INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE

Year A - Pentecost Sunday

 

ACTS 2:1-21.     This dramatic event on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost,  fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus, marks the formal beginning of the Christian Church and its mission in the world. Several themes stand out in the story:   

          1) The gift of the Spirit gave the apostles power to witness to the resurrection of Jesus, the key to their faith and our faith.

          2) The witness of the apostles was to be universal.

          3) The gift and the mission were the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel recorded in the Hebrew scriptures.

 

NUMBERS 11:24-30.  (Alternate) Since many New Testament stories originated as reinterpretations of Old Testament stories, this unusual anecdote could well have been the source for the story of the first Pentecost.

 

PSALM 104:24-35.  This psalm celebrates God’s creation. It may have been modeled after an ancient Egyptian hymn to the sun. This portion of it emphasizes the life-giving and life-sustaining gift of spirit without which no creature can exist.

 

1 CORINTHIANS 12:3-13.   Paul quotes what was most probably the earliest Christian statement of faith: “Jesus is Lord,” which can only be said sincerely through the gift of the Spirit. Then he goes on to cite what effect the Spirit has in the Christian fellowship through its varied expressions. Finally, in a still vivid metaphor he describes the Spirit activating the Christian fellowship as the visible body of the risen Christ.

         Note especially Paul’s claim in verse 13 that this Spirit-filled body consists of all who have been baptized without any ethnic or economic distinctions.

 

JOHN 20:19-23.     Unlike other the other gospels and Acts, this  is a different account of the way Jesus gave the Spirit to his disciples. This occurred on the evening of the day of his resurrection as the disciples cowered in fear behind locked doors. Several previous references in John’s Gospel said that the Spirit could only come after Jesus’ ministry had been completed with his death and his glorification through resurrection had taken place.

 

JOHN 7:37-39.  (Alternate) John used this incident from one of Jesus’ many interactions with the Pharisees to declare Jesus’ promise of the gift of the Spirit after his resurrection.

 

 

A MORE COMPLETE ANALYSIS:

 

 

ACTS 2:1-21.     This dramatic event on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus, marks what the author, presumed to be Luke, perceived as the formal beginning of the church and its mission in the world. Several themes stand out in the story:           

       

1) The gift of the Spirit gave the apostles power to witness to the resurrection of Jesus, the key to their faith and our faith. This fulfilled the promise Jesus had made just prior to his ascension (Acts 1:8). Luke used the Greek word for >power= (*dunamis*), a word commonly used throughout the gospels and in the Greek version of the OT (LXX), to refer to divinely initiating spiritual power. In so doing, he asserted what the crowd heard in a multiplicity of languages while others mistook the outburst of the apostolic community as morning drunkenness (vss. 11-13). Luke quoted Peter drawing precedent from Joel=s prophecy for what had happened (Joel 2:28-32). That prophecy was filled with demonstrations of divine power: dreams, visions, prophecies, unusual natural portents and signs. These were typical manifestations of the Aday of the Lord,@ the eschatological event featured throughout OT prophecy as the end time of divine judgment. Luke meant to say nothing less than that, but transferred the designation of ALord@ from Yahweh to Jesus, the Messiah.

 

2) The witness of the apostles was to be universal, as the presence of representatives from many lands and the glossolalia (vss. 8-11) indicates. Luke interpreted this speaking in tongues by visitors to Jerusalem contrary to Paul=s definition of ecstatic speech as meaningless sounds or prophecy requiring interpretation (1 Cor. 12-14; cf. Acts 10:46; 19:6). Thus Luke saw Pentecost as a reversal of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9), bringing the unity of the Spirit to the church in contrast to the confusion which heretofore had divided humanity. Ecstatic experiences had been common in the early phase of the prophetic era. Yahweh enthusiasts worked themselves into a religious frenzy by means of music and dancing (1 Samuel 10:5-13). Both Saul and David engaged in the practice (1 Samuel 19:18-24; 2 Samuel 6:13-17), which may well have been in Luke=s mind as he narrated the beginning of the messianic age. But this was different. Luke makes it plain that this ecstasy came from a source outside the apostolic community, a point reiterated in Peter=s sermon (vs. 39), and for a profound and divinely initiated purpose.

