Journeying from the Ascension to Pentecost (13 – 23 May 2021)
INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT?
As St. Luke (an early Christian and author of 2 New Testament
books: Luke’s Gospel & Acts of the Apostles) tells the story,
this was precisely the reaction of those who were on hand that day in Jerusalem
when the first followers of Jesus “received the Holy Spirit”:
“All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What
does this mean?” (Acts of the Apostles 2.12)
Jesus
lives? You may have experienced similar perplexity
after having spoken to Christians. You
might have noticed that they have a way of talking about Jesus as if he was
still alive. They talk about Jesus
in the present tense, as if they spoke to him on a regular basis, as if he was
a part of their daily lives. That might
have struck you as a bit weird. I mean, everyone
who has been to the movies in the western world knows that Jesus’ life ended with
him being nailed to a Roman cross. Strangely
enough, Christians seem to celebrate Jesus’ crucifixion; in most churches,
there is a graphic depiction of the death of Jesus hanging above the altar – front
and center – sometimes, as large as life.
Indeed, from a historical perspective,
it’s hard to dispute the fact that Jesus “of Nazareth” (his hometown) was
publicly executed by the Roman authorities in Jerusalem shortly after the
beginning of the 4th decade of the 1st century AD
(CE). But all our evidence of the first
Christians indicates that from the very beginnings of the “Jesus movement”, Jesus’
followers experienced him as being alive and present with them, both
personally and corporately.
What
happened? Here’s how St. Luke explains what happened:
“After his suffering [Jesus] presented himself alive to [the
apostles] by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days …
While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait
there for the promise of the Father. “…you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit not many days from now … 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.”
When [Jesus] had said this, as they were watching, he was
lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight…
Then they returned to Jerusalem … When they had entered the
city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John,
and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of
Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were
constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women,
including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers… together the crowd
numbered about one hundred twenty persons.” (Acts of the Apostles 1.3-15,
extracts)
The gift
of the Spirit. The event in the middle of this passage is
called the “Ascension” of Jesus, the last time his followers saw him after his
resurrection from the dead. Beginning on
the 3rd day after his crucifixion, and continuing until the 40th
day, reports started to spread among the disciples that Jesus’ tomb had been
found empty and that Jesus himself had been seen – alive – by different people
(e.g. Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 24).
Luke tells us that the risen Jesus, just before his ascension, promised
his followers that they would soon receive the power of the Holy Spirit.
Throughout the Bible, there are stories of
the “spirit” (i.e. “life-breath”) of God being given to people who were
entrusted by God with a mission. Most of
the time, it was prophets, priests and kings who received God’s Spirit
to empower them for their task of speaking for God, leading the
worship of God or ruling the people of God. Jesus tells his followers that they will
receive power so that they can act as “witnesses” of his resurrection
throughout the world. Jesus tells them
to wait in the city of Jerusalem until they have been “baptized” in the Holy
Spirit.
Pentecost.
And so, the apostles and over a hundred other followers gathered in a
room near the Temple precincts and spent their days in prayer and anticipation
of what Jesus had promised. As they
gathered in the upper room, the Jewish Festival of Weeks (Pentecost) was only 10
days away. This 7-week-long celebration
begins right after Passover (festival during which Jesus was crucified) with
the barley harvest and ends with the wheat harvest. It eventually came to be associated with an
event which occurred after the Israelites’ “exodus” (during the first Passover)
from the land that had enslaved them many centuries before. This way, Pentecost at the time of Jesus
marked the arrival of the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, on the summit of which God
met with Moses and gave him the 10 Commandments and reaffirmed his commitment
towards the nation of Israel whom he had chosen to be his own people, entrusted
with the mission of showing all the other nations of the world how to live.
“Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain,
saying, “…tell the Israelites: You have seen …how I bore you on eagles’ wings
and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my
covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed,
the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a
holy nation.” (Exodus 19.3-6)
Wait
& pray. And so, these 120 Jesus-followers gather in
their nation’s capital, next to their national shrine, and wait and pray. We can only imagine what was going through
their minds during those 10 days spent in that room – memories of Jesus, what
he had said and done, what he had said to them personally, horrific memories of
the crucifixion… and then the shock of hearing that Jesus was alive again (some
had seen him for themselves), and now the prospect of a world-wide mission – it
was a lot to take in. One thing was
certain – nothing had happened as they had expected, from the moment they first
encountered Jesus until now… The God of the Exodus, the God of Sinai, the God
of Jesus was about to do something new.
They could only wait and see what that would mean – for their nation and
for them…
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