A Holy Fire

The following was preached at Veedersburg and Hillsboro UMC on Sunday, May 31, 2009.  The text for this week's message is Acts 2:1-8, 11-13.

Last week was Ascension Sunday.  It is the week of the Christian year in which we look back to Jesus’ ascension into heaven.  The story, found in Acts 1, is a good reminder of our past history, but it also gives us some good glimpses of how to proceed forward.  We have to wait on the Lord to give us direction, but when He does, we also have to be ready to move forward in obedience to this call.  Today, our focus shifts a little bit to what it was that Jesus was talking about.  Today, we see why the disciples are told to wait in Jerusalem.  This is the day in the Christian year when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Typically, when we hear the term “Pentecost,” we think about the event in Christian history that we read about in this morning‘s Scripture.  And that’s good because the coming of the Holy Spirit is the focus of this day on the Christian calendar; however, Pentecost had been celebrated long before the Spirit came in such a mighty way on this particular day so long ago.  Pentecost is one of the major festivals that was celebrated during the Jewish year.  There were three festivals in the Jewish calendar that had significant agricultural and historical significance, and Pentecost is the second one of these over the course of the year.

The agricultural significance of Pentecost is that it was typically the time when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the Temple, so sometimes it is known as the Festival of the First Fruits.  In some sense, giving the first fruits of the harvest is an act of faith.  How often in our lives do we work hard for something only to give it away, trusting that there will be more where that came from?  I’m willing to guess that it’s not very often.  I’ve never heard of anybody giving his first paycheck back to his employer.  And really, when we look at it like that, it is difficult to understand the concept of first fruits.

You don’t need me to tell you that we are living in a time in which the economic climate is difficult.  There are a lot of people all around us that have lost their jobs, or are concerned about losing their job.  I know of a large United Methodist church right here in Indiana that had to let go a significant number of staff because times are so tough right now.  Nobody is completely immune.  Likewise, I’m sure that many here this morning who don’t need me to tell them that some years the harvest just isn’t quite as good as it is in other years.  So to take the first fruits, the certainty of what you have earned for all your hard work, to take that to the Temple as an offering to God requires a big step of faith, but that is what God wants from each one of us.  He wants the first fruits of all we have.  He wants the best of all we have.  He wants us to take that big step of faith; to trust in Him for all provision in our lives.

The story that I immediately think of when it comes to the concept of first fruits is of Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham and his wife Sarah had been waiting a long time for their first child.  In fact, Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born.  Isaac was their  first and only child, a gift from God.   But one day, Abraham hears the Lord to tell him that he needed to take his son up and sacrifice him to the Lord.  Of all the things that God had asked Abraham to do as a step of faith, this would have been the most difficult one, hands down.  But Abraham took the boy and they went to the place that God had told him.  Isaac, clearly unaware of what was going on, asked Abraham where the sacrificial animal was going to come from.  Abraham replied that God would provide.

When they arrived, Abraham built the altar and put Isaac on it.  Just as he was about to sacrifice his only son, the gift that he had received from God, his first fruits, God stopped him and provided a ram for the sacrifice.  There are several different points to the story, and we could spend all morning exploring the angles, but this morning, I think the lesson that we can learn from it is that God wants that which is most precious to us.  God will provide if we only step out in faith and trust in Him.  That is what the concept of first fruits is all about.

The historical significance of Pentecost for the Jewish people is also important for us to be aware of here.  For the Jewish people, Pentecost was about the giving of the Law, or Torah.  One of the sources that I read this week pointed out that it is important to make note that this festival remembers the giving of the Torah  for the first time, but we have to remember that we receive it daily.  And I think there is something significant that we can learn from this as well.

It’s important for us to remember that at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples.  Much like how the Torah was given to the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness, the Holy Spirit was given to the original disciples.  And while this particular instance was a one time event, we still need to receive the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.  The Holy Spirit cannot come again for the first time, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t receive the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.  Am I making sense here?  The first time the Holy Spirit came is what we remember in Pentecost, but we also need to remember that the Spirit is still hanging around.  And while the Spirit is always moving, He didn’t go anywhere.

The Holy Spirit is who guides us and leads us as we attempt to discern and follow God’s will for us.  But in order to do that, we have to put ourselves in a position to receive the Spirit daily, and that’s what the disciples were doing as we enter into this part of our Christian history.

