I love these songs about the Holy Spirit.  We do not often sing them in the church, but today, at the conclusion of our service, there will be another new one.  I hope you stay to take a special part of that.  Last night I heard someone say when they left the service that, “Well, we have two more opportunities to hear the message.”  Normally that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.  But as I told Roger’s son, Adam, as I came in, “Well, stay because you are going to hear a different sermon than you heard last night.”  Oh, I’ve got the old sermon here—five or six pages of it.  But it kind of boils down to about four words.  Now this morning, sadly, there is no place to take notes in here.  So you’ve got to remember them in your head or write them on your fingers.   

The Scripture this morning comes out of the Book of Acts.  Acts, that a-c-t-s not a-x-e, acts.  When I was a kid I always wondered where that book was.  And I realized it was tied to something that people did—acts of the apostles.  Only this morning’s scripture not something that they do, it’s something that happens to them and then they do something.  I mentioned before I wasn’t going to read the entire Book of Ruth.  Well, neither am I going to read the entire second chapter of Acts to you this morning.  I’m going to try and tell you a little bit about it.  We got a clue when the acolytes came down and they brought the light.  And I don’t know if you saw it at that time, but up on the screen was a person’s name.  It was Joel.  Some may wonder, “Well, who is Joel?”  Joel is an Old Testament prophet.  And he spoke those words and they are also recorded in Acts, Chapter 2, because Peter starts preaching in Acts after a major event occurs.  And he recites what was spoken by the prophet Joel.  “It shall come to pass in those last days,” said God, “that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.  Your sons, your daughters shall prophesy.  Your young men shall see visions; your old men shall dream dreams.  And on my men servants and on my maid servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they shall prophesy.  And then it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  And Peter continues on. 

But the story starts before Peter preaches.  The story starts in Acts when Jesus gives them last words.  Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, He appeared to many different people.  During those forty days, he was with them and with them and with them.  And not just the disciples, not just the chosen few, but 500 at a time it says he appeared to them.  Now, one or two people might have a dream one night but rarely would it be the same. And you might hallucinate but you might not have the same hallucination.  But 500 people all saw Jesus during those forty days.  And then there were ten days that lead up to this point of Pentecost, the Day of Pentecost.  See what happened was, there were the forty days and then Jesus said the final words.  We call it the “Ascension of Jesus”. 

In between when He left and gave them the final words and when Acts opens the scene, there is ten days--a little more than a week.  What happens in those ten days?  Well some people are getting ready for the offering.  See before they came to the Temple, they got ready for the offering which is kind of a wild concept.  We kind of wait until the offering plate is passed and then we put the offering in.  They came ready to give.  And at that time Jesus had said, “I want you to do something.”  He didn’t say, “It’s finished.”  Oh, maybe He did on the cross.  That wasn’t His final word to them.  He didn’t say, “Peace, I’m out of here.”  Although He did say, “Peace be with you.”  But that wasn’t His final word!  His final word to the disciples was, “Go.”  And then that wonderful one, the 4-letter word, “Wait”.  “Go and wait.”  How many of you like to hear that word?   

Wait—they use to call it in the restaurant industry “wait tables”.  You wait tables.  Has anybody ever been a waitress or a waiter?  Oh, come now haven’t you all be waiters and waitresses?  Yes!  And life is not at these tables you’ve waited.  How many of you like to wait?  Oh, but it is such a fruitful time, waiting.  Wait, wait, wait!  Some folks, I’m imagining, as they climb up the steps to that Upper Room in Jerusalem they were remembering when they were waiting up in the Upper Room for the authorities to storm through because Jesus had been crucified.  And they were going to the same Upper Room.  It had become a place of worship for them on a regular basis.  Seven days—they’ve had their Sabbath there already since Jesus left.  But they were there again waiting. 

He said, “Wait until you receive the power.”  Well, what power?  “The power that my Father has promised.”  Well not they had seen power work in Jesus—multiplying loaves.  They had even experienced it themselves.  They were able to go when Jesus sent them forth and they got to throw out demons out of people.  And they came back and reported to Him.  But they weren’t sure exactly what He meant this time. Have you ever waited and not known what you were waiting on?  Now, that’s even worse than waiting for what you know you are waiting on, right?  If you know the bus is supposed to come, and some of you do, and you know what time or you know you are supposed to eat at a particular time or you have an appointment and you have to wait, how long will you wait?  How long will you wait before you say something?  How long will you wait before you check your clock, your e-mail?  How long will you wait until you check your voice messages?  We didn’t wait very long this morning.  We kind of waited a little bit.  We waited because we thought someone else might do it.  But that other person didn’t show up, so John’s going to do it.  We wait and sometimes we don’t wait too patiently, do we?  We wait because we have to not because we volunteer to wait. 

The disciples were told to wait.  Wait until the power comes!  Now all of us have been in that case I would imagine where we have waited for the power to come on in the dark of night when normally you would flip a switch.  And some of us go about the house flipping switches any way just because we are accustomed to it.  We have our pattern, don’t we?  We have a pattern that we go into a room and we flip the light on.  It kind of makes you feel stupid when nothing happens.  We realize, “Wow, I am so addicted to electricity.”   

