The author, Roald Dahl in, My Uncle Oswald, once wrote,
I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.
GOD IS PASSIONATE
In this season of Pentecost it is good to ask, What, if anything, is God passionate about?
We find a real clue in the events that developed on the Day of Pentecost following the first Easter, when, Dr. Luke tells us, the Spirit of God was poured out on the disciples. Despite the danger to their lives they went out on the streets of Jerusalem preaching. Men of Israel, Peter declared, Listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. …And you, …put him to death …but God raised him from the dead, … (Acts 2:22ff).
In his sermon that day, Peter was not introducing a religion or a set of rules, but a person. He did this by focusing on Jesus’ life and themiracles he performed – healing the sick, casting out evil spirits, stilling a storm, even raising the dead. While many today mock the idea of Jesus’ miracles, first century historians such as the Jewish historian, Josephus, wrote of Jesus as a ‘wonder worker’. Peter’s words reflect Jesus’ own words when he said: If I by the finger of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is come upon you.
Peter, logically and clearly, developed his major theme: Jesus, through his death and resurrection is, as King David had prophesied, uniquely both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). Peter’s words that day about the cross and the reality of the resurrection lie at the heart of his message. Men had judged Jesus guilty and nailed him to a cross. God however, as the ultimate Supreme Court Judge, overturned that judgement and raised Jesus to life. And notice the response, which we read in Acts 2:37f: Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’ Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven;…’
CUT TO THE HEART
It was as though the eyes of Peter’s hearers had been closed as to who Jesus really was. Now, at a word they saw. Whereas they had mocked and jeered when Jesus had died, had laughed when they heard Jesus’ followers that morning, now they were cut to the heart. Three thousand responded to Peter’s call to repent and be baptised – thousands more than had given their lives to Jesus as the Christ during the course of his public ministry.
The Spirit had enabled the people to hear the disciples in their own native tongue earlier that day. Now, by implication, the Spirit was taking Peter’s words and opening their eyes to the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Lordwith whom we all have to do business.
It is extraordinary that the God of the universe is passionate about rescuing men and women who ignore him. Significantly, God calls on each of us who has turned to the Lord Jesus, to be partners with Him in his work of salvation. The question is, do we share God’s passion?
Is there anything that can really make us different – that can shake us out of our apathy and anxiety, that can inject enthusiasm and joy into our lives? The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it”. Can we find it in Christianity?
In Acts 2:1ff we read:
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
The Day of Pentecost has been called the birthday of the church for it was the day when Jesus switched on God’s power supply amongst his people and the impact of his life, death and resurrection began to spread. God’s Spirit turned cowardly disciples into intrepid apostles.
PENTECOST
Pentecost is the Jewish festival that celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments. Violent wind and tongues of fire had enveloped Mt Sinai when Moses was given the law. But the law failed to change the world because the law had failed to change people. Now once again at the time of Pentecost, God was coming with fire and wind. This time it was not to impart his law, but to impart his Spirit. The sound of a mighty wind symbolised Jesus’ power. The fire symbolised his purifying and cleansing work. The speech that day announced the good news of Jesus reaching people from every nation. And so, in v.5 we read:
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. … And everyone was bewildered because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.
The crowd was composed of people from the Caspian Sea in the east to Rome in the west, from modern Turkey in the north to Africa in the south. ‘How is it we can understand them in our own native language?’ they asked. The cynics mocked and said they were drunk. But Peter responded, ’No! We’re not drunk. It’s only nine o’clock in the morning – the bars aren’t open yet. This is the Spirit of God at work.’
It was God’s Spirit who enabled people that day to hear and understand in their own native language or dialect, what was being said. It was not inarticulate babbling, as some describe it. It was the miracle of language being wrought by the ultimate Author of speech. It was the ‘remaking of language’ so that it could be understood by all. It was the reversal of Babel.
The disciples who had been demoralised and defeated, came out on the streets with a new enthusiasm, confidence and joy. Who would have thought that Peter, who had so vehemently denied that he even knew Jesus, would ever speak up in public in the face of potential death, saying that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah? No longer a coward, he was a courageous preacher.
THE FELT SPIRIT
What made that difference? It was the Spirit, the ‘Companion’ Jesus promised (John 14:16ff). For many, Christianity is little more than a moral code that they must struggle to observe, or a creed they must recite mindlessly every week. But in John 14 Jesus had spoken of ‘Another Helper’ who would enable his people to experience a vital, personal and trusting relationship with the One who is at the heart of the universe. He is trustworthy because he is true.
It is, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:3, the Spirit who opens our eyes to our need to respond to God’s good news. It is he who turns our hearts to love and trust the Lord Jesus, enabling us to experience a peace and joy, enthusiasm and courage that is beyond human understanding. As we read on in The Acts of the Apostles, we see what happened then, and what can happen now when God’s Spirit is at work.
Let me urge you, as you read this, to pray. Pray that the Spirit of God will truly fill your life, instructing you from God’s Word, bringing the presence of Jesus Christ into your life, enabling you to call upon God as ‘Father’, equipping you to be the person God wants you to be, giving you purpose, joy and a new enthusiasm in your life. Prayer:
Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (BCP, Whit Sunday – adapted)
Most of us long for a better world –a world free from conflict and war, lying and cheating, corruption and injustice. We long for a world where there is justice and peace. But the reality is that in various ways and to various degrees, we become caught up in the ebb and flow of human conflict and injustice. ‘Can anyone be trusted?’ we ask. And indeed, because these human failings seem to have become endemic, we become cynical about law-makers, the opinion-makers, and the traditional church.
