ra­ti­on from Egyp­ti­an bon­da­ge and the recep­ti­on of the Ten Words have a clo­se inner con­nec­tion and are cele­bra­ted with the fes­ti­vals of Pas­so­ver and Shavuot. The exodus from Egypt meant free­dom. Through the legis­la­ti­on at Sinai, the peo­p­le of Isra­el recei­ved the frame­work in which they could live their freedom.

The pro­phe­tic ful­film­ent of Pas­so­ver occur­red on Eas­ter, when Jesus Christ defea­ted death and bro­ke the reign of sin. Exact­ly seven weeks after Eas­ter we cele­bra­te Pen­te­cost, the pro­phe­tic ful­film­ent of Shavuot. The­re is also a clo­se inner con­nec­tion bet­ween Eas­ter and Pen­te­cost. Pen­te­cost cla­ri­fies the ques­ti­on of what the events of Eas­ter have to do with us today. Eas­ter ans­wers the ques­ti­on of whe­re we spend eter­ni­ty. It is the gift of eter­nal life. Pen­te­cost ans­wers the ques­ti­on of how we live on this earth.

The­re are words that pola­ri­se. And so do the wordsThe terms «Pen­te­cost» and «Holy Spi­rit» pro­vo­ke very dif­fe­rent reac­tions. Some have foun­ded parish asso­cia­ti­ons around the­se terms, for others they remain rather suspect.

Revise expectations

What expec­ta­ti­ons do you asso­cia­te with Pen­te­cost? Alre­a­dy at the very first Pen­te­cost, expec­ta­ti­ons were expres­sed. It remain­ed to be seen whe­ther the­se cor­re­spon­ded to rea­li­ty. «In the for­ty days after his cru­ci­fi­xi­on he appeared to the apost­les again and again and pro­ved to them in many ways that he was real­ly ali­ve. And he spo­ke to them about the king­dom of God. At one of the­se mee­tings, as they were eating, he said: «Stay here in Jeru­sa­lem until the Father sends you what he has pro­mi­sed. Remem­ber: I have alre­a­dy spo­ken to you about this. John bap­ti­sed with water, but in a few days you will be bap­ti­sed with the Holy Spi­rit.» » (Acts 1:3–5).

Jesus reminds his fri­ends of the pro­mi­se he made to them even befo­re his cru­ci­fi­xi­on that he would send them the Holy Spi­rit (John 14:16ff; 16:5ff). Obvious­ly they asso­cia­ted cer­tain expec­ta­ti­ons and hopes with this: «When the apost­les were with Jesus, they kept asking him: «Lord, will you now libe­ra­te Isra­el and res­to­re our king­dom?» » (6).

Becau­se of their imprint and the atmo­sphe­re in which they lived as belie­ving Jews, the per­son of the Holy Spi­rit was asso­cia­ted with Isra­el being res­to­red to for­mer poli­ti­cal, social, eco­no­mic greatness.

The ques­ti­on was jus­ti­fied. Jesus does not con­sider expec­ta­ti­ons, hopes and inter­pre­ta­ti­ons as non­sen­se. He repli­ed: «The Father alo­ne deter­mi­nes the time for this, it is not for you to know it» (7). Jesus makes it clear that this is a mat­ter for his Father. He had plan­ned it well. His fri­ends did not need to know.

Jesus wants his fri­ends to exami­ne their expec­ta­ti­ons and hopes with regard to the feast of Pen­te­cost. Pen­te­cost also invi­tes us to exami­ne our expec­ta­ti­ons and assump­ti­ons. What do we asso­cia­te with Pen­te­cost or with the per­son of the Holy Spirit?

Receive power

Remar­kab­le things hap­pen­ed at Pen­te­cost (Acts 2:1–7 and 12–13). The roaring of a migh­ty storm, some­thing like fla­mes sett­ling on each one, spea­king in hither­to unknown lan­guages, hea­ring for­eign spea­k­ers in their own lan­guage were impres­si­ve accom­p­animents. Some peo­p­le asso­cia­te the Holy Spi­rit more with emo­ti­ons. The­re is a lot of joy and enthu­si­asm! For some, it is an uncon­trol­led emo­tio­na­li­ty that cau­ses fear. For others, it has more to do with the spec­ta­cu­lar, the extra­or­di­na­ry, with spea­king in ton­gues, mira­cles and thou­sands of con­ver­si­ons. All the­se things were side effects, but not the cen­tral thing.