The disciples had seen a pattern.  They had seen Jesus come up from the waters of baptism.  And a voice from heaven came and there was a dove.  So, what would the logical mind conclude?—there is a pattern to this power stuff!  You’ve got to have birds and you’ve got to be wet!  So let’s go get the birds, let’s go get doves.  I think it was a dove.  Don’t you think it was a dove?  And, oh, maybe we should get some water.  If we are going to really get ready as a church for power, we’ve got to have the right stuff, right?  Like the festival down there, we go with expectations.  Strawberries—there should be strawberries at a strawberry festival.  And no excuses about the weather because they are so scrawny.  Strawberries!   

They came expecting.  But you see, it might not come the same way.  It might not happen in the same way.  They could have everything ready, tons of water, tons of birds, tons of bread, and nothing happen.  In fact, maybe they’d come every day to that Upper Room of those seven days and nothing happened and then the eighth day, and then the ninth day.  Well, my goodness, I’m going to have people over for supper.  Haven’t we waited long enough?  Can I just go home and wait?  Why do I have to wait up here in this Upper Room?  Why do you all have to wait?  I’ll tell you what, I’ll be the volunteer, and I’ll wait.  The rest of you can go home.  It’s Pentecost after all and there are many preparations to be made. 

You see, we know the Day of Pentecost in our modern age as the day we call the birthday of the church because we know what happened. What if you went to the strawberry festival and they served bananas?  We don’t come with expectation now on the Day of Pentecost.  We don’t come with expectation many times at all.  We think we know what it will be like.  Well, let me give you these words, “trust”.  The disciples had to trust.  When you wait, even when you wait for something that you don’t know what you are waiting for, there is a certain element of trust.  You see, I trusted that someone would raise their hand.  I would have felt kind of silly and a lot of people would have looked at me and said, “You should have prepared for that.”  Trust—trust when you wait that it is for not.  Trust that it is not for not.  So waiting involves trust. 

Waiting involves timing.  Timing—what was so unusual about the Day of Pentecost?  Well, there were people from sixteen different countries in Jerusalem that day.  There was the celebration.  It was one of three festivals where people who were Jewish were required by the Levitical law to come to Jerusalem to give their offering.  And they, who had been dispersed all over, but had the world came, came.  And they didn’t have the same language anymore.  The Greek that was spoken was even different in dialect.  It’s not just like from North Carolina or Georgia and to the northeast Jersey accent, which I can’t do very well.  It was a totally different word.  So timing played a part in what God is doing, what God did.  Trust and timing! 

And then there’s that truth, the truth of the promise.  Can God’s truth still be trusted to have perfect timing?  Can you say that with me?  Can God’s truth still be trusted to have perfect timing?  Yeah, yes, uh-huh and amen!  May it be so, yes, in your life and my life!  That as we wait, that we recognize that God’s truth can still be trusted to have perfect timing.  And what happens when that happens, when God’s truth can still be trusted to have perfect timing?  The Holy Spirit which is in the life of every Christian believer—did that just take your breath away?  The Holy Spirit, God’s nature, has been given to every Christian believer.  Oh, preachers out there, come on, say Amen!  (Amen)  It’s true!  That’s the truth!  He said, “You are co-believers with me.”  In Peter it said, “You are partakers of the divine nature.”  Unless we can get it in here, how can we get it out there!  (Amen)  Thank you.  We’ve got to be all together in this.  It’s not just a pep rally; it’s the truth!  Christ has won the victory!  And that’s exciting.  And it is so exciting it is transforming!  The light of life dwells in us.   

Vaboom, ppooff—those were the types of things that happened that first Pentecost.   The rushing wind came through.  They heard it; the sound was overwhelming.  They heard and they saw the light of tons of fire, purification symbols.  And they spoke in languages that before that point they did not know.  And people heard a new word, a word that was for them in their own language.  It happened when they were together in one place.  And what were they doing together in one place?  Waiting!  That type of waiting is not the absence of action.  It is directed action, directed activity because they were also praying.  In fact it says they were together in one place constantly praying.  That’s when the Spirit in us and the Spirit of God creating and creation mound together.  Constantly praying!   

I don’t know, maybe I’m just a little naïve.  I think God did more in giving us His Spirit than just decide that, “Ok, you can live forever.”  There is more to it than that.  There is more to the Spirit then we even grasp.  We might have a thimble full.  We might only associate it with religious excitement with the pastor being nuts with hysteria.  But look at the fruit of the spirit.  Look at the fruit of the spirit not only in Acts but throughout the New Testament.  When we talk about the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control—my goodness, can’t our world use some more of that?  And guess who carries it?  You, you, you, you, me!  Yeah!  The Spirit who is at work in you! 

Before Jesus ascended, He was with the disciples.  But He said, “I will be going to the Father and He will send who will be in you.”  The Holy Spirit in you!  

            So our witness, our testimony, our truth is transforming.  Will you get on board with timing and let it move through you?  The way of God, the way of the Spirit into your world, into my world, no holes barred?  May it be so for all of us.  Amen.

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Nancy Blevins

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