A Devotion for Pentecost
At this point in the resurrection story, Jesus has ascended back to heaven. The followers of Jesus, which included more than the 12 disciples, probably about 120 in all, from all over the region, would have gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Shauvot. On this day, Jews gathered to commemorate the giving of the Laws to Moses on Mount Sinai. And those followers of Jesus have gathered together, we’re told, in a place that is special specifically to them.
Here you have a gathering of people, full of emotion and anticipation, grieving twice over, wondering where and how God is going to show up.
So what happens? Something larger and probably more terrifying than they could have expected.
The Scripture account describes it as such:
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
and began to speak in other languages,
as the Spirit gave them ability.
—Acts 2.3-4
Rather than this day being about God’s absence, or the Substitute of Jesus, this Pentecost Day becomes about God’s presence. But not about the presence of God in expected or known ways. No, here in the story of Pentecost, God is moving like God has never moved before.
An even though this is a new movement because it is particular to the time and place and people, the imagery of fire is not a new one to the people of God. This a symbol that stirs our collective memory of a transforming God. Think about Moses and the burning bush, or the column of fire that led the people of Israel through the wilderness, the temple fire that consumed the sacrificial offerings.
“For the Lord your God is a devouring fire,” Deuteronomy 4.24 tells us.
In contemporary culture, we like to think of fire as a contained, controlled, gentle force – birthday candles, or a fire burning in the fireplace. Something that provides warmth and heat and ambience, but that ultimately serves us.
Yet anyone who has witnessed a fire burning wildly in nature knows that fire respects no boundaries; it moves and dances and overcomes. And yes, it is can be dangerous. But fire and God’s Spirit are dangerous and terrifying only because they cannot be contained or controlled by us.
You see, the earth and land are very used to the cycle of fire and rebirth. Fields and forests are often burned, both by natural causes and very intentionally by humans. And though sometimes unnecessary destruction does occur, fire also brings opportunity for growth, and fertile soil where dry sticks once lay.
The same can be said for God’s Spirit. The movement of the Holy Spirit is dangerous. The fires of Pentecost are dangerous because they threaten every foundation and boundary we create that say some people are in God’s Kingdom, and some are out, that some people are worth loving more than others, that any of us deserve less than God’s full attention.
As Jan Richardson says, the fires of Pentecost are “a sign of the God who resists our every attempt to domesticate the divine and to control how the holy will work.”
The descending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a burning thing, an all-consuming action of love unfurled upon a community of believers.
And like fire, God’s spirit not only resists boundaries, but also brings possibility for renewal and rebirth in barren places.
If it wasn’t clear to us before, we surely know it now, as the second chapter of Acts unfolds: this is no tame God who comes to us, no safe and predictable deity.
It reminds me of the quote in one of my favorite books, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The Pevensie children are curious, and they ask Mr. Beaver about Aslan the lion, the King of Narnia.
'“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “… Who said anything about being safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you."'
The fire that is God that falls on the disciples and the crowds on the day we now call Pentecost, it is not safe; but it is good.
What might God reveal in the fires of Pentecost for you?
What might be burned away and leave a place for something new?
With you,
Chaplain Amy
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