Pentecost – more (to) wait

On the first Pen­te­cost, the peo­p­le pre­sent expe­ri­en­ced some super­na­tu­ral phe­no­me­na: fire, wind and for­eign lan­guages. Today, the Holy Spi­rit still wants to work among the fol­lo­wers of Jesus. In order to still expe­ri­ence the Holy Spi­rit today, we have to direct our focus on the decisi­ve things in life and learn to wait pati­ent­ly. This is the path to true meta­mor­pho­sis as well as expe­ri­en­cing super­na­tu­ral events.

Pen­te­cost is the bir­th­day of the Church. The reason is that on Pen­te­cost the Holy Spi­rit was pou­red out on all peo­p­le who fol­lo­wed Jesus. And wit­hout the Spi­rit of God the­re is no Church. The Holy Spi­rit also plays the decisi­ve role in our the­me for the year: «Yes, we all see with unvei­led face the glo­ry of the Lord. We see it as in a mir­ror, and by loo­king at the image of the Lord, our who­le being is trans­for­med in such a way that we beco­me more and more like Him and share more and more of His glo­ry. This trans­for­ma­ti­on is the work of the Lord; it is the work of his Spi­rit» (2 Corin­thi­ans 3:18 NGÜ).

But isn’t the­re some­ti­mes a big gap bet­ween what is writ­ten about the Holy Spi­rit in the Bible and our expe­ri­en­ces? At the first Pen­te­cost, the­re is talk of ton­gues of fire, roaring of the wind and the spea­king of unlear­ned lan­guages. All extra­or­di­na­ry phe­no­me­na. The Holy Spi­rit turns ordi­na­ry peo­p­le into extra­or­di­na­ry ones. The­re are three chal­lenges so that we can cele­bra­te Pen­te­cost 2021 more inten­si­ve­ly and joyfully.

Expect

What is actual­ly to be expec­ted from the Holy Spi­rit? When Jesus told his fri­ends to wait for the Holy Spi­rit in Jeru­sa­lem, it rai­sed expec­ta­ti­ons in them. «When the apost­les were with Jesus, they asked him again and again: «Lord, will you now deli­ver Isra­el and our Res­to­re the King­dom?» «(Acts 1:6 NLB).

Their expec­ta­ti­on was libe­ra­ti­on from the occu­py­ing power of the Romans and res­to­ra­ti­on of their King­dom. Howe­ver, a King­dom of Judah does not need the Holy Spi­rit. Put sim­ply, it needs an emo­tio­nal speech, a media-effec­ti­ve demons­tra­ti­on, an army of armed sol­diers and, at most, a few effec­ti­ve assassinations.

For what do we invest our lives? What is our heart bea­ting for? We do pray: Thy king­dom come, thy will be done, but still put most of our ener­gy into our King­dom? Our time paints a world befo­re our eyes in which we hard­ly need the Holy Spi­rit. Ever­y­thing is doable. We are bom­bard­ed with invi­ta­ti­ons to cour­ses and vide­os sug­gest­ing that we have a pro­blem and that our lives need to get bet­ter. The reci­pe for suc­cess that comes with a three-step pro­gram­me can be tried out right away next week. We work on a stra­tegy for suc­cess in our work and attend fur­ther trai­ning cour­ses so that our care­er pro­gres­si­on con­ti­nues to rise nice­ly. For deca­des we invest in our reti­re­ment pro­vi­si­on so that our high stan­dard of living is gua­ran­teed until our 100th bir­th­day. Week after week we steel our bodies accor­ding to the mot­to «Pain is gain», but we give up our rela­ti­onships after three con­flicts becau­se it is too exhaus­ting. Your dream body? No pro­blem, eat a litt­le less, do three sports and watch a few dai­ly moti­va­tio­nal vide­os. The­se are the things we love: A plan, a litt­le effort and done. We can have cont­act with 200 peo­p­le via social media in a week, but can’t mana­ge to have a cof­fee with the slight­ly weird neigh­bour once a year. We have crea­ted a round world for our­sel­ves. Ever­y­thing we do is within our power. We play with tri­via and feel real­ly powerful.

