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“OVER THE EDGE”

ACTS 2:1-13

What an amazing scene! Steven Spielberg would love to have the movie rights to this picture. The images are powerful! We have a freight-train sound of wind from heaven, tongues of fire dancing on the heads of disciples, and United Nations style language interpretation.

Luke is trying to describe a phenomenon that had never been experienced before. He does it by speaking metaphorically and trying to give images that picture the purpose of Pentecost. He describes that purpose with three images:

ß The image of wind

ß The image of fire

ß The image of language

Now notice his exact words. Luke did not say a mighty windstorm came blowing through the room. He said: “A sound LIKE the roaring of a mighty windstorm…” (Acts 2:2a). It was something that was heard.

He also didn’t say fire fell from heaven and singed the hair off the disciples. He said: “They saw what LOOKED like flames or tongues of fire that appeared and settled on each of them” (Acts 2:3). It was something that was seen.

Luke’s purpose was not to scientifically depict what happened, but to reveal the deeper spiritual meaning behind what was taking place. What happened was LIKE wind and LIKE fire. It was an extraordinary invasion from heaven that could not be explained in ordinary terms. And so Luke draws word pictures with meanings that are descriptive.
Wind is descriptive of power. Fire is descriptive of purity. Not power for power’s sake; not purity for purity’s sake. It was power and purity to do something. And that something begins to be defined in the next image that Luke uses: the image of tongues. In the image of tongues we begin to see the primary purpose behind Pentecost.

The last words Jesus spoke to his followers were: “Go and make disciples of all nations…”(Matthew28:19a) and “…You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8b).

But how were they going to do that? They had neither the power, nor the courage, nor the passion to do that. These were simple men and women who for the most part could speak only one language, and most of which were afraid to even do that. They needed something they didn’t have to fulfill the Great Commission and missionary mandate given to them by Jesus. They needed a gift!

It’s fascinating to notice that in all three of the Pentecost images there is the reference to speaking or hearing. They “heard” the sound. They were given the gift of “language” to proclaim. Even the flames of fire were “tongues.”

Why was the church born? To bear witness to Jesus Christ in the world. What does the Holy Spirit come to give the church? A language that brings to speech that witness. And the next 26 chapters of Acts is the story of what happens to this baby church given the power to speak!

Pentecost is what gives us the passion to care, the boldness to move out, and the power to speak. Pentecost is what purifies us and sets our tongues on fire, enabling us to communicate the powerful witness of Jesus. The purpose of Pentecost is to empower a clear proclamation of the Gospel!

The Holy Spirit comes into our lives to get a hold of the way we communicate the message. Whenever God infuses, empowers, and fills a people he moves them outward, not inward. God doesn’t move on a people to make them a holy huddle – he moves on a people to make them a mighty army! Because the gift of the Spirit is to give the church a voice!

Which means that if we want the anointing of the Holy Spirit on our church what we’re really praying for is a power and a purity that drives us into the world to communicate in any language out there that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord!

Pentecost gives us a voice and then pushes us over the edge to speak. The Gospel, by its very nature, cannot be confined to a cuddly, safe, insulated environment where we just huddle up and wait for Jesus to come back. No! The Gospel insists on spilling out and running into the streets where the people are, where the hurting and dying are!
If we are not careful, without even realizing it, our churches can develop a kind of fortress mentality that not only keeps people out, but attaches blinders to our eyes while the world around us drastically changes. And in the process we discover that we no longer speak their language!

One day I was walking around the neighborhood of our church. As I turned the corner there painted right in the middle of the street was a spray-painted message, written in a woman’s handwriting:

“Still, I’m not used to my new found lonely days. You’ve taken your love and the kids away. Endlessly the tears fall more and more. My heart breaks. Forever were your words – forever and a day. Now they seem like only words so easy for you to say.”
Hopelessness, a block and half away! I wondered if our church’s Pentecost was making any difference in her life. I suddenly felt like we had laryngitis. We had no voice to speak to her. I wondered how many other people in the shadow of our steeple also had to share their pain with the pavement because they knew of no other place to turn.

As I stood there staring at the poem I asked God to forgive us for losing our Pentecost voice. And then I walked around the block and consecrated our neighborhood as a holy place for God where he could do his work through us. I continued that practice every Sunday morning possible. I want to tell you, God began to use the people of our church in that neighborhood in supernatural ways!

A.W. Tozer once said: “The Holy Spirit could be absent from 90% of what the Church today does and nobody would know the difference.” There’s an indicting question that keeps echoing in my mind: What am I doing that demands the power of the Spirit in my life? Am I accomplishing anything outside of my own strength that couldn’t be done with God’s Spirit indwelling me?

I have a deep hunger for our church to do something significant for God and His kingdom. Don’t you? I’m not talking about something glamorous where all kinds of fanfare and accolades are given to us. I’m talking about spilling out into our streets and neighborhoods and making a difference in the name of Jesus Christ!

How many of you have ever been snow skiing? Do you like to snow ski? I love to snow ski. I’ll never forget the day my wife and I went snow skiing for the first time. It was Red River, New Mexico. We were so excited! We had all our “borrowed” ski clothes on and we really looked the part. We were ready to go!

Just before we went out on the slope we stopped in the lodge to have lunch. If you’ve ever been skiing at Red River you know that the lodge has a huge picture window in the dining room so that everyone eating can look up the mountain and have a perfect view of the “bunny slope.” The “bunny slope” is the hill for beginning skiers to practice on. It has just enough incline on it to keep you moving.

