Forgotten God
This Sunday (June 5th, 2022) we enter the season of Pentecost and begin a new series focused on the Holy Spirit. Pentecost follows, in the liturgical calendar, the season of Eastertide which is a forty-day celebration of the resurrection. Eastertide is meant to mirror the forty days Jesus’ spent with his disciples, after the resurrection and before the ascension. We don’t know a lot about this post-resurrection pre-ascension time, but Luke provides an insightful summary in Acts 1:3-5,
He [Jesus] appeared to them [disciples] over a period of forty days, speaking to them about God’s kingdom. While they were eating together, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. He said, “This is what you heard from me: John baptized with water, but in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:3-5).
It’s just a few words, like a “previously on” TV recap, but something big happens in this short summary that we need to pay attention to, especially considering Pentecost, because in this brief passage Jesus connects his kingdom with the arrival of the Spirit. The disciples immediately understand this connection because they ask Jesus, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now” (Acts 1:6)? Jesus responds to their question saying,
It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1:7-8).
There is a lot the disciples don’t understand, but they're right about one thing; the Spirit is here to restore the kingdom.
Forgotten God
For a long time, the Spirit made very little sense to me (that’s still sort of true but for different reasons). I didn’t understand what the Spirit was doing or why and I often felt like talk about the Spirit was disconnected from the work of Jesus and the rest of the Bible. Jesus was about his kingdom, but the Spirit seemed to be up to some other, different, and less tangible thing.
Honestly, the Spirit seemed unnecessary. Like a good accessory to the story of Jesus but not a necessary character. I knew this wasn’t true but it’s how I felt and how I interpreted so much of our theology about the Spirit. That is until a few years ago when I reread Acts 1 (as I was preparing for Eastertide) and ran into this connection Jesus makes between the Spirit and the Kingdom. According to Jesus, the Spirit isn’t on some ancillary mission but is continuing and participating in his work, the restoration of the kingdom.
What does it mean it that the Spirit is working to restore the kingdom? Good question, thanks for asking. This brings us back to the disciples in Acts 1. The disciples understand something big was happening. They understood what I didn’t, that the Spirit is about the kingdom. Yet, there’s also a ton they don’t understand. In Acts 2, the Spirit descends on the disciples and fills them with power. Then in the preceding chapters we read amazing stories of Spirit empowered life. But, in every story we also see the Spirit disrupting the disciples lives and understandings. They know about kingdoms and the power but they have a lot to learn about Jesus’ kingdom and the power of the Spirit.
Sign Language
Following Jesus’ ascension, the disciples head into Jerusalem to wait for the Spirit. They gather in a room to pray when on Pentecost, the Spirit arrives in fire and, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak” (Acts 2:4). The scene that follows is infamous. The gathered disciples rush out of the house and into the streets where onlookers hear the story of Jesus in their native languages. But what happened in the upper room after the fire and before the revival? When each person spoke and heard “other tongues.”
When the disciples asked Jesus if he was going to restore the kingdom they specifically asked if it would be restored to Israel. Not to the world. Their imagination centered on Israel as a formal nation state and they hoped their nation, their kingdom, their political power would be restored. This isn’t the only time the disciple struggled with ethnonationalism. All throughout Acts we see it as the disciple’s wrestle with the inclusion of gentile converts, debate the imposition of purity laws, and even racially segregate communion. Which is what makes Pentecost so remarkable. If the kingdom were to be restored to Israel, you would think everyone would speak and understand Hebrew. But instead, the Spirit gives the disciples a diversity of words, languages, and senses. Everyone witnesses the same thing but through different kinds of language experiences. Imagine how disorienting that would be. It’s beautiful and amazing, yes, but if your hope and understanding has revolved around the national restoration of Israel this experience would come as a surprise.
What happened at Pentecost (Acts 2) was better and bigger than the disciples imagined, but it’s also different. It’s better and bigger because it’s about more than Israel or any single nation. Pentecost is about the advent of a kingdom without borders, one that tears down divisive boundaries, and gathers us around the peace of Christ. At Pentecost, the Spirit makes this kingdom work “concrete,”[1] as Missiologist Alan Roxburgh says. We can see and taste the kingdom as the Spirit moves. But Pentecost also challenges previous understanding.
