Perspectives on Pentecost (1)

As Pentecost Sunday approaches, I have been pondering the radical change that occurred on that Day and the challenge we have of understanding just what happened and of how difficult it must have been for those first Christians to come to terms with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

I have been guilty of not appreciating the scope of Pentecost (not that I claim to fully appreciate it now), and I have not adequately pondered the dynamics of what a first-century Jewish follower of Jesus must of wrestled with - oh yes I have pondered this in terms of the Law and seeking justification through it, and in relation to circumcision and its association with the Law - but I realize that there are other aspects of the human experience in response to the Divine indwelling that I have missed, or in any case not given thoughtful attention.

This is an example of what can happen when you “see” something and are so excited about it that you don’t step back to ask, “What else is there to see?” For years I have connected Jesus, Stephen, and Paul and their teaching on the physical temple in Jerusalem with the Temple of the Indwelling God - God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands. Jesus was a grain of wheat who fell into the ground and died, as was Stephen, as was Paul. Jesus begat Stephen and Stephen (in Christ) begat Paul and Paul begat others in Christ. Paul heard Stephen’s proclamation that “God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands” and that became a core element of Paul’s apostolic perspective and preaching - for who has articulated the reality of the Indwelling God in the Church, the Body, the Temple, the Bride - as has our brother Paul?

All of the foregoing is well and good, but I have not asked myself about the struggle and transition that the Jewish believers must have experienced in moving from one way of living, from one way of orientation, to another.

While many, if not all, ancient cultures had a mindset that God, or the gods, lived in temples or on mountains or within graven images, the Jews were locked into a radical (vis-a-vis surrounding cultures) mindset of worship and religious life anchored in the Temple in Jerusalem. We know from Acts that after Pentecost that the Jewish Christians continued to have some form of relationship with the physical Temple, (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 21:26) - note that the span of time between 3:1 and 21:26 was significant. While this relationship probably had a missional element to it (sharing the Gospel with other Jews) the counsel to Paul from James and the elders (21:18) seems to indicate that there remained an element of religious observance.

Then there is the transition that Peter experienced from an orientation to a physical Temple to living in the reality of God’s people being God’s true and everlasting Temple (1 Peter 2:1-12). While the vision of Acts Chapter 10  and being a witness to the Holy Spirit indwelling the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius must have been a watershed for Peter, some years later he struggles to live in this reality in Antioch (Galatians 2:11 - 21).

Even with the power and influence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the examples of James and Peter indicate that changing our thinking, our orientation, is anything but something that typically occurs in a day or two.

Perhaps it was necessary for Paul to distance himself from Jerusalem (Arabia, then to Tarsus) in order to achieve a break in orientation from the physical Temple to God’s everlasting Temple. Perhaps it was important that Paul’s early Jerusalem visits should be brief, lest he fall into his old center of gravity with the physical Temple as his orientation. Of course Jesus’ words to Paul (Acts 9), “Why do you persecute Me?” are themselves a revelation of the new reality of the union of Christ in His people - for to persecute the people of Christ is to persecute Christ, to touch a Christian is to touch Jesus Christ.

So we have a change of seasons, transitioning from one season (kairos) into another - while we can locate the Day of Pentecost on a timeline (chronos), the Day of Pentecost also ushers in a transition in kairos, in seasons - and this transition must have been a struggle in the hearts and minds of early Jewish Christians. While Gentiles may have had similar struggles, and to some extent we know they did because Christians were accused of being atheists - how could you worship a god if you didn’t have a temple or idols? - it is difficult to see any group of people struggling more with the idea that God’s People are God’s Temple and with a change of thinking, relating, and orientation than the Jews. (See also Paul in Athens - Acts 17).

Jesus’ words to the woman at the well (John 4) were difficult enough for her to absorb, how much more for those with Jewish pedigrees? Let’s remember, the Jews had fought to protect the Temple from desecration - when you are willing to die for something it is pretty well ingrained within you.

Well, just some ponderings on the Day of Pentecost.