Pentecost: The Great Transfer

In Jesus Holy Name May 19, 2024

Text: John 14:26 & 15:26 Pentecost Redeemer

“Pentecost: The Great Transfer”

After His resurrection Jesus spent 40 days visiting His disciples. He showed up in the most ordinary circumstances: two disciples walking along a road, a private dinner, a woman weeping in a garden, some fishermen working on a lake. He told them to remain in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit.

Let’s review the timeframe:

John 7 Feast of Tabernacles October

John 10 Feast of the Dedication December

(In 4 months Jesus will celebrate the Passover and be arrested)

John 11-18 Passover, Arrest, Crucifixion

Luke 24 Resurrection and Resurrection appearances

Acts 2 50 days after Passover is the Feast of Pentecost

During the Passover meal, Jesus told His disciples: “It is better for you that I go away.” Why would Jesus make such a statement? Because Jesus knew a transition was coming. Jesus was not going to leave His disciples as orphans.

Transitions are never easy for the child or the parent. Watch a mother stand by the mail box and wave good bye to her kindergarten child as he or she steps on to the bus for the first time. That is a moment of earth shaking reality. For one, a moment of release with tears and worry, for the other it is stepping into a personal world of independence.

Watch families drop their son or daughter off on a college campus, thousands of miles from home. Another moment of transition for which both have been preparing since kindergarten, for the parent both a sense of pride and loss, for the one leaving home and going to college, excitement and the opportunity to experience, independence and responsibility.

Our relationship with God is the ultimate parent-child relationship and transitions are not easy for the Divine parent nor for us. Jesus who had been with His disciples in person was leaving but would He be “inside” them by the power of The Holy Spirit. (from Jesus Speaks; Leonard Sweet p. 82)

During those 40 days, after His resurrection, Jesus was teaching His disciples a new way to know Him. It would be a transition of learning to recognize Jesus, by His physical body, and physical voice, and in the future could hear His Voice without seeing His physical body. It was a time of transition. So they remained in Jerusalem waiting.

Jesus’ followers were gathered in prayer. Not separated from society, but smack-dab in the center of Jerusalem, in an upper room where they had been meeting, waiting, praying. Jesus knew how His message of salvation would be sent beyond Jerusalem, beyond Judea, beyond Samaria. Soon Jews from all over the empire would gather in Jerusalem. The Day would be Pentecost.

Pentecost was one of the three feast days on which all the Jewish men were required to appear in Jerusalem at least once in their lifetime. Pentecost was one of the busiest days of the year in Jerusalem as men and women from all over the world made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The divine timing was precise.

The Great transfer of the Holy Spirit, the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was to replace the physical body of Jesus and establish the church. The “church” would become the “living body” of Jesus, which would carry on all that Jesus had initiated on earth.

After being with the disciples for 40 days Jesus ascended into heaven. His parting words reminded them that His Father would give them the Advocate, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit. They were to remain in Jerusalem until that moment. He told the disciples that when His Holy Spirit arrived: “the primary purpose of the Holy Spirit would give them the words they need to become witnesses to Christ, And the Holy Spirit would equip the church, the new physical body of Christ, as the witness His life and message.

The moment of transfer of God’s Holy Spirit from Jesus to the disciples began with the roar of a mighty wind, without a curtain being stirred, filled the Upper Room. The Spirit of Jesus then took the disciples into the streets with tongues of fire proclaiming the message of salvation through Jesus.

Those who had gathered in the street heard the disciples speaking in their own home town language. Many in this crowd knew the facts. They had seen or heard how Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. Some of them had shouted a welcome to Jesus when He entered Jerusalem in triumph and watched Him cleanse the temple.

No doubt some of them had watched three condemned men carry crosses through the streets of Jerusalem the month before. They had seen the Roman death squad finish Jesus off with a spear to His heart.