As we know, Easter is the celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus coming down into the world from heaven as a man to start that whole story of redemption. We do all sorts of things to celebrate these two events – they are key moments in the Christian calendar.

 

Pentecost is the celebration of the Holy Spirit coming down to us! And I think this deserves just as much celebratory efforts as the other two. Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter, and this is because 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ disciples. What is really cool, is that the Old Testament Hebrew people celebrated the Feast of Weeks 50 days after Passover. And the Feast of Weeks was a celebration of the calling of the Hebrew people into a covenant relationship with God at Mount Sinai. And may I say that this is something we should celebrate in our lives – our being called into a relationship with God!

 

The Jewish people back in Jesus’ time and the early believers would have known about and celebrated this thing called the Feast of Weeks. This particular year when Jesus, the Saviour of the world, died and rose again, during this period of the Feast of Weeks is when something amazing happened to Jesus’ followers. God released His Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-4)

 

Previously to this, they were eager to get out there and tell the world about Jesus, but they had been commanded by Jesus to wait. And the Holy Spirit was what they were waiting for. God knew that their ministry would be ineffectual without His Spirit in them. They were like kites, made to fly, but without any wind yet.

 

There are many things that the Bible tells us the Holy Spirit enables us to do, including those spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. And it is interesting to raise the question: are these abilities innate human abilities? Barry Chant in his book Praying In The Spirit asks, had humans not sinned, would it always have been possible to (for example) pray in tongues? (Prayer, specifically, is the focus of his book.) Chant speaks of glossolalia which is the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language, especially in religious worship. And he argues that glossolalia is actually a natural communication skill that has been lost to us because of sin, and that it is restored in Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. Romans 8:10.

 

So the ability is restored in Christ, and now all it needs is for the Holy Spirit to reactivate it. “Praying in tongues, then, is the restored cry of a human spirit brought back to life by the Spirit of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Chant, 2008)

But what difference does it make whether it’s an outside spiritual ability given to us, or a human ability awakened in us by the Holy Spirit I hear you ask? Well, if we all have the capacity to use spiritual gifts as an innate human ability, there is great encouragement for those who have asked God to enable them to pray in tongues (for example) with no apparent result yet. “When we think of glossolalia as a gift we have to drag down from heaven or somehow pull in from some external realm, we can easily be discouraged. But when we think of it as a capacity lying dormant within us, needing only to be awakened by the Holy Spirit, our faith can rise up more readily. Paul makes it plain that when he speaks in tongues it is his spirit that is praying (1 Corinthians 14:14).”

 

If we think of spiritual gifts as something imparted upon us, we are tempted to believe that only some will receive them, and perhaps even stop expecting them. Regarding speaking in tongues particularly, given that it is clearly a form of prayer, “it seems hard to accept that it is not possible for every believer to practice it.”

Yes, Paul does say Do all speak in tongues? (1 Corinthians 12:30), but context tells us here that he is referring to the use of tongue-speech for public use in church services, not private, personal prayer language.

 

Taking the example of speaking in tongues again, when this happened to the disciples, the Bible tells us that all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (glossolalia) as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:4

It was the disciples speaking in tongues, not the Holy Spirit. What He did was enable them. “The Holy Spirit does not speak in tongues. We do. We cannot do it without the Spirit’s help; the Spirit will not do it without our co-operation.”

Like Barry Chant’s book, I have also focused on prayer language for this written piece, because the Bible tells us that by speaking in tongues, we edify ourselves in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:4). We are restored and renewed inwardly. We are built up in faith (Jude 20). We are spiritually strengthened. It is the direct communication of our spirit with God’s Spirit. We can’t understand what we’re saying, but it is meant to have spiritual benefit, not intellectual benefit.

 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:4 I wish that all of you could speak in tongues… and I know why he says this. Drawing on my own experience, I am overwhelmingly grateful for this ability that God’s Spirit has awakened within me through the resurrection of Christ. When prayer with my mind is too hard and I don’t know what to say, my spirit deep within me can reach out and pour out utterances to God in a way that my mind cannot fathom. The limits of my cognitive thinking is no barrier to connect with God. This is wonderful! And this is why Paul wishes everyone spoke in tongues.

 

If you have been waiting on the Lord for this ability, with no apparent result yet, I encourage you to keep reaching out, keep on asking the Holy Spirit to awaken it within you. The Holy Spirit came at the first Pentecost – He has already been ‘released’ to the world. Just like Jesus came once for all, I believe the Spirit has come once, for all, and for all time! We have been given the gift, we just need the Spirit’s help to unwrap it, if you like. I believe we were created to have the Holy Spirit dwell within us, (Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you? 1 Corinthians 6:19) and God wants us to use His power in our lives and to extend His love to the world!