Acts 2:42-47 (NIV)
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
CONSIDER THIS
As I was working on today’s Daily Text entry, I began with the working title—The day after the day after the Day of Pentecost. It is Tuesday after all, and the Day of Pentecost was on Sunday, so that makes it the day after the day after the Day of Pentecost, right? Then it hit me. This is the problem. Wednesday will be the day after the day after the day after the Day of Pentecost, and we will devolve from there until we hardly remember the Day of Pentecost any more.
So let me ask you? Did you celebrate the Day of Pentecost this year? How? Was it on your calendar? How about your church? Did they make much of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church? If not, no shame. It’s just a sign we have a problem; I mean, an opportunity.
As I was coming on the air with many of you yesterday on the Zoom Call, the Holy Spirit seemed to give me another one of my BFO insights—that is short for Blinding Flash of the Obvious. He said to me, today is the day after the Day of Pentecost. When I do the math, it turns out it is actually the seven hundred and some odd thousandth day after the day of Pentecost. But the Spirit says no. Today is the day after the day of Pentecost. And tomorrow it will again be the day after the day of Pentecost and the next day after that too.
The Day after the Day of Pentecost is today. It is always today.
There have never been two days more different from one another than these two days: the day before the Day of Pentecost and the day after the Day of Pentecost. What about Easter, you say? Well, at the Resurrection of Jesus Messiah, everything changed—in the Heavens—with the end of sin’s power and the death of death and the payment of eternal debts and the opening up of the opportunity for the new birth and eternal life of a human being.
On the Day of Pentecost, everything changed—on the earth—with the birth of a brand new creation complete with a completely new community of people whose presence was charged with the very presence of God and the empowered mission of reconciling the world to God in Jesus Christ beginning in Jerusalem and proceeding to the ends of the Earth. None of this existed on the day before the Day of Pentecost. All of it was in play on the day after. Church, we must find our way back to the day after the Day of Pentecost.
Don’t hear me wrong. I’m not advocating for some kind of restorationist theology that somehow believes all of church history is wrong and we just need to get back to life in the first century church. Not at all. We are the twenty-first century church. We have twenty prior centuries to learn from. But we aren’t standing on their shoulders. We stand with them at the level ground of the foot of the Cross, gloriously alive, empowered and on fire with the Holy Spirit—on the day after the Day of Pentecost.
Jeff Bezos, founder and retired CEO of Amazon (who now knows where every one of us live) coined a phrase early on in their company culture that persists to the present. Twenty something years into their existence he says, “It’s still Day 1.” In fact, they named their first and main building at Amazon in Seattle, “Day 1.” For Bezos, the enemy is Day 2 thinking. The Walk to Emmaus movement brilliantly picked up this kind of idea with their “Fourth Day” notion. This puts us on the day after the third day, the Resurrection Day of Jesus (and the ensuing walk to Emmaus), or the “Fourth Day.” And it is never the fifth day but always the fourth day.
Church, it’s time to wake up to that new day again. It is the day after the dawn of the New Creation, the day after the birth of the Church Jesus builds in our time, indeed the age of the Holy Spirit. It’s still Tuesday, yet it is the day after the Day of Pentecost.
THE PRAYER
God our Father, who with your son Jesus Messiah, fills us with the Holy Spirit, thank you for awakening us to this hopeful day in which we find ourselves alive—the day after the Day of Pentecost. Fill us with all the gifts of Pentecost. Flood us with the tide of the love unleashed at Pentecost. Flourish our families and communities in such ways that there are no poor to be found among us. Feed us with your Word and fill us with your Spirit as though we were those first Christians; because indeed we are. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.
THE QUESTION
Do you get what I am trying to say here? It is not about us going backwards but bringing Pentecost forward? How might we shift our mindset and heart on this?
P.S. NEW ROOM is coming and I’M COMING FOR YOU AGAIN
For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com
4 Responses
I think you’re trying to say that Pentecost is more than a historical, religious day to celebrate and remember and that it’s more than a mere mindset. it’s a transformed heart passionately set on daily following and obeying the omnipresent, resurrected Jesus and endlessly overflowing with the power and desire to do so! We are told to “Quench not the Spirit.” That means that God’s Spirit is going to live and work in us incessantly if we won’t hinder Him. Now that’s a great awakening–letting the Spirit lead and guide us unhindered by our self-will.
I was inspired to write this by today’s Daily Text:
Pentecost was a Jewish feast day,
A religious holiday
Celebrated once a year,
But when God’s Spirit came
Pentecost became a way
Of living every single day
Overflowing from within
With God’s presence and power
While saying and doing
Whatever the Spirit does say.
Yes, the church that I attended last Sunday did recognize that it was Pentecost Sunday. We even had the appropriate liturgical colors on the pulpit and communion table. But, was it celebrated with the excitement and joy due for such an occasion? In my honest opinion, no.
This congregation once had a pastor who had served on the foreign mission field in Africa for awhile. He recounted how over there, when people prayed, they expected God to show up. I’m reminded of some of that recorded in the book of Acts. Sometimes it seems to me that there is something truly missing in our worship services. I believe that what is missing is the expectancy that the Spirit will make His presence manifestly felt. Our inherited structured assemblies really don’t leave a lot of space for such things to happen. We desperately need another major visitation of the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit!
Elvis once sang, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas?” Why can’t every day be like the day after the Day of Pentecost every day? New and refreshed in the Lord and Him in us. I believe we grow by moving forward; we learn by looking backward. We live by living in the day, rejoicing, and being glad in it. Where would the world be if the day after the Day of Pentecost was a groundhog day? Maybe this is supposed to happen when we pick up our cross daily.