All Together Together
All Together Together
Acts 2:1-15
Happy Birthday, Church! Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day the Holy Spirit came on the apostles and empowered them to overcome all obstacles to witness to the world the greatest news of all time. Paul wrote, I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed ... (Rom. 1:16-17). This is the day the disciples of Jesus ceased to fear the rage of the world because they had something greater than the world could give. This is the day the People of Jesus Christ became a mighty force for the transforming grace of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We celebrate Pentecost as a Christian holy day, a Christian event. But Pentecost was first a Jewish celebration. When we celebrated Good Friday and Easter, we noted that it was in conjunction with the Passover, the Jewish celebration of the Exodus, the memorial of their national liberation from slavery in Egypt. Well, fifty days after Passover, the Jews began to celebrate the Festival of Weeks, Shavuot. We find it mandated in Exodus 34:22, with special sacrifices detailed in Numbers 28: 26-31. Deuteronomy 16:9-12 gives the timing of the festival and the reason – to rejoice in the blessing God has bestowed.
Shavuot is one of three pilgrimage festivals, when Jews return to Jerusalem in celebration. Shavuot means “weeks”, and is a week of weeks, or seven weeks, after Passover. Ancient Jews would come to Jerusalem bearing baskets of ripe fruit and bread baked from the first harvest of wheat to celebrate the first harvest. So it is also known as the Feast of Firstfruits. After the Babylonian Exile, the festival also became associated with the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai, and so the Ten Commandments are read in the synagogues. It is also traditional to read the Book of Ruth since that story takes place during the wheat harvest, and led to the birth of Ruth’s great-grandson, King David, who, according to tradition was born and died on Shavuot.1 It is also customary to begin a child’s education at Shauot, introducing him to the Hebrew alphabet and giving honey and sweets to symbolize the sweetness of the Torah. Confirmations and graduations are also celebrated at Shavuot.
Now, there is a bit of confusion we need to clear up. Right after the Passover, Leviticus 23 mandates an offering of firstfruits (Lev 23:9-14). This is to take place the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week. Paul takes advantage of that by referring to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:20 and 23 as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. There are actually two “firstfruits,” the day after Passover ends, when the early grain is harvested, and the festival of Shavuot when the later grain and fruit harvest begins. The very first pickings are brought to the Temple as a thank offering to God. Sukkot, then, signals the final harvest, the end of the harvest season. But it is significant to the Church that it is Pentecost that is, for the Jews, the feast of Firstfruits.
But for the Church, Pentecost did not just happen. It was the culmination, in a sense, of a series of prior events. Those events may be the reason why the Church of today is powerless and rarely sees a move of the Holy Spirit.
The first is this: just before Jesus’ ascension, while the disciples were still confused about Jesus’ mission and their own, Jesus told them to wait. The word “wait” comes from a root word that means to stay, to remain, to continue. It is not just standing in line, waiting for your turn. It is to stay put until something happens. When we felt released from a previous ministry, we were told to stay put until the next thing opened. We didn’t stop what we were doing. We continued to minister where we were until we received the call to the thing God had prepared for us. I’ve had people discontented with where they were, in church, in a job, whatever, and just up and leave without knowing what would come next. They “felt called somewhere else,” so they left where they were without knowing where that somewhere else was supposed to be.
The disciples had seen something amazing and powerful, the resurrection of Jesus, and they were ready to start telling people. But Jesus said, “not yet.” Tarry, stay put, remain where you are until the next thing happens. Because the next thing is the key. You have a promise. Wait until that promise is fulfilled. Wait until you receive the gift that God has promised you.
I’ve told you before that there were two Greek words that translate “time.” One is chronos, as in clock or calendar time. The chronos is May 24, at 11:30 am. The other is kairos, meaning an appointed time, the right time for something to happen. And online translator rendered it “weather.” What’s the weather like? Is the weather right for a trip to the beach? Kairos is used in regard to the day of judgment, the day of Christ’s return. It is when the time is right, when everything is ready, when all the plans are completed. Jesus was telling the disciples to wait for the right time to move. Something had to happen.
That’s our failure, too. We don’t want to wait. We want things to happen right now. We don’t wait for God’s timing. We’re in a hurry. But sometimes God tells us to wait, to just stay where we are until he tells us the time is right.
The second thing that had to happen was unity. Let me put this in order. Unity is the result of something else. It is not automatic and it cannot be forced. We don’t get unity through compromise. It comes only when minds are hearts are in full agreement on a particular issue, and that takes time, which is one reason Jesus told them to wait. But it also takes something far more profound, because unity for the Church comes when we have come to agreement with God. And we come to that through communal prayer, through praying together.
