Tag Archives: Pentecost

Purpose & Timing

March 21, 2024 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
Acts 2:1 (NIV)

One of the things I’ve observed throughout the Great Story is the fact that God does things with both purpose and timing. The purpose and timing happening in today’s chapter can easily go unnoticed by the modern and casual reader.

In reading and meditating on the first two chapters of Acts, I couldn’t help but notice a pattern:

Before His ministry began, Jesus spent 40 days of preparation fasting, and praying. He was then baptized by John, the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and His ministry was effectively launched.

Before their ministry began, Jesus’ disciples spent 40 days of preparation. According to their own testimony, the risen Jesus appeared to them during this period and taught them. They were then baptized in the Holy Spirit and their ministry was effectively launched. (FYI: At this point, the disciples [“follower”] became known as apostles [“sent”]).

But that’s just the top layer. The pattern gets even deeper and better, because the events of Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and the outpouring of Holy Spirit are purposefully timed. They correlate to events and festivals God established through Moses back in Exodus and Leviticus at the time God established His law. What God was doing through Moses and the Law are linked to what God was doing through Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The Passover festival was a celebration of God’s deliverance of His people in the final climactic plague on the Egyptians that led to the end of their slavery and the beginning of their freedom. In that plague, death came to the first-born male of every household unless the blood of a sacrificial lamb was spread across the door. The spirit of death “passed over” the households whose doors were covered in the blood of the lamb.

Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection at the time of the Passover festival marked God’s deliverance for any who believes, leading to the end of slavery to sin and the beginning of spiritual freedom. Jesus became the sacrificial lamb, His blood poured out for all. His victory over death and resurrection made it possible for death to pass over any and all who would believe.

Pentecost was another ancient Hebrew festival, known as the Festival of Weeks. The first fruits of the harvest were celebrated and brought to the Temple as offerings. It was also traditionally commemorated as the day when God gave Moses the Law back in the book of Exodus.

So on the day of commemoration of God giving the Law through Moses, God gave the Holy Spirit to all believers. In His Message on the Mountain, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to abolish the Law (of Moses) and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.” The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was this fulfillment. To the believers in Corinth Paul wrote: “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (emphasis added).

In kicking off the harvest celebration by the bringing of first-fruit offerings, Jesus has all of the disciples, the first fruits of His early ministry. As He once told them, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the launched ministry of taking Jesus’ Message to the world, it is a celebration of a spiritual harvest of souls reaping eternal life.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself comforted in the reminder that God works with purpose and timing. I believe this is not only true in the events described in today’s chapter, but in my life, as well. There was a lot that the Apostles still didn’t see or understand about what was happening. In the same way, I often find myself on life’s road without clarity or understanding of what God is doing or where I’m clearly being led. Nevertheless, I know God works with purpose and timing, and I will continue to trust that today as I press on in the journey.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“One day,…”

May 12, 2015 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Acts 3:1 (NRSV)

In yesterday’s chapter we read about the miraculous events on Pentecost. Incredible public spectacle, heaven-sent pyrotechnics, all twelve of Jesus’ core team members speaking fluently in languages they didn’t even know, thousands of people from all over the world choosing to follow Jesus and be baptized.

What struck me this morning as I began the very next chapter was the return to ordinary, mundane, every day disciplines of life. Three o’clock was one of the fixed times for daily prayers at the temple. Peter and John head to the temple for the religious observance just as they did every day at that time, just as they had done with Jesus when their traveling ministry was in Jerusalem. Back to the routine. Return to the grind. Doing the same thing we did the day before; Going through the motions of the same thing we do every day.

I have learned in the journey that God’s supernatural intrusions happen amidst monotonous routines. Those who follow Jesus are called to certain spiritual disciplines in daily life. Like punching the clock at a job on the line, the daily disciplines of life can be repetitive, monotonous, and somewhat boring at times. That’s life, such as it it. C’est la vie.

“One day,” Dr. Luke writes as he begins to tell the story of the lame man. He doesn’t write “The next day” or “Soon after that.” Dr. Luke was a meticulous researcher and was very particular about the details of the story. The events of the third chapter happened on a random day some time after the events of the second. The spectacle had receded into past. Peter and John were back to every day life.

Today, I’m reminded that our life journey is filled stretches of time in which the daily, weekly, monthly terrain and the view look very much like the day, week, and month before. “One day,” as we trudge through our disciplined routine, God will surprise us with an amazing event, an unexpected companion, s stunning vista, a sudden curve in the road, or any number of possible new chapters in our own story. The key is to understand that we would never have arrived at that particular place on life’s road at just the right time had we not taken up the monotonous routine trek day after day after day after day.

Press on.

Chapter-a-Day

Summer Camp Experiences

May 11, 2015 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 2:43-47 (NRSV)

Many years ago I spent a number of weeks during my summer teaching at a youth camp here in Iowa. Summer camp is always a really fun experience. You get away from daily life and routines. You get to play fun games, run around in nature, make new friends, and have a generally wonderful time together.