Iro­ni­cal­ly, we also mana­ge in the church wit­hout the Holy Spi­rit: a well thought-out con­gre­ga­tio­nal buil­ding stra­tegy, a well-roun­ded pro­gram­me with modern tech­ni­cal sup­port, a few good sayings and upbeat songs, and a bis­tro. And in see­tal chi­le they still have the idea of being able to start the meta­mor­pho­sis with a few ser­mons. Is this not also about our King­dom? Why do we actual­ly want to let our­sel­ves be trans­for­med in our being? For self-opti­mi­sa­ti­on? To beco­me a good guy with a shi­ning repu­ta­ti­on? To secu­re a good repu­ta­ti­on among col­le­agues? Every Sun­day we hear the pray­er of Fran­cis of Assis: «Lord, make me an instru­ment of your peace». This is what meta­mor­pho­sis must be about: beco­ming an instru­ment in His hand, available for Him and His Kingdom.

Jesus wants to give you and me the Holy Spi­rit, but not so that our lives run a litt­le smoot­her, that we look bet­ter, beco­me more ath­le­tic and more suc­cessful in our jobs. Jesus shakes over our King­doms the head. God’s visi­on for this world is his king­dom: «But when the Holy Spi­rit has come upon you, you will recei­ve his power. Then you will speak of me in Jeru­sa­lem, in all Judea, in Sama­ria, even to the ends of the earth.»(Acts 1:8 NLB). I see the blank sta­res of the disci­ples befo­re me: What exact­ly should we do? Whe­re do we start? What do we say? The far­thest I have tra­vel­led so far is once around the lake! Whe­re is the end of the earth? Jesus gives a task and knows: If you want to achie­ve this, you need a sup­port­er. We can­not do the cru­cial things in life our­sel­ves: pro­clai­ming the Gos­pel, resol­ving con­flicts, saving rela­ti­onships from brea­king, get­ting free from addic­tions and sel­fi­sh­ness, brin­ging peo­p­le tog­e­ther who have hated each other for 50 years, the pro­found trans­for­ma­ti­on of our being towards God-liken­ess, buil­ding the church in the spi­rit of Jesus, …

Alco­ho­lics Anony­mous begin their mee­tings with the fol­lo­wing two sentences:

• We admit that we are power­less in the face of alco­hol – and could no lon­ger mas­ter our lives.
• We belie­ve that a power grea­ter than our­sel­ves can res­to­re us to health.

The­re are forces that far exceed our strength. When we beco­me awa­re of our limits, we are rea­dy for the mira­cle of Pen­te­cost..

Waiting

«And when he was gathe­red with them, he com­man­ded them not to depart from Jeru­sa­lem, but to wait for the pro­mi­se of the Father. wait»(Acts 1:4 Elb). Wai­ting. Not­hing else. A stran­ge word for our time. With us, ever­y­thing goes in a jiffy. On the Wed­nes­day befo­re Ascen­si­on Day, I orde­red the bir­th­day pre­sent for Sil­via. It arri­ved on Satur­day, her bir­th­day, and I was able to save mys­elf. I’m alre­a­dy loo­king for­ward to the dro­nes that are sup­po­sed to deli­ver par­cels, so we can order a litt­le later! We’­re mad at peo­p­le who don’t get back to us right away. A stu­dy says that the avera­ge per­son in Switz­er­land tou­ch­es the dis­play of their mobi­le pho­ne 2600 times. As soon as a wai­ting peri­od starts, we reach into our pocket and unlock our mobi­le pho­ne. Our brains are con­di­tio­ned not to have to wait – how if that were not a rea­li­ty that is part of being human.

Jesus was cru­ci­fied and rose from the dead. Then his crew gets the assign­ment to preach the gos­pel all over the world – but wait. Not three, but 50 days! Is this not lost time? «Wait» means that what God gives us is not in our con­trol. Pen­te­cost chal­lenges us that our heart should start bea­ting to the rhythm of God. I lis­ten to the music of God and start dancing to it. Its and not our King­dom is to be built. The first les­son with the Holy Spi­rit is to wait, to be patient.

Wai­ting until the Holy Spi­rit comes is not pas­si­ve. It is about con­scious­ly rea­ching out our nee­dy heart to Jesus so that he can fill it. Spen­ding time befo­re God. Pray. Rea­ding His Word and medi­ta­ting. It is hard to belie­ve, but the­re are Chris­ti­ans who get up an hour ear­lier every mor­ning to spend time wai­ting befo­re God.