Acts 1:12 - Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem ... v. 13 - When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying ... v. 14 - They all joined together constantly in prayer ... And there is what’s missing in the Church today. We can draw a crowd to potlucks and parties. We can draw a crowd to concerts and retreats. We can draw a crowd to events. But where is the prayer meeting? When do we gather, as a congregation, for the express purpose of prayer? The Church today is powerless precisely because it is prayerless. We want things to happen, but we are unwilling to pay the price. We talk about the importance of prayer, but we only talk about it – we never do it. I’d be willing to bet that for most of us, the only time we pray is at meals when we ask a blessing.
But it’s not just prayer. Some of you may remember when we used to talk about prevailing prayer. Those were days when we stayed at the alter until we were either assured of an answer or we were exhausted and needed to rest. We “prayed through” to an answer. There used to be a measure of desperation as in Jacob’s wrestling with God. Remember the account? Jacob was on his way home from his self-imposed exile. Still afraid of his brother’s anger, Jacob sends his family and possessions on ahead while he stops for the night alone. Genesis 32 says that Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. All night they struggled and the stranger wounded Jacob’s hip in an attempt to defeat him. He demanded that Jacob let him go. Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” That should be our prayer, and the essence of our prayer life: we will not let go until we receive the blessing.
So, here’s a bit of calendar. Back in verse three, we are told that Jesus appeared to them over a period of forty days (Acts 1:3). Pentecost is the 50th day after Passover. If the Ascension occurred on the 40th day and Pentecost was the 50th day, how long was their prayer meeting? What do you think happens in ten days of prayer? But the way, the indication is that they stayed there. No one went home for the night. No one went home to rest, have a cup of coffee, or take a break. They stayed. And stayed.
And then it happened. And this is where most Pentecost sermons go – to the signs and the sermon. And it is here that it gets controversial for some reason. Some want to argue that the signs are merely inaugural and don’t happen anymore. Some want to argue that their church shows all the signs, or at least one of them. And we tie ourselves in knots over the signs of Pentecost – the sound of a rushing wind, the flames of fire, the languages. I heard one holiness denomination sermon that the cloven tongues of fire represented the two works of grace – salvation and sanctification. And the Church has spent far too much energy and time on the speaking in other tongues. Those are not our focus for this morning, and if you have questions about where I stand on any of them, you can ask me privately. I’d rather not stoke the fires of controversy. I’m not avoiding the issue, just suggesting that it’s not that all-fired important.
What I do want you to see is the first verse of chapter 2: When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place (NIV). And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place (KJV). The strict Greek translation of the last part of the verse is this: they were all together together.
It’s the same word in English, but two different words in Greek. The NIV has a bit of a problem: it make it sound like this “all of them had gathered in one place.” But that’s not what it actually says. The second word means “together” in the sense of all being in one place, having joined together, as we are this morning, together in worship. As we are when we sit together at the dinner table. As two friends walking together in the park. That’s easy. The 120 were all gathered in the upper room. Luke means to say that none of them were missing; that all 120 were there. They were all together.
But they were also “together” in another sense. The first word is ‘omoØ, pronounced “homou”. It’s a word that means “same”. Homogenized milk does not separate – it is all the same throughout. The human body has a “level” when everything is in balance. We call it homeostasis.
So what does it mean here in Acts 2:1? It means that they were in agreement; that they were of one mind and one heart. It means that after ten days of concerted prayer, after ten days of prevailing prayer, they had come to the place where they all wanted the same thing. It means they were unanimous, that all of their “amendments” had been settled, all of their differences settled, and that they had all come to the place where they were praying for the same thing. They were not just gathered in the same place. Luke tells us they were together together. The KJV gets it right here – they were all of one accord.
This is one reason the Church today is what it is. We’re divided. We’re divided over the definition of faith. We’re divided over the nature of God’s blessings. We’re divided over women in the ministry. Paul would have a field day with the Church of today. The entirety of the first letter to the churches of Corinth were over divisions in the church. They were divided over which leader to follow and which preacher was the best one. They were divided over spiritual gifts, just like the Church today. They were divided over the nature of salvation. They were divided over marriage. The Church today is divided over matters of gender and sexuality. They were divided over the nature of the resurrection – that’s what chapter 15 is all about. They were divided over what “love” meant. So are we. They were divided over the Lord’s Supper. Did you know that Martin Luther and John Calvin once conferred on joining forces? They couldn’t, because they couldn’t agree on the nature of the Lord’s Supper. And both disagreed with the Roman definition.
John Wesley and George Whitefield disagreed fundamentally on the issue of predestination. But they remained lifelong friends and allies, because they both wanted the same thing: that people know Jesus. John Wesley’s Methodist movement is credited with saving England. George Whitefield brought a Great Awakening to America. And Pentecost will come once again when we put our differences aside and agree on this one thing: we want only obedience to the will of God, that the world might be reconciled to him through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let Pentecost come. Let the Holy Spirit move in the Church again.
1 Philip Goodman, The Shavuot Anthology (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1974)