Where in the world today do we look for hope – to lawmakers, educators, or the courts? All these institutions can do great things, but if we’re honest we know they can only do so much. I want to suggest that because our real problem is our broken relationship with God, there is no real answer apart from the events of Good Friday and Easter day that we have touched on over the last weeks.
Consider the charge he left his disciples that we read about in Acts 1:8: But 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 ends of the earth. These words go to the heart of The Acts of the Apostles which we can sum up with the phrase: ‘The Hidden Rule of Christ’. Two things stand out: the limited agenda of the disciples, and the global agenda of Jesus.
The limited agenda of the disciples: Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? they asked. Jesus had been speaking about how the new age of God’s Messiah had dawned and how the promises of the prophets were being fulfilled. The disciples were excited about this and began thinking that at last Jesus was going to reveal his true power and position as Israel’s rightful king. They spoke of Jesus restoring the kingdom. Clearly they were thinking in political categories – the restoration of the monarchy.
They also referred to the kingdom of Israel. They were thinking in nationalistic terms: the power and position of Israel as a nation. They questioned whether this would happen soon. They were thinking that now Jesus was risen from the dead, his coming in kingly power and glory would soon take place.
We need to consider this.Many have thought in much the same categories as those first followers. Events in the Middle-East, especially if they involve Israel, always stir some people to open up the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the New, with a view to making predictions concerning the end times.
But look at Jesus’ response: He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. His words are a rebuke: ‘Friends,’ he is saying, ‘That’s not for you to know. That’s ‘Top Secret’! We need to remember this when people are getting excited with predictions about the end times: ‘You’re not to worry about that,’ says Jesus. ‘I have something much more important for you to do with your time and energy.’
Consider his agenda: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Yes, it’s another agenda, but it’s his action plan for his followers. Their vision is short-sighted and parochial – limited to the nation of Israel. Jesus wanted them to lift their eyes to the needs of the world. ‘Listen,’ he is saying, ‘you’re being nationalistic and territorial. Come with me and see the big picture. The account and the implications of my death and resurrection must be told – first, here in Jerusalem, then in Judea and Samaria, and finally to the ends of the earth.’
It is easy for us to be like the disciples and put all our energies into working at political solutions for the world’s ills. Yes, politics have their place, but God did not send a politician to rescue the world. He sent a Savior. What is more, the Savior, Jesus Christ, now calls us into partnership with him in his agenda that is spiritual in its focus (men and women need God’s gospel to touch and change their minds and souls), global in scope, and far-flung in time.
Yesterday’s New York Times (May 5, 2015) carried an article by Nicholas Wade, ‘A New Order to Life’s Origins’. The article focuses on a hypothesis of Dr John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Cambridge, England, that life on earth has its origins in an asteroid bombardment from Jupiter and Saturn some 13.8 billion years ago. However, the article notes that other eminent scientists have serious questions about Dr Sutherland’s hypothesis.
My purpose here is not to discuss the merits or otherwise of the thesis (I am not a scientist), but to observe once again the scientific recognition of the extraordinary complexity that we find in the universe and in life on earth. Yet despite the disagreements amongst scientists, the opinion-shapers in the world of academia and in the social media consistently dismiss the Bible’s account of the origins and meaning of life. The public voice has been persistent: the Genesis account of creation must be dismissed – no further questions. What is overlooked is that Genesis makes no claim to be a scientific explanation. It is not interested in the ‘How’, but ‘Who?’ So, Psalm 19 speaks into our world with, The heavens declare the glory of God.
When we come to the New Testament it is significant that every outreach presentation is undergirded by the statement that Jesus rose physically from the dead. If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith, writes Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 15.
Jesus’ resurrection is extraordinary.
But unusual things do happen. G.K. Chesterton applied words of Lord Byron to Christianity, Truth is stranger than fiction, he said, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
In Corinthians we read: He (Christ) was buried,… he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and… he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living…1 Corinthians 15:3ff
Christianity didn’t start because a group of fanatics had invented a story about their hero. It didn’t start because a group of philosophers had come to the same conclusions about life. And it didn’t start because a group of mystics shared the same vision about God. It began with a group of eye-witnesses – a company of very ordinary men and women who saw something very extraordinary happen. In a word it began with history.
The tomb of Jesus of Nazareth was empty, not because the body had been stolen, or because the disciples had removed it, or because Jesus had come out of a coma in the cool of the tomb, but because of a divine intervention. The late Dr. Pinchas Lapide, an eminent Jewish theologian, said this about Jesus’ resurrection: …In my opinion the resurrection belongs to the category of the truly real… A fact which indeed is withheld from objective science, photography, and a conceptual proof, but not from the believing scrutiny of history which more frequently leads to deeper insights.
Jesus’ resurrection is not a mythical story. It was the real God, breaking into real history at a particular place and a particular time. This is what makes Christian faith with all it says about God, you and me, and the meaning of life, credible. Christianity is real because it has the evidence of eye-witnesses.
Prayer
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving kindness to us and to all people. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your amazing love in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace and for the hope of glory. And, we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful, and that we may declare your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.
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