Just ten days before this happened, the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven.  They remembered what he told them about staying in Jerusalem, and that is what they did.  They continued to meet together.  Now, Luke doesn’t actually tell us this, but I imagine that they spent a lot of time in prayer with one another.  They were just waiting to see what God had in store for them.  And the language of verse 2 tells me that they didn’t exactly see it coming.  It says, “Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.”  “Suddenly.“  It’s like the disciples were surprised by what happened, they had no idea.  It just happened suddenly.

Now, this doesn’t mean that they were unprepared.  They had spent all kinds of time together preparing for what it was that God was going to do in their midst.  While they may not have known exactly how, when or what was going to happen, they still spent time together, praying and fellowshipping with one another.  That’s an important lesson that we need to pick up on as well.

We need to be putting ourselves in a position to receive what it is that God is planning on doing in our lives and in our community.  We don’t know exactly what it is and we don’t have any clue exactly when it is going to happen, but we need to be preparing ourselves.  We need to spend time dreaming about what we can do in our community.  We need to spend time reading the Word and praying for God’s guidance.  God is preparing to do something in our community.  Are we going to be ready to move when the time comes?  The disciples were uncertain as to what was going to happen, but they were certainly ready for it when it did.

When God is ready to move through us, it will happen suddenly, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll be unprepared.  We have been preparing for what God is going to be doing for some time.  The challenges that have come up each week, the goal of spending 15 minutes each day, recognizing that we have to live out our faith - all of these are ways that we’ve been preparing ourselves for what God is doing.  My hope and prayer is that everyone has been challenged to not just show up on Sunday and live the rest of your life as if Sunday doesn’t matter.  The last thing church needs to be is a social club.  Sure, there are social opportunities; reasons to get together just for fellowship, but if that is all church is to you, then I want to challenge you to take the next step.

Step out of that comfort zone.  Find some way to get more involved in what we’ve got going on around here.  Is there nothing going on that interests you?  Well, then let’s start something.  I’m not so rigid that I’m going to shoot down every possible ministry opportunity that comes around.  And quite frankly, I don’t have to be involved in every single thing that’s going on around here either.  

If you want to start a sewing club as a way to reach out to other people - that’s wonderful.  Don’t expect me to show up and start sewing anything any time soon, but please, go ahead and do it.  We need to be doing anything that we can to reach out to our communities.  We need opportunities to fellowship with people who may not be Christian, so that they can see our faith in action.  I’m not suggesting that we hire an evangelist for a monthly meeting of the sewing club.  That’s not practical, not because we don‘t have the money to do it.  If it was an incredible need, we could find the money.  But it‘s not practical because you are the evangelist.  You are the ones who have to be reaching out to your friends and family.  We can’t just hire somebody to come in here and do the outreach for us.  We have to be willing to do that ourselves.  And we do it because Christ has made a difference in our lives.

I think one final point that we can pull out of the text this morning comes from the end of the passage.  There will always be critics.  There will always be people who don’t have anything positive to say.  In verse 13 we read that some of the people that were witnessing the work of the Spirit in the disciples and others who were gathered there just wrote it off.  They said that the believers will filled with the new wine.  In other words, they had been drinking a little too much.  They were influenced by something, but it wasn’t the Spirit.

No matter what we do, there will always be people who don’t get on board.  There will be people who detract from the good work that is going on.  I have a friend who is the pastor of an off-site ministry, and he is constantly having to defend this off-site ministry which is continuing to grow and thrive.  In spite of the good things that the Spirit is doing through this ministry, there are people that believe it has no place.  It’s sad.  But there will always be people who try to tear down what the Spirit is doing.

Don’t be one of those people.  Don’t be a cynic.  Realize that God is working all around us, and he’s working in ways that we may not understand.  That’s okay, we don’t always have to understand completely what God is doing.  Our job is to either join in with what he’s doing, or get out of the way.  So, today, on Pentecost Sunday, I want you to leave here knowing that God works in different ways.  The Holy Spirit is not constrained to the little boxes that we limit ourselves to.  Allow the Spirit to work.  It may be different; it may not look like anything that you’ve ever seen before.  Join in.  Be a part of what the Spirit is doing.