Week of May 25, 2020
Bible Study for Pentecost, the last Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:1-21
This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, the last Sunday of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. It is often celebrated as the day when the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples. And, while that is one of the events in the first reading, that is too narrow a view of this festival day. Pentecost means “fiftieth day” and we may think that is fitting because it is the fiftieth day of Easter. I was surprised to learn that Pentecost, also known as the Feast of Weeks, is a Jewish Festival. It is the fiftieth day after Passover and is one of three festivals in which all the people of Israel were to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the others being Passover in the spring and the Feast of Booths in the fall. It is because of the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, that people from many countries and places are gathered together and witness this miraculous event.
Read Acts 2:1-21. Note the listing of people in verses 9-11 gathered together. Verse 5 describes this as Jews from every nation under heaven. Imagine yourself in the midst of this. What do you think this gathering may have looked like? Sounded like? Felt like? Is there anything today that may be comparable?
The Day of Pentecost is rightly understood as the “birthday of the Church.” In some congregations, there is a practice of having this text read simultaneously by various persons reading in various languages. If you have experienced this, please think about the extent to which you actually heard and understood what was being spoken. Notice verse 6 where “each one was hearing them speak in his own language.” Each one understood what the disciples were saying, disciples who had not studied foreign languages. Compare this to the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11 in which God confounded the language of all gathered so that they could not understand one another. Reflect on the mutuality of understanding in Acts and its role in the Church today.
Often, we think of the Holy Spirit in terms of personal and individual comfort, salvation, and guidance. This is true; yet, the Day of Pentecost marks the creation of the Church, a corporate community, out of a frightened band of Jesus-followers. Please read Luther’s explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed found in the Small Catechism. What do you understand from this about the role of the Holy Spirit in your life individually and in the whole Christian Church on earth?
Imagine yourself again as a witness to this – to the sounds, the sights, the tongues of fire, to the words of Peter’s first sermon. What might have amazed you the most? Read verse 12 – all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, “What does this mean?” [note Luke 24:4-5 for another time when people were perplexed] What kind of thoughts might you have had about what you were experiencing? What does this mean for us today? What does this mean for us as we are grappling with the pandemic?
Think about a vision or dream you might have for the Christian Church as we make adjustments and accommodations due to the pandemic. What might change? What change might you be excited about? What changes might the Holy Spirit be inspiring?
Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth. O God who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by that same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in the Spirit’s consolations. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