 

3) The resurrection and the gift of the Spirit were the fulfillment of God=s promises to Israel recorded in the Hebrew scriptures. Quite apart from Joel=s prophecy, the outpouring of the Spirit came as the end point of Israel=s spiritual history. Thus Peter=s sermon (vss. 23, 30, 34-36) included several quotations from Jewish scriptures designed to affirm Jesus as Lord and Messiah (vs. 36).  More than that, Luke wanted his readers to understand that the resurrection and gift of the Spirit also marked the beginning of a new phase of God=s involvement in human history. It was indeed an eschatological moment.

 

Pentecost, the Hellenistic name for the Jewish festival of Weeks, originated an agricultural festival celebrating an extended cereal harvest beginning with the barley harvest at Passover and terminating with the wheat  harvest at Pentecost. Also known as the Day of First Fruits, it was marked by the bringing of gifts to the temple in gratitude for the providence and protection of God. The Book of Jubilees represented it as a covenant-renewal ceremony and linked it with the covenant of Noah. Later Judaism celebrated it as the day on which the Torah was given. For Christians, it represented the beginning of the in-gathering of people in every nation into the realm of God=s sovereign love. Is it too much to consider that, because of his knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, all of these images may well have been in Luke=s mind as he composed this narrative?

 

 

NUMBERS 11:24-30.  (Alternate) The revised Common Lectionary provides this alternate lesson from the OT when the reading from Acts 2 is preferred in place of the gospel lesson. Since many New Testament stories originated as reinterpretations of Old Testament stories, this unusual anecdote could well have been the source for the story of the first Pentecost.

 

As it stands in this context, it tells of Moses following Yahweh’s instructions to select 70 elders to stand around the tent of meeting, or tabernacle, as representative of the whole people of Israel. The Lord then descended and gave some of Lord’s spirit to the 70 so that they might prophesy on one occasion.

 

Two of those not among the 70 also received some of the given spirit and continued to prophesy after the others had ceased. Hearing of this anomaly, Joshua, assistant to Moses’, urged him to stop them. But Moses refused and gently upbraided Joshua that he might even be jealous of the two. He then expressed the desire that all God’s people would put the Lord’s spirit on them.

 

Despite is primitive concept of the spirit of God as something material, like a removable garment, the story does elicit a very meaningful spiritual lesson. The gift of the Spirit of God is not limited to an exclusive group of elders possessing special holiness, as some still regard contemporary ordained clergy, but is available to all people of God.

 

 

PSALM 104:24-35.      This whole of this psalm celebrates God=s providential works in creation and the natural environment. It may have been modeled after an ancient Egyptian hymn to the sun. This portion of it emphasizes the life-giving and life-sustaining gift of spirit without which no creature can exist (vs. 30).

 

Scientists in our day may or may not hold a hypothesis about the origins of the universe which includes divine creation. Yet the more the mysteries of the universe are revealed, the more one is forced to a conclusion that a spiritual initiative lies beyond the beginning. Knowing little that could be now regarded as Ascience,@ but with deep faith, the psalmist had penetrated these same mysteries and concluded that he was observing this same truth. His meditation on what he saw around him drove him to make such a faith statement and to offer praise to God for what he saw.

 

At this time of year, when spring growth is at its most luxuriant and the weather most favorable, we can share the psalmist=s praise. In agricultural societies from medieval times until the 20th century some parts of the church in England and Europe marked the three days before Ascension Day as a time of Arogation@ recognizing the dominion of Christ over creation and on Rogation Sunday, the fifth Sunday of Easter, offering special prayers for newly sown crops. Urban societies now protected from the fragility of agricultural production have omitted this rustic spiritual discipline. But are not environmentalists in our urban culture the inheritors of this tradition? Who then are the Asinners@ whom the psalmist wishes to be Aconsumed from the earth?@ (vs. 35) Could these be understood in our time to be those who would destroy the environment which is the sacred creation of God=s spirit?

