The Feast of Weeks – Pentecost

Scripture: Leviticus 23: 15-21; Acts 2: 1-14, 32-36

Sermon: The Feast of Weeks – Pentecost

Preached: June 8, 2014

Topics: Feasts, Pentecost, Sinai

Rev. Mike Abma

The Festival of Weeks

 And from the day after the sabbath, from the day on which you bring the sheaf of the elevation-offering, you shall count off seven weeks; they shall be complete. You shall count until the day after the seventh sabbath, fifty days; then you shall present an offering of new grain to the Lord. You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread as an elevation-offering, each made of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of choice flour, baked with leaven, as first fruits to the Lord. 

You shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, one young bull, and two rams; they shall be a burnt-offering to the Lord, along with their grain-offering and their drink-offerings, an offering by fire of pleasing odour to the Lord. You shall also offer one male goat for a sin-offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of well-being. The priest shall raise them with the bread of the first fruits as an elevation-offering before the Lord, together with the two lambs; they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. On that same day you shall make proclamation; you shall hold a holy convocation; you shall not work at your occupations. This is a statute for ever in all your settlements throughout your generations.

Acts 2: The Coming of the Holy Spirit

2When the day of Pentecost (Weeks) had come (was being fulfilled), they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ ¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

Peter Addresses the Crowd

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 

Vs. 22 You that are Israelites, listen….

Vs. 29 Fellow Israelites…..

³²This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. ³³Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear. ³⁴For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

“The Lord said to my Lord,

‘Sit at my right hand, 

³⁵   until I make your enemies your footstool.’ ” 

³⁶Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.’

The First Converts

37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’ ³⁸Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.’ ⁴⁰And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ ⁴¹So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. ⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

This is the last in our series on the Annual Old Testament Feasts or Festivals.

For those of you keeping good track,

you will have noticed that there are a cluster of 3 Fall Festivals:

Feast of Trumpets

The Day of Atonement

Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths, or Tents (that was the camping one)

Then there is also a cluster of 3 Spring Festivals

Passover

Feast of Unleavened Bread

Feast of First Fruits (last week’s)

Today we come to our last Festival – the Feast of Weeks.

In Hebrew it is called Shavuot, meaning weeks.

In Greek it is called Pentecost, meaning 50th, because it occurred 50 days after the

Feast of Unleavened Bread.

It came between the cluster of 3 Spring Festivals and the cluster of 3 Fall Festivals.

It does not get much mention in the Bible.

It is mentioned in Leviticus and in Exodus,

but not again in the rest of the Old Testament.

It is quiet, inconspicuous, unnoticed.

It is a minor feast compared to its major siblings.

In many ways, this Feast suffered from “Middle Feast Syndrome.”

But here is the irony – this least feast in many ways becomes the greatest.

This last feast becomes the first.

Because of all the Old Testament Feasts, we still celebrate this one.

We still observe Pentecost every year.

WHAT WAS CELEBRATED BY THE JEWS

But I am getting a little excited and a little ahead of myself.

Let’s take a closer look at this Feast.

Last week we talked about the Feast of First Fruits.

The first grain of the spring harvest, the barley harvest, was offered to the Lord.

Here in our Leviticus passage about the Feast of Weeks, we are 50 days later, and it is now the wheat harvest that is being celebrated.

It is no longer unleavened, flat bread that is offered,

but fluffy leavened baked bread made with the wheat of this harvest.

Notice that verse 17 calls this offering an offering of first-fruits to the Lord.

So there is a First First Fruits.

And later there is a Second First Fruits.

It is all part of the long spring harvest – celebrating its beginning and end.

That is about all that is said about this Feast of Weeks in the Old Testament.

So we need to reach a little beyond the Old Testament to get a full sense of what the Jews in Acts 2 were gathering to celebrate.

The Jewish writings between the Old and New Testament fleshed out this Feast of Weeks or Pentecost a little.

They calculated that from the very first Passover in Egypt to the time Israel was finally at Mount Sinai was just over 50 days.

And so, the Feast of Weeks came to be the Jewish celebration of God’s gift of the

Law, God’s gift of the Torah.

They remembered how Moses ascended up into the mountain.

They remembered how he descended with God’s gift of the Law.

They remembered how Mount Sinai flashed with fire.

They remembered how Mount Sinai rumbled with thunder.

But for them, it was not thunder but the voice of the Lord.

In the Jewish understanding of Mount Sinai,

the voice of the Lord thundered and was heard by

all 70 nations of the earth – they thought there were 70 total.

According to the Jewish understanding,

all the nations of the earth were given the opportunity to accept the Law,

but they rejected it.

Only Israel accepted the Law.

Only Israel said to the Lord,

“Everything that you have spoken, we will do.”

This is what they celebrated on the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Pentecost.

They celebrated the gift of the Torah – the Law.

They celebrated their covenant with God.

The Feast of Weeks was like their 4rth of July.

It was a very nationalistic holiday.

ACTS 2

Now let’s jump to Acts 2.

There were devout Jews from “every nation under heaven” living in Jerusalem.

They and the followers of Jesus – all Jews – were observing the Feast of Weeks, or the Feast of Pentecost.

