Why I Am Looking Forward to Pentecost this Year.

History of Pentecost

 The church that I grew up in taught us kids that the "first" Pentecost is found in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2, when 120 believers were praying together in the upper room. One can find support for that position with a standard web search. The problem is that one must smushh the definitions to make it true.

It was the first Pentecost of the Christian era. It was the first time that humans were filled with the Holy Spirit for keeps and not just in a temporary visitation. It was the Pentecost that launched the Church.  So if that's your definition, it was the first.

But under a different name, the first Pentecost followed seven weeks after the first Passover, and for that we must go back to the time of Moses. The Festival of Weeks (7 weeks = 49 days, then the 50th day is the celebration), known on the Jewish calendar as Shavuot, also  the Feast of First Fruits, the beginning of the wheat harvest—the Jews had recognized these feasts since the Exodus, and it partially accounted for why so many foreign-born Jews were in Jerusalem.  
During the exodus, seven weeks after leaving Goshen in Egypt, the Israelites were camped in the shadow of Mt. Sinai where the Spirit of the Living God came down in glory and gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Every year after leaving Egypt, the Israelites celebrated the first fruits and the giving of the law with thanksgiving and remembrance.  Roughly fourteen centuries later, this feast, now called Pentecost in the Greek language, was still celebrated 50 days after Passover.
And so it was that in Acts 2 we find 120 heirs of salvation are in the upper room praying, probably reading scripture, and waiting for the Holy Spirit. But let's back up ten days... 


The Last Thing Jesus Said - Acts 1:8

"But you shall receive power—ability, efficiency and might—when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends—the very bounds—of the earth."

And again, I've discovered that my childhood church was fairly selective over what they emphasized. We got the "begin at Jerusalem and spread over the world" assignment part, but the empowerment part.. well, that was treated like a booster rocket, needed for launch but then falls away. Except that you will be hard-pressed to find scripture that supports that concept; it is just a conclusion drawn by people who didn't experience and haven't seen much power since lift off of the Church.
The point of the Holy Spirit's coming, however, was for believers to receive ability, efficiency, and might. There was no expiration date on the promise.

Back to Pentecost - Acts 2

¹ And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all assembled together in one place, ² When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast, and it filled the whole house in which they were sitting. ³ And there appeared to them tongues resembling fire, which were separated and distributed and which settled on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words]. 

No one in my childhood church had a solid revelation of this. That's forgivable—that's some awesomely radical stuff going on. Their explanations deferred to old commentaries; there's nothing sinful about using commentaries either but this resulted in explaining the supernatural appearance more than the actual significance.

I don't remember anyone trying to connect the dots with John 14:26 where Jesus says, "But when the Father sends the Spirit of Holiness, the Redeemer from the curse—the One like me who sets you free, he will teach you all things in my name."

Before you jump up and tell me you've read the Gospel of John many times and never saw 'the Redeemer from the curse' in there, let me interject that that translation is based on an Aramaic manuscript which King James' translators never had access to. English translations of John 14:26 use a variety of words to translate  παράκλητος τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον  and I will list them in a footnote¹ below. I chose this one based on the Passion translation/paraphrase because the Holy Spirit as 'the Redeemer from the curse' is integral to empowering the the Church to take its place as the Standard Bearer in culture and not be reduced to the "optional elective" for individuals that secularists wish it to be. 

I believe that there is a general need for traditional Western Protestant congregations to be more aware of the spiritual battles around us.  Jesus won against spiritual forces throughout his Earth ministry, but we haven't been trained to see it. After Jesus read a messianic prophesy from Isaiah, members of his hometown synagogue tried to push Him off a cliff. The storm that nearly sunk the boat on the Sea of Galilee was not a natural occurrence. These attacks were instigated by malevolent spirits. There are other examples too, and the thing to be aware of is that Jesus addressed them and had victory as the Son of Man,  not as the Son of God. The Holy Spirit is the delivering power for this warfare.

There are three Old-Testament incidents when Evil Spirit-Realm Forces/Entities did a whammy on the human race. My childhood church recognized the first one: the Fall in the Garden of Eden.  It tried to ignore the second one in Genesis 6 when the "sons of god" took the wives they chose from the daughters of men. And it skated over the surface of the third inter-dimensional attack being constructed at the Tower of Babel.  I've found that those were fairly typical responses of the 20th Century Western Christian church; they liked 'scientific' logic and any foray into the mystic made them queasy. In the ancient Near East, however, in the era and region where the Apostle Paul and Jesus' disciples grew up, people saw these assaults as three battles of an on-going war.  Whereas we tend to lay almost all of the blame for mankind's condition on Eve's chatting with the serpent, and see most every foul thing since then as being fallout from that bad decision,  the Jewish weltanschauung (applied worldview) of Jesus day saw a long war against YHWH being responsible for the human condition.

I point that out so that the symmetry of Pentecost's "Undo" is more easily seen. It is not a perfectly mirrored reversal, but some² of the loss of communication at Babel was restored. The Pentecost of Acts 2 was no longer a only a feast-day recitation of Israel's history, but the the birth of the ecclesia moving forward.  The Holy Spirit had come to stay for the next Age. Men could be filled with "power from on high." They could choose to seek and stay in the presence of the Holy Spirit without being dependent upon times of divine impartation.