During one of these weeks, there was an amazing event that happened which was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. An outpouring of Holy Spirit occurred among a group of junior high kids during evening worship that was reminiscent of the Pentecost event described in today’s chapter.

I would have loved to have stayed at camp and experienced that event over and over and over again. It would have been fun to forget every day life and just stay in that moment, but at the end of the week I had to go home, provide for my family, and move forward in my life journey. I will be forever grateful and forever changed because of what I experienced that week, but it was a special moment for that time and place.

Along the journey I have heard many people bemoan that we do not regularly experience the events like those described in today’s chapter. They are often held as a standard towards which we should strive. While I am certainly not against striving for ideals, I have come to accept that God intercedes in supernatural ways at specific times and places for specific purposes. Mountain top summer camp experiences eventually give way to the valley of daily life. The incredible events of Pentecost would eventually give way to persecution, a scattering of Jesus’ followers, and the overwhelming necessities of managing a daily routine in a rapidly expanding grass roots organization.

Today, I am grateful for the indescribable experience I had that summer at Junior High camp. I am thankful for the things it has taught me and the ways it impacted my life journey. I am also mindful that there is just as much, if not more, spiritual growth and maturity that develops in the mundane disciplines of every day life.

Chapter-a-Day

No Travel Necessary

October 8, 2014 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name— for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.”
1 Kings 8:41-43 (NIV)

In 2003 I had the opportunity to be among the “foreigners” that Solomon prayed for in today’s chapter. I was able to stand and pray at the site of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. There is nothing there now but the unearthed stone remnants which are now known as the “Western Wall” or the “Wailing Wall” because of the crowds who ceaselessly gather there to pray.

It was a special event for me simply because of the historical meaning of the site. I must admit, however, that I didn’t find the experience of praying at the Wall to have any special potency or spiritual power. In fact, I struggle with the belief that a geographical location makes any kind of difference to prayer. Jesus went away to a mountainside to pray regularly, but it had nothing to do with the mountain being somehow a spiritual place. His drawing away was more about getting away from the crowds, the demands of followers, and the stress that comes with working with people. He happened to enjoy going to the nearby mountain, but the same thing could have been accomplished by going to the woods or getting out in a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.

Our place at the lake is very similar. I always feel spiritual peace when I’m at the lake. It’s a great place to relax, to pray, to meditate, and to think. There is nothing sacred in the dirt or water there. It is more about the fact that there is no television signal and only spotty internet service if you have a cellular modem. You’re away from the grind. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. The stress and anxiety of every day life melt away. The quality of my prayers and meditation at the lake rise because I don’t have work piled on my desk, don’t have my home phone ringing off the hook, and don’t have people demanding my time, energy and resources. There is space to reflect, to mull things over, and to have conversation with both God and others.

Jesus taught that with the pouring out of Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the presence of God would reside in the hearts of believers. We are God’s temple, and we take Him with us wherever we go. Pilgrimages to special places can be meaningful, educational, inspirational and spiritually beneficial, but they are certainly not necessary. I don’t need to write my prayers down and slip them into the Western Wall to be heard. With God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, my prayers are heard wherever I am at any given moment.

Chapter-a-Day

24/7/365 Worship

June 16, 2014 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Church-of-the-Holy-Spirit-Jihlava2011 — This building is called Church-of-the-Holy-Spirit, but the real church of the Holy Spirit is what every believer sees when he/she looks in a mirror. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those who were musicians, heads of Levite families, stayed in the rooms of the temple and were exempt from other duties because they were responsible for the work day and night.
1 Chronicles 9:33 (NIV)

For many of us, worship is something that happens one hour on Sunday each week. If you or your local gathering of believers is really whacky, you might add another hour or two by way of a Sunday night, Saturday night, or mid-week worship.

It struck me this morning reading about the host of singers and musicians who literally lived in the temple because they were needed day and night for the continuous worship that took place. The idea of “continuous worship” is foreign to most of us because our brains, experience, and tradition has been to compartmentalize worship into a one or two hour time slot in our week. The threat of this, of course, is that we think of God and/or our faith as something we put into a compartment of time. We take it out once or twice a week, then put it back and forget about it until the calendar and clock tell us it’s time to pull it back out again.

I am reminded this morning of the radical concept that Jesus introduced and which Jesus followers celebrated around the globe just over a week ago on the Sunday we call Pentecost. God’s Holy Spirit was poured out into the hearts of believers. The temple stopped being bricks and mortar and became flesh and blood in the form of any and all who believe. Church was never supposed to be a building we go to once or twice a week. Church was to be the living, breathing, touching, loving, feeling, serving people who believe and follow Jesus. Worship can happen anywhere, anytime, day or night because God isn’t at the church building, God is in me. My body is the temple and I take it with me wherever I go.

Today, I’m reminded once again that my body is a temple of God open for worship 24/7/365.