The Now and the Know

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.

They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia. Egypt and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.

But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”

- Acts 2: 1-13

Okay, so if you’ve been around Christianity or the Church for a while, you’ll probably recognize this story. The Christian church refers to this event, the coming down of the Holy Spirt in tongues of fire to the disciples, as Pentecost. However what you might not realize, and what I didn’t realize until I looked it up, is that Pentecost existed prior to this event. It originated as a Jewish festival. Many will recognize the prefix “Pente” as “five.” (i.e. a pentagon is five-sided) In this case however it is associated with 50. Pentecost in the Jewish tradition is celebrated on the anniversary of the giving of the commandments to Moses, an event which occurred 50 days after the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery Egypt. Hey, speaking of that…

The entire Old Testament is focused on a singular event to which the prophets and the people of God continually point: the Exodus. In case you’re not familiar with this particular tale, I’ll give a brief summary. God’s people, the Hebrews, are slaves in Egypt, and I mean slaves. We’re talking hard working, sweaty, tired, malnourished, if you don’t work fast enough I’ll beat you slaves. Suffice to say the environment made it a bit difficult to flourish as a people. God saw (or sees) the suffering of his people and radical intervened (or intervenes) to set things right. He sends Moses on a mission, armed with some plagues and the gift of gab from God. Eventually the people are set free. Pharaoh changes his mind at some point and chases them and then there’s this whole thing with a parting of a sea that you may or may have heard about.

Pentecost connects these two events: the freeing of the Hebrews and their subsequent reception of God’s commandments, his directions for being or becoming a people who showed God’s love to the world. I had never really thought about why God radically intervened to set his people free from Egypt. I mean I’ve always had some sort of vague idea that primarily dealt with the obviously oppressive and inhumane act of forced slavery itself and I understood that anyone who loved anyone in that particular situation would have a desire to see them liberated from it. But the more I think about it the more I am realizing that the Exodus wasn’t the point. Just like the Cross, God’s liberating act that freed his people from slavery and suffering isn’t the point, nor is it the end: it’s just the beginning. God sets his people free because he has something greater in store for them than forced slavery and death at the hand of evil and oppression. God took slaves, the lowest level of society, and did something amazing.

Fast forward to the disciples on the day of Pentecost. The Spirt moves, roaring into the house like a mighty windstorm as the Scriptures say, and amazing things begin to happen. As I’ve noted in previous blogs, the disciples are a group that was formed out of the “not good enoughs” already. They have spent 3 years following Jesus, witnessing the miraculous and doing amazing things themselves. And now they add another page to the resume as the Spirit moves through them and all the people are able to hear them preach in their own language. And as the passage says, “They were all completely amazed.”

Have you ever witness something that you knew was amazing? The Nike campaign for all things Lebron James is a fairly brilliant and simple piece: “We are all witnesses.” We are all witnesses to the freakish athletic machine that is Lebron James. People who have been there sitting on the uncomfortable bleachers as James dominated opponent after opponent go into the office next day and can’t wait to say, “Did you see that game last night? Yeah, I was there.” The ad campaign doesn’t even include any mention of actual purchasing. The bottom left corner simply reads, “Believe at nikebasketball.com.” But we all know how this is designed to work, yes? You are witness to something great: Lebron James playing basketball. And when he plays basketball what does he wear? Nike. Thus if you buy and wear Nike you will be able to somehow approximate the experience of playing basketball like or with Lebron James.

But it’s not like if you wear the same head-band as Lebron and go to a Cavaliers game, James will call you out of your seat and onto the court to play alongside him. That just doesn’t happen. The people who hear the disciples can do little but stand in slack jawed amazement. They are all witnesses. But the difference between what Lebron does and what God is doing is this: God is inviting us to play alongside him.

A great author Mark Scandrette wrote, “And we are reminded that kingdom love is not so much something to be exhaustively understood as it is a present reality to inhabit through action.”

I heard recently in a podcasted sermon from Mars Hill someone say that when the Spirit moves we are often left with more questions than answers. Very true. A few years ago the church where I work set a goal of feeding 1 million people during a rally campaign against hunger and poverty. I don’t want to give specific numbers because that’s not the point, but suffice it to say that the congregation surprised us (as they often do) and blew the goal completely out of the water. Along the way there were many questions as we ran out of food at one point and ran short on funds on more than one occasion. People were saying things like, “How will we make it?” “Where will the extra money come from?” and “Can we really do this?” No one had the answers but it all happened anyway as we simply dove in and got to work.

Certainly we are all witnesses to the Spirit’s movement and God’s work, but the exciting news is that we are more than witnesses. We are being called out of our seats and into the game.

