Drunk with New Wine

2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

On the morning of September 1st 1859 amateur astronomer Richard Carrington entered his private observatory continued his study of sun spots when he noticed two patches of intensely bright and white light. five minutes later the fireballs were gone but within hours the impact would be felt across the whole world.

A massive solar flare with the energy of 10 billion atomic bombs had just went off, the strongest geomagnetic storm ever recorded.

The auroras popped up all over the world showering the morning sky with bright lights making birds and humans in the western hemisphere alike think it was morning already. the wires that fed the Telegraph machines all over the world filled with so much power that they began shocking operators and even catching papers on fire.

Even days later during the storms many operators found their telegraph machine still unable to send messages. The atmosphere was so charged the employees at the Boston branch disconnected their battery to see if they could use the electricity in the air to send messages.

they told the Portland Branch to do the same thing, and what would you know, what had made zero engineering sense actually worked, they could talk again.

The wires and the systems in place had been built to carry small consistent energy from small batteries, when faced with the overwhelming power of the sun they had to adapt, change, and do something differently. What they needed and what they got was not more battery power, but a different power source all together that could not be contained by their rudimentary basic forms of storing and using energy.

the only way they could work again was stop using their power sources altogether.

much like the disciples on the day of pentecost who are praying, they encounter a whole new type of power. a power we will see that was brand new, and not meant to be handled or used the way they expected. it was not their own power, it was not their own training that would lead to the harvest we will read about next week, it was a different source of power altogether that came upon them in an instant.

to understand this story we first have to understand the festival of pentecost. Pentecost, meaning 50, is 50 days after passover.

Jesus dying on Passover is not an accident, It is a sign post, a connection point showing us what his death means. That the consequences of sin cannot reach over us. The blood of Jesus has protected us and death has passed us by. like wise, The Holy Spirit coming on Pentecost, and in fact, the church offically starting on Pentecost, is no accident. . They are telling us something.

but Pentecost is not just the name we give it, like passover, pentecost is a specific Jewish holiday and festival. Another name for it you might recognize it by is the feast of weeks or the festival of first fruits.

for Pentecost all the jewish people were commanded to bring their first fruits, or the first and best of their initial batch of wheat to the temple for a sacrifice. The festival celebrated the change from growing Barley to wheat.

but more than that these festivals were times where the Jewish people remembered their past. To understand what is happening to the disciples in this moment Luke is trying to point us back to past moments to help us understand the weight and heft of this event.

During Passover they remembered their time and captivity in Egypt. This festival though was created because 50 days after they obtain their freedom the law of God is brought down on Mt. Sinai with Moses. So Pentecost is known for more than just about the first fruits that tells us the harvest has begun. And certainly as we will see next week, it was a great harvest, a harvest where 3000 people were baptized and joined the growing church. but it also is a sign post to tell us something new is happening.

In this story of Acts we see mentions of fire, wind, and languages or also described as tongues, because they are often used interchangebly. When we look at Moses and the giving of the law.

lets look at Exodus 24 to compare. verse 12 says go up to me on the mountain and stay there. i will write on stone tablets the law i will give to the people.

then Moses tells the elders to wait until we return to you, much like Jesus says to the disciples, wait until the Spirit returns. then when Moses went up on the mountain and a cloud covers it. what happened to Jesus when he ascended, oh, he was covered by a cloud.

Then in verse 17 the appearance of the lord was LIKE a consuming fire. And when Elijah goes up the same Mtn theres a huge gust of wind and a fire, and a whisper.

but this more than just a call back to a previous time, it was more than just a call to remembrance.

Acts 2 tells us it looked like it was fire, but it was not fire. it sounded like a violent wind but was not wind. the fire, the languages, and the wind, are all trying to tell us something. they are blinking red lights exclaiming, study me, study me and see what i want to tell you.

This story is not meant to, like how many take it, supposed to be some super natural mumbo jumbo crazy story. It is supernatural, but the language here seems to be pointing to something specific.

Now we know, Moses went up to get the law and bring it down, but we also see Jesus went up so that a new law may come down. not a written law on stone tablets but a law written on our hearts, a law and way of life that convicts us through the Holy Spirit. it is the same God, the Same fire, the same wind, but a new power.

Think of the story of the prophet Isaiahs calling.

Isaiah 6:5–8 “And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

You see, the symbolism of the coal was that God had made him clean. he had been purified so he could go do what? so he could be sent out as a witness. Mt Sinai story tells us that God was holy and him alone. Now the Spirit has come upon every believer so that we are purified and holy like Isaiah in the flesh and sent out on mission. This is why God tells Peter, “do not call unclean what I have made clean.”

Wind likewise is often used as a symbol for power. The phrase here is literally, a violent sound like a wind, and Jesus had just told them… you will be filled with a POWER.

on Mt. Sinai we see once again in the case before Moses and with Elijah, the power of the wind was God’s. But now we see an unveiling where that power comes to dwell on us. Is there any wonder why Jesus says you will do even greater things than I, or he says the one with the faith of a mustard seed could tell a mountain get up and walk?

but maybe the most interesting, certainly the most elaborate of the symbols in our text is that of the tongues and languages.

again, it is a hyper link to the past that we are supposed to pick up on, and that all Israelites would have known. The most prominent story about language in the Bible? The tower of Babel, where out of arrogance and pride, the people tried to build up to God, but were instead scattered to the ends of the earth by being given different languages.

Now we see a story where God comes down, rather than people going up, to meet humble believers, who unite people from all the around the world by speaking an abundance of languages.