It was the Pentecost of Acts 2 that began the release of spiritual gifts, spiritual fruits, and the God-ordained³ offices of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. And with these offices, using these gifts, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, mankind began to realize his authority restored over the devil: the authority to lay hands on the sick and have them recover, to cast out demons and have them leave, to do the works of Jesus and greater works besides.

Pentecost of 2020

By any unit of measure, 2020 has been a unique year, and it is not yet half-over. It may well prove to be a year as monumental for the Church as was 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to to door in Wittenberg, Germany.
Faced with the spread of SARS-CoV2, governments around the world have shuttered church congregations from meeting. Heirs of Salvation have risen to the occasion and used technology to carry on services with electronic media, but...  

At the Acts 2 Pentecost, they were all assembled together in one place.  I believe this is the Lord's perfect will for 2020 too.

Like my blog's name says, we are on a Bootcamp Planet. The church has been tested these past few months and now it is time to graduate. We will see if we hit the mark this coming Pentecost.

The Church has spent years in training, and it is time to deploy.



A Bit of Digging into Language Study

If you like the King James Bible, that's fine, but let me show you something—
In the KJV, Isaiah 59:19b reads like this:
When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1949-1956, many of the newer Bible translations move the comma. The original language does not use such punctuation, so the translators reasoned it out as well as they could from the manuscripts available. Comparing with Jeremiah 46:7, the adversary is a flood, so it could be translated that way.  But many scholars today working with additional manuscripts believe that the power of the flood belongs with the Lord, not with the enemy. 
When the enemy shall come in, like a flood the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

And there's the Berean Study Bible for Isaiah 59:18-19, prophesying the Covenant of the Redeemer.

So He will repay according to their deeds: fury to His enemies, retribution to His foes, and recompense to the islands. So will they fear the name of the LORD from the west and His glory from the rising of the sun; for He will come like a raging flood, driven by the breath of the LORD.

The shifting comma nuances (yes, I'm using 'nuances' as a verb; just go with it) a change from our protection to the Lord facing off with our enemy; both are true. 

Is This a Word for Our Time?

There are some contemporary prophets who think so.  Understand that I am not talking about prophets in the Old Testament sense where the Holy Spirit would come upon them with a word and leave again—where if they missed it they were to be stoned. I am talking about the post-Acts 2 Pentecost office of prophet, one of the five along with apostle, evangelist, pastor, or teacher. These are people that God choses to hear what He is saying and confirm what He is doing in His kingdom. 

Many are saying that as the world deals with SARS-CoV-2, that what the enemy intended for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the spiritual lives of many people, cf Genesis 50:20.

At the first Passover, the Israelites were sheltered in their homes waiting for the plague of death to pass over. It has been pointed out that during Passover 2020, Israel was once again sheltered in their homes waiting for the plague to pass—a literal reenactment. Will Pentecost follow suit? Will we find ourselves now assembled together in one place when the Spirit of Holiness comes with a manifestation of power? Will the breath of God be so strong that it sounds like a tempest? Will we see angelfire?  Will you speak in tongues? Will you be drunk with new wine?  ... That will depend upon your expectation and/or resistance to the Holy Ghost. How far do you really want to go? All things are possible.  The Lord wants us to, even plans for us to walk in His Spirit and His Power.  Will we accept Pentecost as an opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to reset our congregations and get us back on course with His plans?

What to Expect

The Acts 2 Pentecost had two main functions. (1) It PROVIDED for the church. Believers could receive spiritual gifts. A governmental structure of five offices would soon be revealed. Spiritual fruits of love, joy, peace. patience. kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance would be able to be grown by all who would be led by the Spirit.  (2) It EMPOWERED the church. Miracles, now done in Jesus' name would continue.  Boldness to witness to the ends of the Earth came upon the believers with the revelation of a Kingdom destiny.  Jesus said the Holy Spirit will teach us all things, cf  John 14:26 above.  We should expect that a God Who Does Not Change would want us to receive His provision and empowerment to disciple nations in a post-pandemic world where fear-mongers and and censorship of truth had become entrenched in our daily lives.  

The residents of Jerusalem thought the believers from the upper room were drunk that day. They were, but with new wine of the Spirit, not the fermented stuff as the world supposed. God had poured out His Spirit on mankind.  In Pentecost 2020 we will have an opportunity to be refreshed with new wine of the Spirit.  How much we can handle will depend upon how prepared we are with new wine skins.  We will not be given more than we can hold, but we can have as much as we prepared for. 

Footnotes

¹  παράκλητος is translated as Comforter, Advocate, Counselor, Intercessor-Counselor, Strengthener, Standby, Companion, Paraclete, Helper, Helper in Court, Helper - the Ruach ha-Kodesh, and from the Orthodox Jewish Bible, the Melitz Yosher, the one who speaks eloquently in someone else's defense.

² I used "some" because pragmatically, we still "see in a glass darkly."  We are entitled to "all" through our covenant, but that manifests in the light of God's glory.

³ God-ordained offices, as opposed to self-chosen "careers."