Monday
Acts 2.1-2 “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”
C. S. Lewis once longed for the gales of God to blow again through the dusty cobwebs of a passive church. He wasn’t wrong in his longing. These two verses are more than a weather report, they are the Church’s first weather forecast about the power of the Holy Spirit to be seen and heard where the followers of Jesus are gathered together. And so we pray, “O Breath of Life, come sweeping through us / revive your church with life and power.”
Tuesday
Acts 2.2 “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”
Pentecost was a dramatic interruption that woke the disciples from resignation, uncertainty, timidity about the future, and that lethargy we all recognise when something seems too big to tackle. The sudden noise, the forceful energy, the disruptive effect of power pervading ‘the whole house’ – what to do in face of so much evidence of church decline, fading faith, loss of direction and a world less and less hospitable to Christian life and witness? Perhaps pray for a personal Pentecost, and a local community Pentecost, another blessed interruption to routine faith!
Wednesday
Acts 2.3 “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”
Wind and fire are not the elements of tameness or sameness. The wind is a force that overturns, whips up, impels forward if the wind is at our back. Fire consumes, illumines, warms, purifies and extracts pure metal in furnace heat. The separation of the flames into a gift of flame to each one present, is a remarkable picture of the Holy Spirit falling on the community and hovering over each person. The coming of the Holy Spirit is the realisation in our experience of Jesus’ promise of the Spirit as the Father’s gift. “Kindle a flame of sacred love, on the mean altar of my heart.”
Thursday
Acts 2. 4 “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
While the gift of tongues came later in Christian worship, in Acts the Spirit becomes both the speaker and the interpreter. The Jesus’ followers spoke in a language they had not learned, to people able to understand them. The Gospel can’t be constrained by any one language – the good news is to all people. That long list of peoples, tribes and nations in Jerusalem represented many languages – and the Spirit ensured that they heard of “the wonders of God.” (v11) It may be that the Church today is being called to discover and grow new ways of telling, showing and enacting the good news of Jesus crucified and risen. And not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of God.
Friday
O Thou who camest from above, the pure celestial fire to impart,
kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart.
Jesus said he would not leave them orphaned, abandoned or left to their own devices. The coming of the Spirit, the gift of the Father, is the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise. Wesley recognised both the glory of the fire and the ordinariness of the altar. Even a love worthy of Jesus would have to come as gift, a flame from heaven sent to ignite everything in us that will burn. And so Wesley’s prayer, becomes our prayer, “Kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart.”
Saturday
“There let it for Thy glory burn with inextinguishable blaze,
and trembling to its source return, in humble prayer and fervent praise.”
“The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.” (Lev. 6.13) Wesley describes the Christian heart as an ordinary altar, nothing special. But when sacred love is kindled by the inner working of the Spirit, the heart burns with devotion and creates communion between the glory of heaven and the trusting heart. The result is a life of humble prayer and fervent praise, a life ignited and kept constantly ablaze by the renewing and refuelling power of the Holy Spirit.
Sunday
Jesus, confirm my heart's desire to work and speak and think for Thee,
still let me guard the holy fire, and still stir up Thy gift in me.
Ready for all Thy perfect will, my acts of faith and love repeat,
till death Thy endless mercies seal, and make my sacrifice complete.
On this Pentecost Sunday, let Wesley’s hymn become your prayer. Against the backdrop of the upper room, invaded by the gales of God, sanctified by the flames of divine love, we ask for a fresh kindling in our own hearts and heads, of love for God, love for Christ’s church, and love for this God-loved world. May our whole lives be an incendiary witness to the fierce and holy love of God. By the power of the Spirit, may God’s holy fire burn with inextinguishable blaze, His love audible and visible in us.
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