Luke is a superb writer, he is not just writing out all of these different locations these people came just to tell us how crowded it was. What did Jesus tell them to do? go to Jerusalem, judea, samaria, and the ends of the earth.

And they have done just that. The church is unequivocally meant to be a universal institution and faith. Not limited by language, nationality, race, or any other dividing line.

but notice this as well, it is not with their power it is done, but a super natural power. a power outside of themselves.

and from here on out we will see how great a difference the Spirit makes in the lives of the church.

One pastor tells us exactly the difference we see.

Before Pentecost the disciples found it hard to do easy things; after Pentecost they found it easy to do hard things. Adoniram Judson Gordon The miracle itself is astounding, no doubt. But what i actually want us to focus on is once again, what is it trying to tell us? I want to focus on this very last verse we have for today. Where the people are amazed, and they are trying to figure out what is happening. They ask, are these no Galileans?

that is not for no reason. One Commentator points out that Galilieans “had a reputation for being uncultured. They also ‘had difficulty pronouncing gutturals and had the habit of swallowing syllables when speaking; so they were looked down upon by the people of Jerusalem as being provincial”

basically, Galileans are like country folks, they are usually hemming, hawing, and yalling like a bunch of southern georgians. So why would anyone expect these guys to be speaking a dozens of different languages?

It doesn’t make sense. So this is why the mockers go, Well they must be drunk on… NEW WINE. but that doesn’t make much sense either, because we all know alcohol makes you less coherent not more. No one gets drunk and starts talking german and Portuguese.

But what is interesting is the greek word here for new wine is only used this SINGLE time in the all of Luke. That usually means they are trying to say something specific. Ill give credit to Jake for noticing this.

This is not the normal word for wine that is used so abundantly, it is a different word being used to emphasize the newness of it. Luke also does not use the go to word for someone being drunk. the most literal translation of this greek word Mestoo, is to be full. to fill something.

What the mockers failed to realize is that the Apostles had been filled, just not on wine. But with a power not of their own.

the final aha moment still lies before us if you will give me but one more chance to connect all these dots. It was Jake who made the connection to when Jesus talks about new wine being poured into old wineskins.

in Matthew 9:17 “Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

Now while Jesus is not using the exact same word Luke is for new wine, I can’t help but see the connection here. Remember that Pentecost is a festival that embodies the changing over of a new season, a new crop yield. So what if what Luke is trying to get to in this short mocking statement is that this is the new wine Jesus spoke about?

The new way of life, new way of doing ministry, of how we interact with our neighbor, how we love and how we use power? what if the path of the Spirit, the way of the Lamb, can not fit in our prior ways of thinking? even the way the Israelites had been living?

What if we should get used to people filled with the Spirit doing amazing things and great harvests of people coming to know God?

the Christian Historian Bruce L Shelley writes

“The most important development in first-century Christianity was the rip in the old wineskins.Bruce L. Shelley

God is doing a new thing that cannot fit into our old ways of thinking, the Spirit is present.

All of this is why Paul writes in his letter to the church in Corinth “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,”

What we believe, what we follow, what we profess, is different from how the rest of the world lives. its shameful to them, embarrassing to others, and illogical to many more.

The way of Jesus followers, filled with the Spirit of God, is at odds with the world. it is different from the world. This is why Eugene Peterson writes

“Or we follow the Lamb along a farmyard route, worshipping the invisible, listening to the foolishness of preaching, practicing a holy life that involves heroically difficult acts that no one will ever notice, in order to become, simply, our eternal selves in an eternal city. – Eugene Peterson

God’s promise to do something new, something different, is not just a promise for the church as a whole. but this promise stands for each one of us. God is doing work inside of you, changing you, morphing you, more importantly, preparing you for his work.

That power is present, capable of being grasped right now, by you, and by every baptized believer in this room.

Maybe you have spent your whole life trying to clean up your act, get sober, get your emotions under control, and be a good person.

Maybe you have spent money trying to make yourself feel beautiful, educated, or spent time and energy trying to dress yourself up in such a way to make yourself worth loving because that is what the world told you was needed.

It gave you steps to accomplish these things, told you pull yourself up from your bootstraps, work hard, save your money, invest in yourself, and know yourself deeper.

you have been clinging to control so long to make yourself feel safe that you won’t let anyone in your circle.

You have lived with that shame so long in your life that you don’t believe you are capable of real change or transformation.

maybe you have been so exhausted, so tired, that you did not think it was possible to have joy again.

but none of those things have worked.

what you are doing is not working because the very source it came from is flawed and powerless. You can read all the works of plato, aristotle, and immanuel kant you want, but it won’t give you joy and worth.

The Holy Spirit did not come all those years ago in order to give you more of what you were already doing. all of us came here with old wineskins, old world views, and old maps to help us make sense of the world around us.

but the kingdom of God works on a completely different power to begin with. You can not keep filling up your tank with double A batteries hoping it will run when you were built to run on the jet fuel fuel of God.

That offer to follow God on his own terms, and be filled with his miracle working, chain breaking, life transforming way of life stands right here, in this room, available for you.

God is doing something new in the world that won’t fill up our old wineskins… so, are you ready to find a new one?

communion

The table fellowship of Christians implies obligation. It is our daily bread that we eat, not my own. We share our bread. Thus, we are firmly bound to one another not only in the Spirit but in our whole physical being. The one bread given to our fellowship links us in a firm covenant. Now none dares go hungry as long as another has bread, and he who breaks this fellowship of physical life also breaks the fellowship of the Spirit Life together chapter 2

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.28 This is my blood of the[a] covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

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