From City Pres Church: Denver
Pentecost: Ten days after the Ascension of Christ into heaven and fifty days after his resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples on the day of Pentecost. Pentecost was an established Jewish festival also known as the Feast of Weeks, which drew people from many nations back to Jerusalem. Pentecost symbolizes a new beginning.
The band Nirvana once sang, “I love myself better than you, I know it’s wrong but what should I do?” That lyric sums up the situation most of us find ourselves in. We look at our lives and our actions and we see patterns of self-centeredness. These patterns are so deeply entrenched we cannot think of a way out. We think that change is virtually impossible, so we just sigh heavily and move on with life. This type of cynicism (about ourselves and about others) is one of dominant marks of our culture. We have been let down so many times by ourselves and others that we refuse to believe that change is possible.
The Bible on the one hand shares our pessimism about human nature – that left to ourselves we cannot hope for meaningful, lasting change. But on the other hand Scripture teaches that God has not left us to ourselves. Into our desperate situation comes the gift of God’s Spirit first poured out on Pentecost Sunday. On this day of the church calendar we celebrate God pouring out the Holy Spirit into our world (see Acts 2 in the New Testament). The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to transform our hearts more and more to reflect the heart of Jesus. Or, to use the words of the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel, the Holy Spirit replaces our hearts of stone with
hearts of flesh, that we may begin to truly love God and our fellow humans.
So what does that mean? It means that no matter who you are, no matter how self-centered you understand yourself to be, you can come to God and say, “Gracious God, heal me. Change my heart. Make it capable of loving you and loving others.” Because of Pentecost, we can come to God with real hope for real change.