I’m from Northwest Iowa and proud of it! We often refer to it as “God’s Country”… jokingly of course. Anyway, what a lot of people don’t realize is that the Northwest corner of Iowa is in a different temperate zone than the rest of the state. We get temperature extremes of both Iowa and Minnesota, really hot in the summer and absurdly cold every winter. And in those absurdly cold winters when it’s double digits below zero, we go outside of course! I mean, why wouldn’t you? One of the things my dad and I did growing up was ice fishing. Now, as say when I tell this story, if you’ve never been ice fishing the first thing you need to do is get a softball bat and have someone crack you in the head with it because that’s the only way you’ll be dumb enough to go ice fishing.

Regardless, my dad and I used to go pretty often. It was a whole process, let me tell you. It started with bundling up against the cold… and I mean bundling up. Layers, upon layers, upon layers. You have so many layers on that you can’t move your arms very well and you sweat off about 14 lbs. in the car on the ride over. That’s all part of it. The next step is loading up the van with supplies, including but no limited to: small fishing poles, lures, fishing line, extra clothing, a cooler (seems ridiculous doesn’t it?), and a thermos with your warm beverage of choice. Once in the van we had one more step before hitting the lake: the bait shop. Every bait shop we went to was dirty and dark and smelly like a baits shop ought to be. There we got bait (duh) and I usually got a candy bar or something. Then it was off to the lake!

I remember one time very distinctly. I was somewhere from 7-9 years old I believe.We had gone through the whole long process I have just described and were ready to head out onto the lake. Part of our experience was this: dad would load up everything onto a red plastic sled and then I got to ride out to the middle of the lake on the sled. It was one of my favorite parts. My other favorite came after dad had drilled the hole in the ice. I got to take the little spaghetti scooper type thing and scoop out the remaining chunks of ice. I really don’t have the slightest idea why I enjoy doing this, but I really did…. and probably still would. Anyway, on this particular day I had no sooner finished this small task than I turned and… stepped… right… into… the… hole. I was submersed up to my knee in freezing cold water. This of course meant that we couldn’t stay there out on the lake. So after all of our work and preparation, we had to pack up and go home.

On the way home I remember thinking that Dad was going to get upset because we had wasted the day. I kept waiting for him to yell at me or express his frustration in some way or another. But that never came. It took me years to understand that it wasn’t actually about catching fish (ice fishing rarely) is, it was about something greater.

Today I had the good fortune to hear a talk by author and pastor Tim Keller called “Leading People to the Prodigal God,” as a part of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2009. Tim describes a not often heard interpretation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. His talk focused on the Elder Brother in the story, the one who stays home the whole time. In fact, Keller argued that this was the point of the story. We often focus on the child who blatantly goes astray from the father, but in fact there are two children in that story who are, “… alienated from the father’s heart.” Do you remember the end of that story?

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26 and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

28 “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29 but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30 Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

31 “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. 32 We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

The older son is angry, the scriptures tell us. But why? Because he’s the one who stayed! He’s the one who followed the rules, did the work, and waited his turn and he’s the won who deserves the party and the glory. He’s the one who stepped carefully around the holes in the ice and didn’t screw up the day of fishing, and the father is rewarding the clumsy kid who stepped in the freezing water before they’d been out for even five minutes?!?!? Are you kidding me?!?!?

Now we  must ask ourselves: how many of us feel this way? How many of us are being very careful to follow all the rules, tip-toeing around the holes, and all the while missing the point? Furthermore, how many of us feel like God owes us something for what we’ve done. You don’t have to raise your hand, but I’m raising mine.

It’s fine to avoid stepping in icy water. But the question here is why are you avoiding the holes in the ice? Is it because you’re afraid that if you mess it up God’s going to get angry? Is it because you’re afraid that stepping in the hole will somehow make God’s promises untrue for you? Is it because deep down you think that your salvation is somehow tied up in your ability to avoid holes?

What I failed to understand on that fateful day when I nearly took a swim in a half frozen lake was this: Dad was just happy to spend time with me. The true Gospel is a story of God doing whatever it takes to be with you.

And as we realize this it will change everything. As Tim Keller said:

The bad boy is saved and the good boy is lost. And he’s not lost in spite of his goodness, he’s lost because of it… Until you can learn to repent for the reasons of your right doing there is no renewal.

It’s not about doing or not doing the right thing. It’s about our motivations for doing the right thing. We tend to profess that the Gospel is true but deep down in our souls do we believe it? Do we act and think as though it’s really true?

This is my prayer today: God reveal to us the powerful truth of your promises and grant us the strength and the courage to live like they are actually true for us.

Amen.