The Great Power from Above

There were three great Jewish festivals to which every male Jew who lived within twenty miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to come – the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. The word Pentecost was originally called the ‘Fiftieth’ or the ‘feast of Weeks’. It was so called because it fell on the fiftieth day, a week of weeks, after the Passover. The Feast itself had two main significances:

1. It is historical because it commemorated the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.

2. It is agricultural because during the Passover the first crop was offered to God, then on the fiftieth day, the crops were offered in gratitude for the completed and the ingathered harvest.

We do not know what really occurred at Pentecost since Luke was not an eye-witness and that he was passing a story which he must have heard. However, what we are certain about is that the disciples had an experience of the power of the Holy Spirit flooding their beings like as they never had before. They became bold and determined to speak the truth about Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. This is the turning point where the disciples began to become ‘men for others’ commissioned to spread and preach the Good News of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ. From a community of twelve, to a community of hundreds, thousands, to becoming the Catholic Church, God is continuously working through the Church and the Spirit.

Now I think this is significant to each one of us personally but moreover it most significant because you and I build the church. We are the church and like the group of twelve men and first Christian communities we are also commissioned and tasked to continue what they had been told to do. That is why we are not just a church, we are an APOSTOLIC CHURCH, and by that I mean we received a mandate for a new mission: to proclaim the sovereignty of God’s love through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Our duty both as an individual and as a community is to proclaim and proclamation is both by words and deeds. It is as well most important that we know what we proclaim and we only proclaim the exact, no more, no less. Other than the exact is evil. We proclaim not the puppy kind of love, nor the famous one week love affair or known to Filipinos as isang linggong pag-ibig. What we proclaim is the sovereignty of God’s love, whose greatest expression shown to us through His beloved Son, the Word became flesh, lived among us, suffered and died, and now is raised from the dead. The resurrection is the summit of our proclamation, the very foundation of our faith. This is our mission as an individual and as a church.

But look around us today. We are all aware of the chaotic society we are in; the endless violence, threat of war, of hunger, of climate change, of moral corrosion. Even the church is not exempted. Today more than ever we need to be strong and firm to combat the evil enveloping our world. When Jesus Christ commissioned his apostles to ‘go and preach to all nations’ he also assured the apostles that ‘I will be with you ‘til the end of time’ and promised to empower them.

Therefore, the Holy Spirit gives them empowerment:

1. Charismaton (1Cor 12:4-11)

2. The courage to speak publicly of what they had seen and heard despite the dangers of imminent persecution.

3. The gift of preaching/ apostolic kerygma

4. The immediate expansion of the disciple community as people responded to the preaching of the Gospel.

Let the love of God be the goal of all our undertakings. Let our eyes be focused on Jesus, the greatest expression of God’s love, and our hearts motivated by His words and deeds. Let the power of the Holy Spirit empower us to go and spread God’s salvation.

(Reference: The Daily Study Bible by William Barclay)