Introduction
Every year, the church prayerfully participates in the 10 days following Jesus’ ascension. During that time, the disciples awaited the promised gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now, we learn to wait with them, longing for the Spirit’s renewing work and tracing a pattern in Scripture: God ascends to reign and fills people with the Holy Spirit so they can rule with him.
We have seen Jesus ascend to the highest throne and promise his disciples that the Father will fill them with the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have waited with Mary and prayed with the disciples. Now, we experience the long-anticipated moment—the enthroned King filling his people on the day of Pentecost.
Wind and Fire from Heaven
After 10 days of waiting and praying, gathered in an upstairs room, God’s people experience God’s presence. A powerful wind rushes into their midst. Back in Genesis, this same wind—the breath of God—filled the first human with life (Genesis 2:7). Now, in Acts, the Holy Spirit fills everyone in the room (Acts 2:4). The Spirit that animated humanity in the beginning and miraculously gave life to Mary’s womb now descends to fill the co-rulers of the ascended King Jesus.
Miniature pillars of fire appear above the heads of each of Jesus’ followers. Throughout the Bible, fire often signals God’s presence. In Exodus, God guided his people with a pillar of fire, and his fiery presence set apart spaces as holy, like the burning bush and Mount Sinai (Exodus 3:5, 19:18). A flaming cloud marked the Tabernacle as the dwelling place of God’s presence (Exodus 40:34-38). Now, in Acts, when the Spirit fills God’s people, fire appears above them, marking them as the space where God dwells (Acts 2:3).The God who once filled a Tabernacle now fills human beings.
The Holy Filling
Pentecost reverses the anti-filling of Genesis 6.Back then, rebellious sons of God used humans to spread their own corrupt image in the world. But now the true Son of God has ascended the throne, and the Holy Spirit rebirths humanity in the image of Christ. God’s fiery presence sets apart the people of God as holy space, and his Spirit makes them holy images, true sons of God.
Pentecost is the moment Jesus’ followers become a Spirit-filled people under the enthroned King, ready to carry God’s flourishing life and the news of the Kingdom to the world.
Guided Prayer
In the Spirit of Pentecost, we pray now as Jesus our ascended King taught us:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven those indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.