In wai­ting, some­thing essen­ti­al hap­pens, as Tho­mas Kea­ting explains: «Spi­rit beg­ins its work in res­to­ring us to whe­re we are, regard­less of our age. It does this by unco­ve­ring and heal­ing the des­truc­ti­ve aspects of our dri­ven beha­viour and ongo­ing rela­ti­onships. Then the Spi­rit digs deeper and deeper into our lives, not always chro­no­lo­gi­cal­ly, loo­king under the bed of our ear­liest emo­tio­nal expe­ri­en­ces. We car­ry within us rejec­tion, trau­ma, inse­cu­ri­ty or fear. And though this strip­ping away can be pain­ful, when­ever we bring our hurts to God, we expe­ri­ence heal­ing and a grea­ter full­ness. Our rela­ti­onship with God and others beco­mes less weig­hed down by obs­ta­cles.»

While we wait for God, he digs like an archaeo­lo­gist. He brings out emo­ti­ons from the depths for us to work on. God is at least as inte­res­ted in brin­ging hea­ven and earth tog­e­ther in your life as he is in doing visi­ble things through you. Tho­se who do not first expe­ri­ence wai­ting and going deep will not expe­ri­ence the super­na­tu­ral either.

Experience

«On the day of Pen­te­cost, ever­yo­ne was gathe­red. Sud­den­ly a roar sound­ed from the sky like the roar of a migh­ty storm and fil­led the house whe­re they were gathe­red. Then some­thing appeared that loo­ked like fla­mes that split, like ton­gues of fire that des­cen­ded on each one of them. And all tho­se pre­sent were fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit and began to speak in other ton­gues as the Holy Spi­rit inspi­red them» (Acts 2:1–4 NLB).

After the wait, it starts: wind, ton­gues of fire, for­eign lan­guages – if it was­n’t in the Bible, I could hard­ly belie­ve it. Pen­te­cost shifts the boun­da­ries. When the Holy Spi­rit works, super­na­tu­ral things also hap­pen. What hap­pen­ed here in Jeru­sa­lem was not due to the gre­at apost­les, but to the Holy Spi­rit. We cele­bra­te Pen­te­cost today, expres­sing that what hap­pen­ed then we still expect today through his Spirit.

It is also very important to obser­ve that the Holy Spi­rit does not always lead to the spec­ta­cu­lar, the good fee­ling. All the­se apost­les fil­led with the Spi­rit of God died a cruel martyr’s death years or deca­des later. The Holy Spi­rit some­ti­mes leads us in ways we do not understand.

Inde­pendent­ly of this, God also wants to do extra­or­di­na­ry things among us through his Spi­rit, e.g. heal peo­p­le of their ill­ness. How many times have we pray­ed against a serious ill­ness and God did not heal right away. I think that now would be the per­fect moment for a mira­cle, but it does not come. We are in the ten­si­on of wai­ting on the one hand and on the other hand still ful­ly expec­ting. Our mis­si­on state­ment says that we expect heal­ing and recon­ci­lia­ti­on. Only the Holy Spi­rit can bring about both! We can­not put God befo­re the cart in such a way that He must act super­na­tu­ral­ly. But my scep­ti­cism must not be the reason why God does not do it. We can­not force God’s Spi­rit, but we can count on Him, expect more from Him. We dream that our sur­roun­dings will tas­te more like God, that fami­lies will be hea­led, that the hope­l­ess will recei­ve hope and the power­less strength, that pri­soners and addicts will be set free.

We dream that whe­re the­re is death, the­re comes life. For this, the Holy Spi­rit is abso­lut­e­ly neces­sa­ry. For the Jews, Pen­te­cost is the memo­ry of the event when they as a peo­p­le recei­ved the law on stone tablets at Sinai. In that con­text, 3000 peo­p­le died (Ex 32:28). On the occa­si­on of Pen­te­cost, 3000 peo­p­le were bap­ti­sed and found life in Christ. Whe­re the Spi­rit of the Lord is, the­re is free­dom and true life!

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Acts 1:4–9 and 2:1–5

1. What would you say if someone told you that they sud­den­ly spo­ke Japa­ne­se out of the blue during the last ser­vice? Does the Spi­rit of God still work super­na­tu­ral­ly today?
2. What should we expect from the Holy Spi­rit? What is the dif­fe­rence of our King­dom and the King­dom of God?
3. How do you feel about wai­ting? Are the­re times in your dai­ly life when you con­scious­ly reach out to God to fill your heart?
4. Tell each other how you have alre­a­dy expe­ri­en­ced the Holy Spirit.
5. Pray for each other for new ful­film­ent through the Holy Spirit!