«But when the Holy Spi­rit des­cends upon you, you will be equip­ped with His power […].» (Acts 1:8; NGÜ). In endu­rance sports you are some­ti­mes atta­cked by the «ham­mer man». This has alre­a­dy hap­pen­ed to me when I was riding my bike over moun­tain pas­ses. Ever­y­thing is good: the bike, the mus­cles, the heart – but the­re is no strength. You’­re hypo­gly­cae­mic, feel exhaus­ted, not­hing works anymore.

That is how it is when we expe­ri­ence Eas­ter wit­hout Pen­te­cost. With Eas­ter ever­y­thing was sett­led; the way to God is free, but the power is miss­ing. That’s why Jesus» fri­ends were such cowards and scat­te­red in all direc­tions when things got dicey around his cru­ci­fi­xi­on. After the boys had expe­ri­en­ced Pen­te­cost, they were trans­for­med. Not­hing and no one could stop them now. From then on, they clim­bed «their pas­ses» with ease. The Holy Spi­rit revi­ves wea­ry Chris­ti­ans, brings life to the place. The Holy Spi­rit wants to come direct­ly into people’s lives. He is not a nebu­lous force field or an eso­te­ric ener­gy. He is a per­son who wants to be clo­se­ly con­nec­ted with other persons.

But the Holy Spi­rit is also a force. Wha­te­ver other abili­ties we attri­bu­te to him, he is the power of God. That sounds real­ly good. What could be bet­ter for us? The word for power in Greek is «dyna­mis». It is the power or force to do won­ders. The same word also means talent, skill and abili­ty and in mili­ta­ry lan­guage «tro­ops». God sends a troop of his army into our lives with the Holy Spi­rit. This force wants to take pos­ses­si­on of us so that we can make decis­i­ons, get things going and do some­thing. It is God’s power. It is given to us, not for our own con­cerns, but so that we can imple­ment his things and con­cerns in our lives.

Mary did not have the desi­re to beco­me pregnant. It was God’s con­cern in her life. How is that pos­si­ble when she has never slept with a man? The angel who visi­ted her explai­ned: «The Holy Spi­rit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overs­ha­dow you. The­r­e­fo­re, the child you will bear will be cal­led holy and the Son of God.»(Luke 1:35).

Jesus comes out of a desert expe­ri­ence, in which he was mas­si­ve­ly tempt­ed to ques­ti­on his iden­ti­ty, back to Gali­lee to his ori­gi­nal envi­ron­ment. The­re they knew him as the son of the buil­der. Per­haps he was the one who could never real­ly play foot­ball and who always lik­ed to build things out of stones. Now ever­y­thing is dif­fe­rent. Sud­den­ly the who­le neigh­bour­hood is tal­king about him. The reason is lis­ted in Luke 4:14: «Then Jesus, fil­led with the power of the Holy Spi­rit, retur­ned to Gali­lee. He quick­ly beca­me known throug­hout the regi­on»(Luke 4:14). God’s Spi­rit, the power of God, was so acti­ve in his life that he pro­ved hims­elf to be the Son of God.

Be a witness

«But when the Holy Spi­rit des­cends upon you, you will be equip­ped with his power, and this will enable you to be my wit­nesses – in Jeru­sa­lem, in all Judea and Sama­ria, and ever­y­whe­re else in the world, even in the remo­test parts of the earth.»(8; NGÜ). The power of God, the Holy Spi­rit, comes for a very spe­ci­fic reason: you will be my wit­nesses. In essence, it is not about the spi­ri­tu­al gift of spea­king and pray­ing in ton­gues. Even though ever­yo­ne who is on the way with Jesus recei­ves at least one gift given by the Spi­rit of God, a spi­ri­tu­al gift, the mis­si­on to be a wit­ness for Jesus is essential.

This is to be at dif­fe­rent locations:

• In Jeru­sa­lem: This is about our imme­dia­te envi­ron­ment, our fami­ly and our neighbourhood.
• Throug­hout JudeaIn addi­ti­on to our place of resi­dence, we are to tar­get the enti­re can­ton of Aar­gau. It is still about peo­p­le who are somehow clo­se to us and speak our own language.
• In Sama­riaThis could be the can­ton you like least. The Sama­ri­tans were a mixed peo­p­le of Jews and other peo­p­les. Righ­teous Jews were not allo­wed to have fel­low­ship with Sama­ri­tans, not even to set foot on their ter­ri­to­ry. The com­mis­si­on to be a wit­ness in Sama­ria was real­ly «get­ting down to busi­ness». We like to cate­go­ri­se peo­p­le we know as «nice» and «fun­ny». Jesus chal­lenges us to be a wit­ness even to the «fun­ny» ones. This is a huge chall­enge. The Holy Spi­rit invi­tes us to dis­sol­ve our cate­go­ri­cal no’s and reser­va­tions about cer­tain people.
• In the far­thest rea­ches of the earth: When Jesus spo­ke the­se words, the­re were about 120 peo­p­le tog­e­ther (Acts 1:15). What an impos­si­bi­li­ty! Jesus was awa­re of this, that’s why it took Pen­te­cost. Thanks to the power of the Holy Spi­rit, the gos­pel rea­ched the then known world in a few deca­des. The basis for this was for­med by the twel­ve men, who at first still fear­ful­ly and coward­ly retrea­ted when Jesus was arrested.