 

 

1 CORINTHIANS 12:3-13.   Paul quotes what was most probably the earliest Christian statement of faith: AJesus is Lord@ (vs. 3), which can only be said sincerely through the gift of the Spirit. Then he goes on to cite what effect the Spirit has in the Christian fellowship through its varied expressions, all obedient to the same Lord Jesus Christ.  Finally, in a still vivid metaphor he describes the Spirit activating the Christian fellowship as the visible body of the risen Christ. For Paul the relationship between Christ and the Spirit was so close that their missions were almost indistinguishable. The presence of the Spirit is virtually the same as the presence of Christ. From this kernel springs the 4th century doctrine expressed in the words of the Nicene Creed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.


 

The charismata listed in this passage can be found elsewhere in the NT (Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:7-13; 1 Peter 4:10-12; 1 Tim. 4:13). Generally speaking, they varied from the ecstatic outpourings of Pentecost to the normal practices of daily living that met the needs of the Christian community enabling them to live according to the perceived will of God. The several lists of gifts in various sources show considerable diversity and were democratically distributed. Every Christian possessed some of them to varying degrees. Of course, they came entirely as the gift of God and their worth could only be measured in how much they contributed to the well-bring of the community. As the Letters to the Corinthians and the Ephesians reveal, the issues of evaluation and control had great consequence for the early church.

 

Perhaps Paul=s special contribution to the subject of spiritual gifts rests in his metaphor of the body of Christ. After being introduced in vss. 12-13, this metaphor finds fuller elaboration in the succeeding segment. Note especially Paul=s claim in vs. 13 that this Spirit-filled body consists of all who have been baptized without any ethnic, class, social or economic distinctions. Behind this metaphor is the Hebraic concept of the corporate personality, found frequently in the OT prophets, in the concept of Israel as the covenant people of God and the eschatological concept of the Ason of man.@ (Hebrew = *ben adam*) Hellenistic Stoicism contained a similar concept of a commonwealth being like a body. Some NT scholars, including the late Professor George Johnston, believe this may have influenced Paul=s thought at this point. On the other hand, Alan Richardson has pointed out that a very similar idea can be found in Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34; John 2:21 and 11:52. Thus Richardson concludes that Athe fundamental idea ... comes from Jesus= own teaching.@ (*Introduction to the Theology of the NT,* 255. SCM Press, 1955.)

 

Richardson adds a further comment of note: AThe Church is thus the means of Christ=s work in the world; it is his hands and feet, his mouth and voice. As in his incarnate life, Christ had to have a body to proclaim his Gospel and to do his work, so in his resurrection life in this age he still needs a body to be the instrument of his gospel and of his world in the world. This is what is meant by the assertion, sometimes made, that the Church is >the Extension of the Incarnation.= This phrase is, of course,  misleading if it is taken to mean that the actual Church in the world is already Christ=s perfected humanity; not till the >day of Christ= will the Church of redeemed sinners be in actuality what it is now eschatologically, the perfect manhood of Christ.@  (ibid, 256)

 

 

JOHN 20:19-23.     Of all the gospels and indeed the whole of the NT, John alone provides formal teaching about the Holy Spirit in the various *Paraclete* passages in John 14-16. In this passage from the resurrection sequence, John gives a different account of how and when Jesus gave the Spirit to his disciples. It occurred on the evening of the day of his resurrection as some of the disciples cowered in fear behind locked doors. This is a far cry from Luke=s dramatic story in Acts 2.

 

The significance of this distinction lay in previous references in John=s Gospel (e.g. 7:39; 16:7) that the Spirit could only come after Jesus= mission had been completed and his glorification through resurrection had taken place. Was this to be understood as Jesus= second coming, as some scholars have speculated? Nowhere in the Johannine corpus except in 1 John 2:28 and 3:2, and in Revelation does the return of Christ at the consummation of history have a significant place. At best, scholars regard various references to Christ=s return in the Paraclete passage (John 14-16) as ambiguous.

