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Power of the Holy Spirit

Acts 2:1-13

Three times each year Jews journeyed to Jerusalem for feasts: Passover-Feast of Unleavened Bread, followed 50 days later by the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:16). Some Jewish traditions held that Moses received the law from God on Mount Sinai 50 days after the first Passover in Egypt on the night of the Exodus. That tradition, true or not, found a happy parallel some 1,500 years later in Jerusalem.

When the law was given by God on Mount Sinai there was a powerful display of God's presence: "thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; . . . so that all the people who were in the camp trembled" (Exodus 19:16). Even Moses was "exceedingly afraid and trembling" (Hebrews 12:21). An audible (thunder) and visual (fire of lightning) display accompanied the giving of the law.

Centuries later, 50 days after Passover in Jerusalem, 10 days after Christ's ascension to heaven, when the city was filled with Pentecost pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean region (Acts 2:9-11), a similar powerful display occurred. But this time it had to do with the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church of Jesus Christ.

There were audible and visual displays like at Sinai—the rushing of a violent wind and tongues of fire (Acts 2:1-3). While the multitude of assembled Jews were not terrified, like the Jews at Sinai, they were clearly "confused, because everyone heard [the disciples of Jesus] speak in his own language" (Acts 2:6). At Sinai, the revelation from God in the law was in the language of one nation. Now, at Jerusalem, the revelation of the Spirit of God was in the language of all the nations. The glory of God (Acts 2:11) was being declared for all the world to hear.

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