A wit­ness is not the same as a lawy­er. Nevert­hel­ess, we some­ti­mes allow our­sel­ves to be pushed into this role and try to explain the evil in this world or why this par­ti­cu­lar per­son, who is nevert­hel­ess faithful in the faith, falls so serious­ly ill. A wit­ness reports about things that con­nect with him as a per­son in an ele­men­ta­ry way. He does not sim­ply pon­ti­fi­ca­te some pla­ti­tu­di­nous truth. When someone has atten­ded a con­cert, he raves: «It was a won­derful con­cert with won­derful music. You should have been the­re!«A wit­ness to a car acci­dent tells the sto­ry as he obser­ved it. A Jesus Wit­ness expres­ses for others what he has expe­ri­en­ced with Jesus. No mat­ter whe­re he is. No mat­ter whe­ther the­se peo­p­le are favoura­ble to him. No mat­ter whe­ther he likes the­se people.

Recent­ly someone told me how dif­fi­cult it is to live as a Chris­ti­an with an ill­ness. Peo­p­le scoff and say that now God can show what he can do. We would like to be wit­nesses of mira­cles. To what ext­ent can Chris­ti­ans be wit­nesses of Jesus if they them­sel­ves are not int­act? Nick Vuji­cic was born wit­hout arms and legs as a result of a rare defor­mi­ty. In a lec­tu­re he once said: «If God does not do a mira­cle, be the mira­cle!» A Spi­rit-fil­led wit­ness who shares how God is his rock in stor­my times has enorm­ous power. We should focus less on curing our dise­a­ses and more on our beha­viour in suf­fe­ring. We must learn to hold on to Jesus in dif­fi­cult times. Per­haps the con­tent of your tes­tim­o­ny for Jesus Christ is this: With all I can give, I hold on to Jesus in this situa­ti­on. As Asaf says in the Psalm: «When I have only you, I ask not­hing of hea­ven and earth»(Psalm 73:15). Or Job in a mise­ra­ble sta­te: «Should we take the good from God’s hand but reject the bad?»(Job 2:10).

Pen­te­cost makes us able to speak and to hear. It was not only a mira­cle of speech, but also a mira­cle of hea­ring! (cf. Acts 2:4,6). A wit­ness must not only speak, but also hear. Per­haps your tes­tim­o­ny is this, that you lis­ten well, show empa­thy and pray for peo­p­le. Tho­mas Aqui­nas said: «Preach the gos­pel, if neces­sa­ry also with words.»

Shavuot has a his­to­ri­cal and a natu­re-rela­ted mea­ning. The his­to­ri­cal back­ground is the recep­ti­on of the Ten Words at Sinai. At the same time, this feast of the week is also the «feast of the har­ve­st». For it takes place in the time of the wheat har­ve­st. This con­nec­tion is for­mu­la­ted in the Tal­mud: «Fif­ty days pass befo­re the apple blos­som deve­lo­ps into fruit, fif­ty days the peo­p­le of Isra­el wai­ted in the desert befo­re recei­ving the Torah from the hand of the Lord.» Pen­te­cost means har­ve­st. The Holy Spi­rit calls you home and makes us wit­nesses that we can call out to others through our lives: Come home!

Possible questions for the small groups

Read Bible text: Acts 1:8; 2:1–7 and 12–13

1. Explain to each other the con­nec­tion bet­ween Shavuot and Pentecost.
2. What is the inner con­nec­tion bet­ween Eas­ter and Pen­te­cost? Why is Pen­te­cost needed?
3. What does the Holy Spi­rit do in peo­p­le who trust Jesus?
4. What does the thought do to you that you are cal­led to be a witness?
5. What kind of wit­ness best suits your per­so­na­li­ty and aptitude?

A small exer­cise: In the next two weeks, try to con­scious­ly under­stand yours­elf as a wit­ness and take advan­ta­ge of the oppor­tu­ni­ties that pre­sent themselves!