Read it here.
Jesus told the Apostles to wait, and they obeyed His commands.
How awesome that the Apostles, by faith, waited on the Lord. Jesus could have made them wait for a long time, like He did with Abraham and Sarah, or He could’ve been a short time. The point is sometimes we're made to wait, and whether it’s a long or short wait for us, God is never late – His timing is always perfect.
Pentecost! What a perfect day for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the trinity. Jews from everywhere (Acts 2:5-11) had come to Jerusalem for the holiday/festival/thing. They all spoke different languages and had different cultures – this is something we’re used to.
It’s hard to imagine the whole world speaking the same language, but at one point that was true. In the book of Genesis (chapter 11) Moses records a time when everyone on earth spoke the same language. Only man used this unity to defy God and build monuments to themselves. God saw this and decided to stop us in our foolishness by creating many different languages so nobody could understand each other. The great monument they were working on (the Tower of Babel) never got finished.
I bring this up because this event – the day of Pentecost – is a mirror event to the one in Genesis. At the Tower of Babel men attempted to glorify themselves so God confused their languages, but at Pentecost God brought together people in understanding so that Jesus might be glorified.
The Holy Spirit’s entrance is certainly glorious. Unlike and yet like the birth of Jesus the Spirit comes to humble people, not the proud. He does not come to Caesar, or Pilate, or Herod, or any other person in authority, He comes to the Apostles. Nowadays we have pictures of the Apostles every where, they have their own statues and stained glass windows, but remember – these guys were nobodies. They were fishermen, tax collectors, etc. They were blue-collar workers, they didn’t have a Ph.D. in Biblical Hermeneutics or New Testament Greek, they were lower class, poor, nobodies.
In the same way, Jesus came to earth among shepherds and the humble – Mary and Joseph. Jesus’ birth is humble, yet it is also glorious and a cause for celebration (Luke 2:13-14). The Spirit enters with a similar bang:
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each of them. (Acts 2:2-3)
This is supernatural, it is amazing, it is beautiful. God is glorious and powerful and capable of anything. Here He enters the Apostles with glory, majesty, and beauty – what a beautiful sight this must’ve been. It is almost hard for Luke to describe because we don’t have anything similar to it in the natural world. This kind of thing doesn’t just happen
And so we meet the wonderful, glorious, all-satisfying third member of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit. He comes down to reveal wisdom, to help, and He does it in a majestic and powerful way. Praise be to Him, the Counselor, the Helper! He is still moving and active today, calling us, beckoning us closer to Christ, inviting us to drink of His Word, filling us with the joy of God, and giving us the strength and ability to face the world in faith. Without the Spirit we would be empty – for it is He who calls us to Christ in the first place.
I think this is the member of the Trinity surrounded by the most confusion. Either we don’t really understand who He is or we have been given a distorted and crazy view of Him. But He is God. He is not less than God, a part of God, or anything else – the Holy Spirit is God. If you continue reading Acts, pay attention to His works. Ask Him to teach you more about Himself.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
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