"In The Last Days"

Sermon Preached by John C. Hall on Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2010

Text — Acts 2, 1-4; 17-21

There are 2 parts to the Pentecost story.  The first part is the familiar one.  Let me set the scene. At this point in the Biblical story, Jesus has died, risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven. Before his ascension, he told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received “power from on high.” They would need divine power to do what they were going to do.

So Jesus promised that his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, would come back after he was physically gone, and this Spirit would give them the power they needed to continue his ministry, including the power to perform miracles. The emphasis of Pentecost is on power, and that power is symbolized by fire and wind.

Here is the fulfillment of that promise.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

And then, the passage goes on with some colorful detail.  There were Jews in Jerusalem at this time (for the Jewish harvest festival) who had traveled from all over the known world, or at least the eastern Mediterranean world. These are the various Jewish groups that had scattered over the centuries and who had been separate for so long that they spoke different languages and couldn’t even understand each other. This scattering of the Jewish people reminds us of the scattering and confusion of the whole human race recorded in Genesis, chapter 11, in the story of the tower of Babel.

But on this day, by the power of the Holy Spirit, all of these people of diverse languages could understand what the disciples were saying. The disciples were speaking in every language.  Pretty amazing. So Pentecost is a reversal or a dramatic healing of that scattering and confusion.

This is the first step in God’s plan to bring all of humanity back together — first, by forming the church. And then the church was to be the foundation on which God would re-unite all of humanity. This is how the church has traditionally understood itself, although today many Christians, including most of us, don’t see this happening literally. We don’t foresee a world in which everyone will be a self-identified Christian, but the church is still supposed to have a unifying power, a peace-making and justice-making power and spirit.

But back to the story, this Spirit, this power, comes like a mighty wind, a violent wind. And this wind and power are good. And the disciples become very enthusiastic. And as you know, enthusiasm can stimulate more enthusiasm and it can generate opposition.

Some of the bystanders think that the disciples have been drinking too much “new wine.” And they are kind of drunk on new wine in the sense that “new wine” is a code word for Jesus’ teaching. Remember the parable of the wine and wineskins (Luke 5:33-39)? But Peter says, they aren’t drunk. It’s only 9 o’clock in the morning.

Then Peter preaches his sermon.  And in his sermon Peter quotes from the prophet Joel.

Joel is one of the minor prophets, from the 4^th or 5^th century B.C. and this is a famous passage from Joel that seems to predict this outpouring of Spirit 400-500 years later. So here are words from Joel coming out of Peter’s mouth.

 “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

Notice that many forms of social division, injustice, and estrangement are overcome in this prophecy. Slaves participate. Females participate — even female slaves participate. This was a new idea at the time.

For Peter, this passage from Joel confirms that this Spirit is from God. That’s the first part of the Pentecost story. And it’s a wonderful, inspiring part.

But there’s another part and another level to the Pentecost story – one that we tend not to focus on as much. It introduces complications.  It’s been controversial. It’s harder to deal with. The trouble comes from that phrase: “In the last days…” 

Here’s the problem. The first Christians didn’t foresee history going on, year after year, century after century, in a continuous way. They didn’t see history as a process of gradual improvement. That’s really a modern idea — the idea that we, by our human power, can bring about social improvement.

The first Christians, and maybe Jesus himself, thought that the world as they knew it had to end, and it was going to end soon. Peter is saying, “We are in the last days right now.”

According to this 1^st century Christian view, this end will be violent and painful, but violence and pain are signs that the end is very near. The worse it gets, the closer to the end we must be. But God will intervene — any moment, and end the pain. When we’re in pain, that’s what we need to know. God will end the pain!

As for the timing of this, we can say that Peter was wrong. The world didn’t end in the first century. But that’s sort of the point too.  We never know when the end will come. We never know when our own personal end will come.

This next part of our reading in verse 19 comes from the part of Peter’s sermon that describes that end, or the signs of the end.  The “I” here is God speaking, through the prophet Joel) …

 I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood …

This is frightening.  And this is classic apocalyptic language, describing the early New Testament view of the future.

But continuing on, these portents, these terrors and danger signs, aren’t the end in themselves.  This will all take place (at the end of verse 20)

 before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 

So it’s bad getting to the end, but the end itself is a wonderful thing — the Day of the Lord.  It’s a glorious thing. Frightening days lie ahead.  Things seem to be getting worse. But have faith, because these troubles are signs that the Lord’s great and glorious day is coming.

21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

That’s the promise.  That’s the gospel.  Call out to God. Trust God. You’ll be okay.

The reason we need the spirit and power, the wind and flame, in the first part of the Pentecost story is because we all have an end to face. We all have a future.  But it’s not an unlimited future. It’s has a limit.

And the limit is what makes life precious. Without a limit, life would be a huge burden.  Think of the retirement account you’d need to save. Social security would really be in trouble. We’d have to work forever.

So here’s a question: How do you feel about the future? How do you feel about your personal future? How do you feel about the future of the world?

I can remember when the future was supposed to be much better. That idea of continual progress was riding high in the days of futuristic world fairs and expos that described some version of the utopia that lay ahead: Life will be easier. We’ll have more leisure time. We won’t get sick. We won’t have poverty and wars. We’ll be enlightened. Better living through chemistry —remember that advertising slogan?

Today, the future doesn’t necessarily look so great. We work more hours today. We’re at war.  We have debt. We have oil spills.

How we view the future affects our spiritual outlook. And our spiritual outlook affects how we deal with the future.  So, how do you feel about your future and how do you feel about the bigger future?

Do you look beyond your life — beyond this life? What is heaven?  What does “eternal life” mean?  How do these terms function in your spiritual outlook? And even if you don’t believe in any conscious after-life, we still have to deal with the fact that we all have “last days.”  We don’t live forever, at least not in this world.

Here again is Peter’s advice on how to deal with the last days.

“Those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”