This past Sunday was Pentecost, a day on which believers for many, many years have celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell with and within the people of God.

Even before it was a celebration of the Spirit coming from heaven, it was commemorated by Jews for the coming of God’s law, “from heaven” at Mount Sinai after they were freed from slavery in Egypt. I don’t know about you, but I personally have a hard time believing that the gift of the Spirit “just happened” to be given to that fledgling Jewish movement around 30 AD, on the same day they were remembering God’s gift of the Law. God could have chosen any day to launch this fearful group of disciples who were hiding in a back room and launch them into public, joyful, powerful mission in the world. Why this day? Was it just a coincidence?

    The plot becomes thicker when we remember that the death and resurrection of the Messiah took place in context to the celebration of Passover, the commemoration of Israel’s freedom and deliverance from slavery in Egypt, which we now call the Exodus. The Jewish people were celebrating their deliverance from Egypt as Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. The Jewish people were celebrating the giving of the law at Mount Sinai following their deliverance from Egypt, as the Holy Spirit descended, filled and empowered a small Messianic movement who had seen the resurrected Lord with their own eyes.  

    What can this mean except that what  God was doing in and through Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Spirit was not in absolute discontinuity with Israel’s history with God. Rather, it was in dynamic continuity with their historic experience of God’s covenant love and His faithfulness to the promises He had made. In a very real sense, what was happening was a New Exodus. God was being faithful to his covenant people yet again. He was delivering them out of slavery, not simply from slavery to one nation, but from all the powers of darkness and evil. In a marvelous way, this salvation was being offered universally to people of all nations.

    In the first Exodus, God gathered Israel to Himself from Egypt. Now, in this New Exodus in the Messiah, people of many nations were being drawn to Him. On the first day the Spirit fell, there were people from all over the then-known world celebrating the Passover. When the Spirit came upon the disciples, they began speaking about the great works of God, that is of the resurrection of Jesus, and each person, regardless of their national origin, heard them speaking in their own language. Could this be a reversal of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11? There, all the people spoke one language, but because they planned evil together, God scattered them by giving them all different languages so they could not understand each other. In some way, at Pentecost, God began regathering humanity out of its long exile to which it was sent by the fall of Adam and Eve and the separation of the nations at Babel. Though from diverse nations and cultures, these people were experiencing unity with God and each other through the gift of the Spirit and fateful events from millennia prior were being overturned by the mighty hand of God.

    Let’s not allow this season pass us by without celebrating and remembering the great acts of God in the resurrection of the Messiah and the gift of the Spirit. Through them a New Exodus is happening in which all who call on His name will be saved and even the “entire creation will be set free” (Rom. 8.23). Death has been defeated. The Holy Spirit has been sent forth, renewing the face of earth. It is the “unrestricted presence of God in which our life wakes up” and all things are made new (Rev. 21:4). Where relationships were severed, personally, corporately, nationally and culturally; the door has swung open for them to be renewed and restored by the power of the Holy Spirit. “On this day the Lord has acted. Let us rejoice and be glad in Him!” (Ps. 118:24).