 

No ambiguity remains in this passage. Coming to them through a locked door, Jesus caused the disciples’ fear to subside with his greeting, AShalom.@ He then proved that he has indeed risen from the dead by showing them the mortal wounds in his hands and side. This recalled the memory John reported in 19:32-35 with its authenticating parenthetical remark that this was a credible eyewitness account. Reiterating his blessing of shalom, Jesus then commissioned the assembled group of disciples by breathing on them, thus symbolically transmitting the Spirit to them. The commission he gave them in this manner had doubly redemptive implications. John is telling his readers that Jesus thus exercised his own authority as the one through whom all things came into being at the creation (1:3-4). In saying that Jesus gave the disciples the power to forgive sins, John signaled that this was the redemptive and re-creative action of God to save the world through forgiving love (cf. 1:29) fully expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah/Christ.

 

With this selection John reached the climax of passion story written as a midrash on Isaiah 53. John first introduced this approach to the gospel by his dramatic Logos poem and John=s declaration that Jesus is the long-promised Messiah who saves through vicarious suffering. There was only one thing more for him to say. What of those who Ahave not seen and yet believe?@ That end-story comes with the next sentence (vs. 24) when he tells of Thomas being absent from the group of disciples who received the Spirit and the commission to forgive sins directly from Jesus himself.

 

That end-story not only concludes the original gospel, it also extends the gift of the Spirit and the commission to the believing community - and to us who are that community now.

 

 

JOHN 7:37-39.  (Alternate)   This is only one of many clashes Jesus had with the religious leaders of Israel. In each instance John used sought to point out just who Jesus really was and what his ministry really ought to have meant to his own people. Through the centuries some have interpreted interactions like this as John’s anti-Semitism and, sadly, they have been supported by many who have not looked for the underlying motif of the story. For that, we may turn to 1:11, “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” That text echoes the words of Isaiah 53:3, “He was despised and rejected by others.”

 

There is little doubt that John reported this one of many exchanges with the Pharisees to declare Jesus’ promise of the messianic gift of the Spirit on his followers after his resurrection.  Indeed, in the subsequent passage, some among the general populace gathered in the temple precincts for the Festival  of Weeks (Booths, Tabernacles) did begin to believe that he was the Messiah. Others countered their presumptive credulity with alternative scriptural evidence of the Messiah being of Davidic descent and coming from Bethlehem not Galilee.

 

In the NSRV John concludes this brief excerpt with an unusual comment, “… for as yet there was no Spirit.” Correctly, the NRSV notes two alternative readings: “For as yet the (Holy) Spirit had not been given.” For John, the Spirit had descended on Jesus at his baptism by John the Baptizer. In 1:32-33,  the Baptizer had said that Jesus was the one who would baptize with the Spirit. Whatever the most reliable reading, the mention of there being no Spirit or the Spirit not being given creates a set of interesting linkages. In this passage Jesus’ quoted from scripture, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water,” possibly alluding to several passages from Isaiah (12:3; 44:3; 55:1) and to the practice of baptism in the early church as the symbol of the Spirit being shared by new members of the believing community.

 

There is fairly common practice of baptizing and receiving new communicants into the church at Pentecost. One scholarly colleague believes that just such a practice toward the end of the 1st century CE was the original source for what we know as The Letter to the Ephesians. (Kirby, John C. *Ephesians, Baptism and Pentecost.* McGill University Press, 1965.) Certainly, this could to heighten the symbolic significance of the sharing of spiritual gifts in the gathered community. Even in recent decades, some clergy of The United Church of Canada have been known to forego attendance at their Conference Annual General Meeting in order to be in their home congregations to celebrate Pentecost in this manner. This is their witness to the giving of the Spirit being very much alive in our denomination.

 

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