[Pentecost 2023]

Jerusalem was still buzzing with the strange and remarkable events of the Passover time that year.  The story of the Resurrection of Jesus spread like a wildfire.  The people talked, the authorities were confused, the church leaders exasperated that this preacher and his teaching just would not go away.  For some, hope was rekindled and the flame of expectation ignited once again in their hearts.  Could it be that He is what He said He is?  They investigated, as Matthew describes it: with fear and great joy. (Matthew 28:8)

Jesus  appeared more or less ten times in a glorified body to  his disciples, including his brother James and Paul on the road to Damascus.  According to  Paul He appeared to 500 people. (1 Corinthians  15:3-8)

On the day of Pentecost we find  120 people in the upper room to wait on something, they did not know what to expect.  Jesus said: wait!  Waiting in uncertainty is probably one of the most difficult  things to do.  What  if you wait and wait and nothing comes – you can look  like a  fool and one wants to avoid the disappointment of unrealized expectations.

Trust and faith in the mysterious being of an invisible God is a reality of a Christian life.  The waiting in the upper room was based on the words of Jesus himself.

Words are only words – an abstract expression of a promise.  Waiting has an unavoidable impact on the future. One does not wait for the past.  We tend to judge the future on what happened in the past.  Words can deceive, empty promises never realized that wound and let you down.  People  promise and forget, promise and neglect –  human promises train us in hesitancy and doubt.

All our “baggage” on expectations and  human failures are blazed in the fire of Pentecost. The faithful waited  for the promise.  Could there have  been doubt? Maybe, the Word does not say it, but faith heroes are people like us before a powerful revelation of Almighty God.  All we can say is that the 120 waited and did not act on whatever they might have felt.  Even if they doubted, they waited!

The waited ten days. Ten days are mentioned in Revelation (2:10).  The time period ten days are not literal – it is symbolic  – to express a limited time that will end.  The persecution of Christians is under God’s control.  The time is set  – it is not forever.

We have spoken about kairos-time.  It is the concept of time that describes time in the light of an eternal God Who is not a “prisoner” of time like us earthlings.  The time in which God shows his Love and perfect ways in our lives.  We cannot control everything that happens in our lives and therefore we look at times of suffering with anointed eyes.  (Revelation 3:18)  Kairos is God’s time, the fullness of time, the right time.

Can we trust God with a limitation on suffering?  Are the days in the wilderness counted like in the time of Israel?  Can we look forward to the Promised Land?

There are wondrous promises in wilderness-times.  God’s rest, a table in the wilderness, trees that bear fruit in drought and do not shrivel in the heat.  The fulfillment of these promises is guaranteed in a deeper relationship with God.  The breakthrough in the atmosphere of victory and strength starts immediately in quietness and trust.  (Isaiah 30:15)

…again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”  (Hebrews 4:7)

The key to a change in the atmosphere in wilderness times is the Voice of God.  He is a God Who speaks.  It is the miraculous, living word of the Word of God.

The Israelites had a feast to celebrate the Voice of God  – the Feast of Trumpets.  The trumpet is  a symbol of the Voice of God.

God emphasizes the fact that He is a God who speaks. (Isaiah 52:6)  It is in contrast to all  the other gods in our world -old and new, ancient  or modern.  Psalm 29 hails the Voice of God.  John describes the voice of God in Revelation 1.  He is in the spirit-realm within the vision of  the invisible world.

How does one “hear” the Voice of God if everyone is not “in the Spirit” like John hearing “the sound of the trumpet” and the “sound of many waters”? (Revelation 1:10,15)

God promised that He will speak to us. In the written words of the Word of God the words become the Voice of God  as the Holy Spirit interprets and teaches.   We read and God “speaks” the promises and  guidance written for us. 

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  (John 6:63)

Fifty days after the Resurrection God “spoke” in the mighty rushing wind,   the tongues of fire and the languages of the Day of Pentecost.  Just as  He confused the languages of the people at the Tower of Babel, He united his Church (the true Church  – the Body, the Bride) with language – known and unknown – lingua and glossolalia.

Celebrate Pebble pals!  God is in our midst to equip and to empower the miraculous Gospel of Jesus for the redemption and deliverance from evil.  His Voice will give us rest and hope that fills  us with energy for the future.  The content of our future is the promises of God.

The outward teaching of the outward Christ, whatever other influences it may have exercised, was not sufficient to redeem them from the power of indwelling sin. This could be achieved only by the indwelling Christ. Only when Jesus descended into them by the Holy Spirit did they undergo a complete change.   [Andrew Murray]

On the Day of Pentecost Jesus came as He promised, so that He could  be with everyone. 

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. 

 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (John 14:18-20)

Incline your ear, and come to Me.
Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you—
The sure mercies of David.  (Isaiah 55:3)

Pebbles 4 [4. Be greedy – it’s good for you!]