I am delighted to welcome Paul White to my blog, who is helping us to consider the impact of that big day: Pentecost.
As big days go this is up there.
We have the big day when God spoke and a universe was born – elements exploding into existence, galaxies spiralling in ever-increasing magnitude, atomic suns vast and even more vast blasting out their blazing light for the first time. That was a big day. There was another big day, although less conspicuous – a tiny baby was placed in an animal feeding trough serving as a cradle while multitudes of angels filled the night sky with singing. Then there was the big day, which seemed like a very bad day, when the most incredible human being who ever lived was grotesquely nailed onto a wooden execution pole. This was followed speedily by another massively big day when suddenly the same human being burst out of the rocky tomb, fully, completely, wonderfully alive! Big day.
This big day is about 120 uncertain disciples in an upstairs room of a house, waiting. They’re waiting because the One who burst out of the tomb a few weeks earlier had told them to wait. He told them to wait and they would receive power when the Holy Spirit – the breath of God – came upon them. There is nothing very remarkable about 120 people in a waiting room, but what happened next changed the course of human history. As they prayed the whole house was physically shaken and a sound came from heaven like a powerful roaring wind, which entered the house and filled it. Flames of fire broke out and rested on each of the disciples, but they were not burned. Spontaneously the 120 began babbling in languages they had never learned, which just happened to be the native tongues of the many foreign visitors present in the city of Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Pentecost.
ATTRACTIVE SOUND
The sound from heaven attracted many of those pilgrims and a crowd gathered around the now very excited disciples – so excited and euphoric, that the cynics dismissed them as drunk. Peter, however, seizing the moment, stood up in front of a massive crowd and skilfully explained how this spectacle was actually a fulfilment of a prophecy contained in their own Jewish scriptures from a prophet called Joel. Joel foresaw a day when God would pour out his Spirit on “all flesh” (Joel 2:28). Peter, famous for denying all knowledge of Jesus at the night of his trial, preached like a pro about Jesus – his suffering, death and resurrection, and now this – how this unfolding drama was all part of God’s master plan, and had been made possible because Jesus fully accomplished his mission and had returned to God the Father.
TURBO HUMAN
Jesus, for all the amazing things he did, could only be in one place at one time. Pentecost meant that now his Spirit, or breath, or essence, or nature, or all of these was distributed to ordinary unqualified human beings. The idea was that these God-powered turbo humans ran around the face of the earth infecting everyone else with the same Holy Spirit. Wow!
It turns out, if we read the Bible, that the Spirit or breath of God was the creative power behind the creation of the universe. This Spirit, living in Jesus, healed blind people, put power into paralysed limbs, raised dead people and catapulted Jesus, himself, from the tomb – alive. Surely Pentecost should not just be another date on the Church calendar when we read particular passages of the Bible and sing particular hymns? Surely we should be lining ourselves up to be as full as possible with the Holy Spirit every day, and giving him away at every opportunity…
WHAT IS POSSIBLE?
If the estimates are correct, something close to 30 per cent of the global population now call themselves Christians. That is quite spectacular. If we consider the impact of those 120 original Pentecostal disciples – in a few short years they were accused of having “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). What might 2-3 billion people be capable of, filled with the same power?
THE CHRISTING
In my book, The Christing, recently released by Authentic Media, we take a gallop through the Bible to discover how it has always been God’s plan to use unremarkable human beings to do the most remarkable things. We discover that Christ means anointed, in the same way we might apply ointment, or that a queen or king of the United Kingdom is anointed with oil. We see that the anointing of Jesus is the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a thing. Take a look and see how the anointing of the Holy Spirit, or the Christing, can transform not only your life but also that of your colleagues, friends, family and random people you encounter through life.
Paul White has a degree in Fine Art (Painting). He now leads the Prayerhouse Church in Weymouth. Married to Anna, he has four amazing children who are the craziest but most beautiful friends and influencers in his life.