Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/78

Contributor - Peter J. Yff

Title - A Flame For The Day, And Forever....

Topic - Pentecost

What happened on that day we call Pentecost? Some would say, "The Church was born." Others would argue that the church always was, for God has had His people in every age. Certainly, the church was empowered, and equipped. The commandment to go into the hometown, the region and into all the world, could not be implemented until the empowering and equipping took place. In that sense, certainly, the church was born on Pentecost.

It was a day of change. Peter wasn't afraid anymore. He now proclaimed boldly, and was not afraid to be identified as a follower of the Man of Galilee. Galilean accent and all, he proclaimed the gospel. Moreover, the message came with boldness, yet not an offensive boldness.

Such change certainly was not the entire message. It was a prophetic day. Jerusalem, at this point of the year, was filled with pilgrims and visitors from every part of the vast Roman Empire. They heard that something was happening ... an unusual sound was heard, like that of a rushing wind. No destruction resulted, and people wanted to know more of what was happening. Gathering near where the disciples were clustered together, something else was heard, too. The multitude was confused and bewildered. The disciples were talking ... but their language came through to each of the strangers and pilgrims in Jerusalem in their native languages. "What is this?" each seemed to be asking. "How is it that we hear, each of us in his own native tongue, an account of the mighty works of God?"

There was something to be seen as well. Over the head of each of the followers of Jesus, there seemed to be a tongue of flame. It was distributed, and each was so annointed.

What did it all mean? Jerusalem wanted an answer, and it was soon forthcoming. Peter, as spokesman for the others, presented God's message. It was a fulfillment of prophecy, he declared. It was not something to be dismissed as psychological, nor even to be explained as the babblings of men too early and too long at the wine bottle. Rather, God wanted everyone to know that He had sent His Son into the world of men, and that they had crucified him.

Peter's message had a telling effect. Their hearts accused them, and their fear was very real. "What must we do?" The apostle told them, and with such effect, that three thousand new believers were baptized and enrolled in the church's rapidly expanding fellowship.

Did they really hear in their own language? The Bible's account says so, clearly. Some scholars have suggested that what they heard was a message in Hebrew, which everyone there would understand, inasmuch as every Jewish boy, whether of foreign birth or native to Palestine, would understand. Somehow, that is not the sense of "how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?" (Acts 2:8)

When Jesus' ministry was still in its early stages, He had been approached by Nicodemus. Our Lord had told Nicodemus that the new birth within, the working of the Spirit, was something like the wind - one hears the sound of it" one notes its passing, but one does not know where it comes from nor where it goes. This new wind of change for the church was something like that. It was real . . . yet it could not be scientifically analysed or charted. It happened. The effect was felt in the heart, and was brought to expression in changed lives.

So it has ever been. The flame of Pentecost suggests a purifying, and a warming. Man cannot bring it about, but God not only can, He does. The heart is warmed, and cleansed. The person isn't the same, he is a new creation in Christ.

The flame of Pentecost appeared but once, yet it was an eternal flame. It was by no means a memorial fire, a monument to something or someone real and precious in the past. Some of the graves of notables in today's world are so marked, with a flame burning brightly, fed by butane, or whatever. Barring high winds, and the exhausting of the fuel supply, the flame continues to burn, but not quite eternally. This flame is no longer apparent, but is very real. It burns in the heart, it warms the life, it transforms and lifts.

Pentecost was an event, yet it is not over. Whenever a church is empowered again (and churches need that, now and again) Pentecost is real all over again. Whenever one is turned to the Lord, Pentecost has happened again.

Our church is relatively old, 350 years old, to be exact. Its age, however, is not important. Its message is, for its message points to the Redeemer. May God keep us in the tradition, no, in the power of Pentecost always, so that our message to the neighbourhood and to the world may ever be that of God, who speaks to man in his own language, where and wherever he is, and draws him from the darkness of earth into the light and life of His kingdom. The lines of the Lord's prayer fit, do they not. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. . . " Then one can also pray, even as he works in yielded obedience, "Even so, come Lord Jesus."

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