The below excerpt is taken from the Messy Church website: https://www.messychurch.brf.org.uk
Today’s story is a celebration of a birthday. We’re celebrating the birth of the church. If we had a cake, it would have almost 2,000 candles on it! That’s one big cake!
The day the church was born is called Pentecost. It is a colourful, powerful, amazing, noisy, supernatural and incredible festival!
Are you ready for the story of Pentecost?
5, 4, 3, 2, 1… let’s get going.
In fact, we are going to need several countdowns like that to explore this festival.
You see, the friends of Jesus had been doing a countdown ever since Easter morning when Jesus came back from the dead. It was a 40-day countdown. So here goes…
40, 39, 38, 37, 36… and during those days of the countdown, Jesus appeared to people again and again. There was no doubt about it, Jesus really was alive again, but he wasn’t going to stay around. Jesus kept telling them that there was something else that they must wait for. They needed to count down towards this next stage of what God was going to do to rescue the world.
So they kept counting down: 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25…
In fact, as the numbers came down towards zero, it got more and more mysterious. 20, 19, 18, 17… during the countdown, he kept telling them day after day to wait in Jerusalem – to wait for the promise from God; to wait to be clothed with power from on high. What did he mean? What was it all about?
10, 9, 8, 7, 6… And as they got closer and closer to zero, Jesus led them out of the city to a hill called the Mount of Olives. He gave them his last words, his final instructions before lift off. He said: ‘I want you to go into all the world, starting from where you are now, and I want you to share the message about God’s love and God’s forgiveness with everybody, everywhere.’
Jesus said, just before he went, ‘I will be with you until the very end.’
2, 1…
Lift off! And Jesus was gone, and now they had to wait… to wait for that promise and to wait for that power on high.
There was one more countdown to come, from ten to zero – ten days to Pentecost.
10, 9…
They went back to Jerusalem and each day gathered in one big upstairs room.
8, 7…
They were all there – the first disciples and the many others who had joined the group – in total, 120 people counting down to Pentecost.
6, 5, 4, 3…
The days were passing and they were waiting and wondering. No one knew what was going to happen next, but trusted Jesus and what he told them. They waited and they read the scriptures and they talked together and they remembered.
2, 1…
And just then a wind began to blow, the building started to shake and it got noisier and noisier.
0 and lift off!
The place they were staying was filled with gale-force winds and flames of fire! God was coming back into them with a might roar of power. They began to speak God’s praise in all sorts of languages, heavenly and earthly.
God was speaking to people in a language they could understand. God, who had been beyond them and outside them as the Almighty. God, who had come close and been beside them as Jesus. This God was now filling them and coming inside them as the Holy Spirit.
This is what Peter said to the crowd who gathered that day:
The people in Jerusalem that day had come from many countries, but each one had heard the disciples speaking to them from God in their own language!
This is the beginning of the church. This is the birthday of the church. This is what Pentecost is all about and we are part of it, as we remember it and welcome God’s Holy Spirit into us, right here, right now, wherever you are.
5, 4. 3, 2, 1… Now we have lift off as the people of God. I wonder where God will launch you to, to bring life to those around you.
Because of the Holy Spirit in us, we can now talk to God as our Father, and we can walk with Jesus as our friend who is with us forever, and we can find ways to talk to other people in a language that they can understand.
I wonder how God wants to speak to you and speak through you this coming week…
That was great