Dear Friends

Following His resurrection on Easter Sunday, Jesus spent 40 days continuing to teach His disciples before ascending into heaven. As His disciples looked on,

‘He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight.’ (Acts 1:9b)

Immediately before this, Jesus promised His disciples:

‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;’ (Acts 1:8a)

Ten days later, while the disciples were gathered together in a house in Jerusalem,

‘suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 2:2-4a)

The ‘violent wind’ and ‘tongues of fire’ were clear signs that this was an act of God. In the Old Testament, when God worked, there was usually fire or wind. In Exodus 3, God spoke to Moses from a burning bush that, miraculously, was not consumed by the flames and later,

‘The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.’ (Exodus 13:21)

‘He came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.’ (Psalm 18:10)

‘Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind’ (Job 38:1)

The coming of the Holy Spirit onto the disciples happened on the Jewish wheat harvest festival of Shavuot, or Festival of Weeks, fifty days after the first day of the Passover festival. Jewish tradition also relates that this was when God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai. As we celebrate Pentecost, which falls on 8 June this year, it’s worth marvelling again at the way God weaves so many pieces together:

• wheat is an essential ingredient to make bread,

• the 10 Commandments, the basis of Jewish Law, were given on the day of the future wheat harvest festival,

• Jesus, the ‘bread of life’ (John 6:35), who came ‘to fulfil the law’ (Matthew 5:17) sent the Holy Spirit upon the disciples on the day of that festival,

• the coming of the Holy Spirit gave the disciples the power to communicate the Gospel across the world, taking ‘the bread of life’ to others.

On that very first Pentecost, about three thousand were converted to Christianity, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now, that’s worth celebrating!

Many blessings,

Carl