Remember it had those 2 main meanings:

• As a harvest, second first-fruits festival
• And also as a covenant renewal ceremony – they were followers of the Law.

Can you see how what happens in Acts 2 has echoes of Sinai?

The fire that once blazed on Mount Sinai representing the presence of God,

is now burning among this group of followers of Jesus.

The voice that once thundered on Mount Sinai to all the nations of the world,

is now speaking through this group of followers of Jesus

to these devout Jews from every nation under heaven.

FIRST FRUITS

These devout Jews, are in Jerusalem to

celebrate the second First Fruits harvest

and to remember how Moses ascended into the mountain,

and descended with the greatest gift – the Torah.

In Acts 1 Luke has just described how Jesus ascends into Heaven,

the first-fruits of the new creation.

Here in Acts 2, on Pentecost,

The focus is on how the Spirit descends from Heaven,

the second first-fruits of the new creation,

the first-fruits of the earthly presence of the ascended Lord.

I don’t know about you, but I think the parallel is very cool,

Moses ascending and descending with the Torah, the Law;

Jesus ascending and the Spirit descending.

COVENANT RENEWAL

So what does the Spirit descend to do?

Well the question could be asked, what doesn’t the Spirit do?

The Spirit does so much:

• the Spirit connects us to Jesus Christ so that we are united with him and share in all his blessings
• The Spirit seals our adoption as Children of God – it is only through the Spirit that we call God the Father Abba. We belong to Him.
• The Spirit is a downpayment of our inheritance — that we are heirs of God, co-hiers with Christ, heirs of his Kingdom
• The Spirit is what gives us that sense of freedom, that we are no longer enslaved by sin, or over-burdened by the demands of the law, but are free to serve our King.

The Spirit connects to Christ and the New Covenant in his blood.

Where Sinai was the beginning of the nation Israel,

A people rescued by God,

And bound by the Torah,

Pentecost is the beginning of the church

A people rescued by the blood of Christ

And bound together by the fellowship of his Spirit.

CUT TO THE HEART

I have to admit,

I find all this fascinating:

All these connections between the Old and the New;

Sinai and Pentecost;

The gift of the Law and the gift of the Spirit.

But Pentecost has to be more than an intellectual thing.

As Jamie Smith once said, “we Calvinists sometimes think Christians are supposed

to be brains on a stick.”

But of course, we are not.

We not only need to know things,

We need to feel them.

We need to be cut to the heart.

The great Puritan preacher, Jonathon Edwards, once noted that there is a real

difference between knowing and experiencing.

You can know that honey is good and sweet.

But that is quite different from actually sensing and tasting how good and sweet

honey is.

The same is true for God.

We can know and believe how gracious and good God is.

But that is quite different from actually sensing, and tasting, and feeling how good

and gracious he is.

Perhaps that is why St. Augustine prayed: “Inebriate Me, O Lord.”

He wanted to feel God’s goodness,

to feel God’s loving and forgiving presence flowing through his veins.

Perhaps that is why, even after being a believer all his life,

John Wesley did not consider himself fully loved by God

until, at the age of 35, his heart was strangely warmed.

It was only then that he felt that Christ had taken his sins away

and that he was truly God’s child.

CONCLUSION

One of my favorite movies from the late 1980’s is Babette’s Feast (1987).

It is set in early 1800’s in a little village on a rugged coast of Denmark.

Two older women, the unmarried daughters of a deceased preacher,

live together and still try keep their father’s little

congregation going.

The two women take in a French refugee from the Revolutionary turmoil there,

a woman named Babette.

Babette becomes their servant for her room and board.

She is their servant for 12 years.

During those 12 years there are problems in the little church:

petty arguments,

ongoing grievances,

and the congregation shrinks to a tiny handful.

Everything is rather dull and drab and dour.

Then Babette receives news that she has won 10 thousand francs in a lottery.

This happens at the same time the little church is planning an anniversary

service – which may double as a final closing service.

Babette volunteers to cook for this service.

Over the next weeks, suddenly all kinds of exotic food begins to arrive in the village.

Then Babette serves her meal –

A multi-course meal – a feast —

The likes of which no one of the people at the table has ever

experienced before — truffles, pheasants, delicacies beyond description.

It turns out Babette was a famous chef in Paris in her old life.

The ultra-reserved and ultra-pious people around the table say …nothing about the food anyway.

But slowly

there are smiles on their faces,

flashes of life in their eyes,

And kind words on their tongues.

By the end of the evening, they are happily singing songs together.

It turns out that Babette has spent everything she has,

All 10 thousand francs,

On this one meal, this one feast, this one gift.

And it makes all the difference – all the difference in the world.

For it breathes new life into this little community.

There is an old saying that grim, dour, dutiful Christians

must have been baptized in pickle-juice.

May this not be said of us.

For we serve

The Lord of the Feast

The Lord of the Dance

The Lord of the Party

The one who spent everything for us and our well-being

Giving us new life through his sacrificial love;

Giving us new direction through the gift of his Spirit

Giving us a new identity in his name

Giving us a new purpose in life – to proclaim his goodness to all nations.

Amen