The recount of Pentecost from Acts 2

Acts 2 recounts Pentecost following Christ’s resurrection. Passover was initiated in Egypt on the 14th day of the first month (Exodus 12). By the second month, the Israelites traveled to Elim (70 palms) (Exodus 16). They reached Mt Sinai in the third month (Exodus 19) for the giving of the law. They called this event Pentecost and celebrated it annually. For this reason, Jewish people from all over the world found themselves in Jerusalem the year Christ died and rose again. 

After the resurrection, Jesus walked among his disciples in a new way. (“A spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me have” (Luke 24:39 and Ephesians 5:30) – not flesh and blood as we might say but rather flesh and bone. Flesh and bone walked into rooms without benefit of a door, ate breakfast on the shoreline of the Galilee (John 21:9-11), whose wounds could be touched (John 20:25, 27) and felt as he breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost”. (John 20:22).

Jesus was taken up into heaven in a cloud observed by a large group of disciples (Acts 1:9), maybe 500 at once (1 Corinthians 15:6). For the last ten days of the fifty, the disciples met in the upper room. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, the Holy Spirit with the sound of a rushing mighty wind set a flame of fire on each head (Matthew 3:1 and Luke3:16). Those scared people who left Jesus in Gethsemane and met together after the crucifixion in a room waiting for the soldiers to come and take them away possibly to crucify them also. Those people became powerhouses. Peter who denied Jesus three times preached a sermon and 3000 were saved. It was said in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-6) those who have turned the world upside down have come to us also.

What was the powerhouse of the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost (Romans 5:5) powered their mortal bodies (Romans 8:11) as it does our own. Jesus had poured out his blood on the heavenly mercy seat on our behalf. (Exodus 20:30) The letter (of the law—shall we say the commandment) kills but the spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). The love of God gave life to his resurrected body, and it gives life to our resurrected bodies as well (You who were dead in your trespasses and sins hath he made alive Ephesians 2:1 – 3). Could the breath of life be the love of God transferred into us by the Holy Spirit? The breath of life caused Adam to become a living soul. (Genesis 2:7) The breath of Ezekiel’s winds (Ezekiel 37) on the dry bones caused them to become a mighty army. God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) It is the love of God that casts out fear (1 John 4:18). It certainly empowered the disciples on the day of Pentecost they were no longer afraid (What can man do to me? (Psalm 56:11) Fear not he who can kill the body but fear him rather who can cast both body and soul into hell. (Matthew 10:28). The love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost emboldens us. Jesus said (Luke 9:23) Take up our cross daily and follow him . . . and Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

Let love abound today as Pentecost returns reminding us what sort of people, we are. (James 1:24 - 25) It was a new commandment Jesus gave to love one another as He loved us. (John 13:34,1 John 2:7 – 9, 1 John 4:10). Let us not long to be loved despite our shortcomings but to reach out to others with His selfless, sacrificial love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.