At Pentecost, everyone “witnesses” something new. Jesus told his disciples they would receive power to be “witnesses” to the ends of the earth. But who would have guessed how much the disciples themselves needed a witnessing work? Theologian F. Durrwell describes “witness” as “the translation of the mystery of Christ and salvation,”[2] into “a sign language… uprising into the visibility of this world.”[3] Slow down and read that again. Witness is the “translation of the mystery of Christ and salvation into the world;” it is mystery emerging and becoming tangible in the world through signs and demonstrations. In the upper room, the followers of Jesus experience “sign language” from the Spirit, the kingdom becomes visible, the mystery a little more tangible, and their previous understanding comes undone.
“In the upper room, the followers of Jesus experience “sign language” from the Spirit, the kingdom becomes visible, the mystery a little more tangible, and their previous understanding comes undone. ”
One moment you’re asking God to make Israel powerful enough to defeat Rome, in the next you're speaking Latin. The disciples receive power but not as they imagined. And that's why we need the Spirit, Spirit witnesses to us and helps us expand our imagination. In John 14:26, Jesus says, the Spirit will “teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said” and a few chapters later, in John 16, Jesus says the Spirit will “guide us into truth (CEB).” Like a good teacher or trail guide, the Spirit teaches and guides us into new and deeper places. But that means entering a bit of mystery and being led beyond our sense of certainty and expertise.
Out of Control
What happens at Pentecost continues to disrupt and shape the life of the early Church. In Acts 10, the Spirit gave Peter a vision of foods he considered ritualistically unclean and told him to eat. Repeatedly Peter says no to which God responds, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15). After a third iteration, Peter wakes up to find a group of gentiles asking him to come to the house of Cornelius and explain the gospel. It’s only when he arrives at their house that Peter understands the vision, as he says, “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean” (Acts 10:28). Peter struggled to imagine the inclusion of gentile believers until the Spirit met him, pressed on his imagination, and introduced him to Cornelius.
In my favorite story from the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is traveling with a group of Jesus’ followers when he is “kept by the Spirit” from entering the provinces of Asia. We never learn what it means to be “kept by the Spirit” but Paul and his team adjust their journey and head to Troas. There, Paul has a vision of a man in Macedonia crying out for help, so they set sail. The text is light on details, but we know Paul’s normal missionary strategy was to enter a city and head to the synagogue. But here, Luke doesn’t record anything of interest until on the Sabbath Paul heads out of the city towards the river, in search of a place of prayer, where he meets Lydia. Lydia is an affluent woman referred to as God worshiper, who experiences the Spirit, responds to the message, and is baptized. What I love about this story is that none of Paul’s expectations are met. He thinks he’ll go to Asia but is “kept by the Spirit.” Then he receives a vision of a man in Macedonia crying out for help but instead meets an affluent woman by the river who, after responding to the Jesus story, provides care for Paul and his friends. Paul’s imagination could have easily hindered his participation in the Spirit’s work, but the Spirit continues to meet Paul, press on his understanding, and lead him towards something extraordinary.
“Paul’s imagination could have easily hindered his participation in the Spirit’s work, but the Spirit continues to meet Paul, press on his understanding, and lead him towards something extraordinary. ”
I love these stories because in each, the Spirit is outside of control. By the time Peter gets to Cornelius’s home, he’s basically become a Christian without any help from Peter. And Paul chases the Spirit around Asia until he’s led to a river for an unexpected encounter. The Spirit guides Peter and Paul into something new and outside of their control, understanding, or expertise. Their job isn’t to control or contain but to pay attention and submit their lives and activities to the Spirit’s work. The same thing is true for us. The Spirit wants to transform our understanding, “witnessing to us” so that we can pay attention and submit our lives to the activity and work of the Spirit in and around us. It’ll be risky, we just may chase the Spirit into a whole new world. But that’s also the promise, that if we pay attention and listen we might catch the kingdom and see the new breaking in all around us.
[1] Branson and Roxburgh, Leadership, God’s Agency, and Disruptions.
[2] Conner, Disabling Mission, Enabling Witness, 50.
[3] Durrwell, “Christian Witness,” 131.