Besides the “bunny slope” there are four other types of hills you can ski depending on the grade of the hill and level of difficulty. There are green slopes for novice skiers; there are blue slopes for intermediate skiers; there are black slopes for seasoned skiers; and then there are black diamond slopes for kamikazes who like to jump off cliffs.

I can remember looking up at the “bunny slope” and laughing at all the people coming down the hill. It didn’t look steep at all and yet there were folks tripping and falling everywhere. They were getting their skis all turned around and colliding into each other. It was hysterical and I was joking with Christi about all the amateurs on the hill. I vowed not to even step foot on the “bunny slope.”

Now we hadn’t had any lessons at all. I’d never even put skis on, but I considered myself to be pretty athletic and so even though I’d never skied I’d already made up my mind that the very least I would start on would be the Blue/Intermediate slope. The “bunny slope” wasn’t even considered Green!

But my wife was a little leery and said she wanted to try the “bunny slope” first. Out of deference to her I told her I would go down the “bunny slope” one time and one time only. And so we finished eating and went out to the base of the “bunny slope” where all the ski racks were. We put our skis on (after taking a moment to watch someone else put there’s on) and we waddled over to the ski lift.

Now this particular lift happened to be what they called a “rope pull.” Without going into a lot of detail, it was basically a rope strung from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill with little handles sticking out. The idea was that you were supposed to grab the handle and the revolving rope would then “pull” you up the hill … a device I am convinced was conceived in the very pit of hell!

For the sake of time let me just say we finally got to the top of the hill and I turned to look down the hill of the “bunny slope.” I could not BELIEVE how incredibly steep it looked from the top of the hill. From the bottom, in the lodge, it had looked so small, but from the top it looked like Mount Everest! I tried not to let my wife see the fear in my eyes and I pushed myself over the edge.

At that time there was only one thing I knew about skiing. My friend had called it the “secret” of skiing. The “secret” was what he called snowplowing. Snowplowing is when you put the tips of your skis together, making a “V”, and that “V” is supposed to slow you down. Traveling down the hill it didn’t take me very long to realize a very important aspect of skiing: Skiing is easy – STOPPING is the problem!

As I looked around I noticed that all the other skiers were zigzagging back and forth across the mountain. But the only skiing I’d ever seen was the Olympics on television and no Olympic skier I had seen had ever zigzagged the mountain. And so instead of zigzagging I chose to ski as the crow flies. In this case, straight down the mountain.
The wind was whipping in my face, the snow was flying all around me, and the further down the mountain I went the faster I traveled. I started passing people that had left several minutes ahead of me.

I’ll confess to you that a third of the way down the mountain I was starting to get a little nervous. I was starting to feel out of control. But suddenly I remembered! There was nothing to fear! I knew the “secret” of skiing! What I had to do now was snowplow! And so snowplow I did.

But all my snowplowing efforts seemed to do was make me go faster and blow more snow in my face. Then, to make matters worse I noticed that the ski lodge, that had seemed so small from the top of the hill, was looming larger by the second and I was headed straight for it at break-neck speed.

I found myself experiencing two emotions at once. Anger, because the secret wasn’t working; and terror for my life, and the two dozen innocent bystanders relaxing by the ski pole stands.

I quickly came to the realization that I had a decision to make. Since I clearly wasn’t going to be stopping anytime soon I could either crash on the hill or crash into the side of the lodge. I opted for the hill. And because I didn’t know any other way to do it, in a slow motion kind of way, I casually tipped over onto the side of the mountain.

Have you ever seen the ski crash on the Wide World of Sports commercial? Childs play! As soon as I hit the ground my ski stuck in a drift and I was immediately caught up in a tornado of snow and skis and poles. Complete chaos!

When I finally stopped rolling . . . I got up, climbed up the hill and collected all the “borrowed” equipment scattered all over the mountain, and trudged back down to the lodge.

As I walked down the mountain, chewing a mouthful of crow, it dawned on me that there are basically two kinds of skiers: Those who CAN and those who CAN’T! And they’re not too hard to distinguish between on the mountain. But in the lodge you really can’t tell the difference.

In the lodge, where all the folks have on ski clothes, and sit around a blazing fire drinking hot chocolate, everybody looks like a skier. In fact, if you can’t ski and you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your friends, you can just sit around and look good in your ski clothes. You can just pretend by looking like a skier and talking like a skier and chances are that nobody will know the difference.

The only problem is, if you’re going to be a skier, ultimately you have to ski. And in order to ski you have to get out of the lodge, climb the mountain, and go over the edge. That takes great courage because that’s the place you feel most of out of control. You can be a make believe skier in the lodge, but you won’t BE a skier until you get out on the mountain and go over the edge yourself.

Pentecost is what gets us out of the lodge and onto the mountain where the real skiing is done!

We’re not talking today about just “getting to heaven” religion. We’re not talking about being a little more spiritual. A Pentecost experience is about a rushing, overwhelming presence of God poured out so powerfully that it makes an earthquake seem calm! A Pentecost experience is about God coming upon us and ripping us away from our safe, little upper rooms and THRUSTING us into a world that desperately needs to hear our voices!

It can be scary to pray for God to come in that way. But we are given the courage to pray in that way because we are promised that Pentecost is what finally gives us our voice!

Pentecost is not a once for all time experience. Because the book we’ve read from today really isn’t the Acts of the Apostles, it is the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Which is just another way to say that as long as there is a church, the final chapter of Acts is still being written!