Shavuot is Pentecost

I woke up from a light, restless sleep. A not to be classified feeling was still in me, something between foreboding and a whisper that belonged: “No longer distant, the first ray of the sun, soon the night is defeated. The spirit of the saint floats in the world; through a fine veil of absolute calm, beyond seeing, hearing and tasting, he gives an idea of the completely different, of the incomprehensible.”
Although we had been living and sleeping here in the Obermachen for several weeks, where our Lord Jesus Christ also celebrated the Passover with us, we had not quite got used to the morning turmoil in the alleys of Jerusalem, but on this day it was different again. Sleep, real sleep, had been unthinkable for weeks anyway. It was Shavuot, the so-called feast of the week, 50 days after the great Sabbath to Passover. It is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals of the Jews, which I also belong to, in which every male Jew was obliged to make a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. After the crowds to Passah had just left the city for the most part, they had been pouring back into the city for days now.
My name is Kelita. No, actually my name is Harif, but everyone calls me Kelita. Harif means “preterm infant” – I’m supposedly only born three labors in front of my younger twin brother Thomas, but no one really knows that, because actually nobody knows so well … Oh, let’s leave it, it doesn’t matter. My brother has called me, since we stood next to each other on a mountain slope as children, he on a stone and I downhill from him, “dwarf”, so: Kelita, although I am actually almost a whole finger width bigger than him. Thomas is otherwise rather reserved, sometimes shy, almost despondent, while friends claim I myself am rather bold.

Thomas, however, was called to the “inner circle” of the disciples of the traveling preacher Jesus of Nazareth a little more than three years ago, but I always went with them, but always stayed in the background. But Jesus is not actually the one I want to tell you about, me or Thomas. Rather, I would like to reflect to you with my words what happened after the Lord Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Of course, I can only do that in the beginning, because a lot of what a person has experienced cannot put into words. I wish you had been here with us at the time, it was so unspeakably fantastic! If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I couldn’t believe it either.

Ascension? What do I mean by that?
No, no kamikaze action of the celots (*celots wanted to eliminate the Roman rule by force). Simon, one of the disciples, was called “Zelot” among us disciples. Jesus had explained it to us all on the basis of the Torah, the law book of the Jews: He would go back to his Father in heaven for a while to prepare us a place so that we, who we believe in Him as the promised Messiah, the Redeemer, could also come to him. And when we were on the Mount of Olives with him 40 days after Jesus’ resurrection, he talked about sending us another guardian who would be with us forever, the Holy Spirit of God. He also exhorted us to go into all the world – have you heard this, into all the world … – to proclaim His gospel of salvation out of grace. Then he was miraculously carried away before our eyes by something like clouds. At that time, however, we finally knew what to do, because after the crucifixion and the death of Jesus, we were a little like sheep without shepherds: everyone was wandering around, anxious and indecisive.

We went back to the city of Jerusalem and stayed there, as Jesus had commanded us, waiting to be done with the strength from above, whatever that could mean. When that was supposed to be, of course, nobody knew so exactly. That was perhaps also a reason why many of us could not really sleep. No one wanted to oversleep that moment.

So it was the first day of the week when I woke up from restless sleep in the morning. Seven weeks and seven Sabbaths to Passover. A cool breeze passed through the upper room, followed by the delicious smells from the bakeries in the alleys. Already the whole last days the bakers of the city seemed to bake only one thing, namely cheesecake! These are honey-spiced, palm-sized, fine flour-baked cakes from a dairy product, which we call “quark” here in Israel. Some also put some orange rubbing or even raisins in, but that should be outlandish in your eyes, as I can imagine. You must know that Shavuot is also called “Matan Torah”, the feast for the gift of the Torah, that is, the tablets of the law, because some scribes want to know that on this day Moses received the tablets of the law on Mount Sinai from the hands of God himself. Among the Jews, it is also said that the law is like milk and honey, therefore the cakes. I always thought God had said that the land of Israel itself was like a country where milk and honey flow … confusing. Yes, and because we Jews would not be Jews if we did not create an additional commandment for everything, there is also for Shavuot or Matan Torah this, but unwritten and rather funny, commandment that every Israeli, be he young or old, must eat at least 5 cheese cakes. Five is the number symbolizing the grace of God. Another special feature could be seen for several days now in the streets of Jerusalem: The people decorated their house fronts, especially those of the synagogues, with flowers and foliage. For one thing, this is a sign of thanksgiving to God for the harvest, for Shavuot is a harvest festival. On the other hand, flowers and leaves stand for the fact that we see in the Torah the “tree of life”.

Jesus, to come back to the wonderful topic
Which is why I tell you all this, he said, that we should be in the city until we have received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, or, as others say, the eternal Spirit. I was a little surprised at the time, because I was also there when Jesus, the risen Lord, first appeared to us in the upper chamber. At that time he breathed on us and said to us, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” That was like a tepid spring wind was roaming through the room, I had goose bumps all over my body. It smelled of aloe and myrrh with a slight cinnamon note, on the other hand it was fresh and clear and somehow … mysteriously supernatural. I, and also the 50–60 other disciples present, reported it, felt so awake … so … ready to receive, as if something had sharpened my senses; all fatigue, even all fear and all doubts had disappeared. Because of this experience, I just wondered what kind of spirit we should wait for, if Jesus had already breathed the Holy Spirit into us. I don’t understand it today, but it would also be very little divine if I could understand simple scribes of God’s works. But little by little, over the years I got some mosaic stones added to the blurry picture.
When I was from my restless sleep at 1. Shavuot, after Christ’s ascension, woke up there in the upper room, I had the feeling, the foreboding that anything could happen on this Shavuot. The upper chamber that Omar Schelumiel, whom everyone called only “the talkative” (for here was the name program), kindly provided to us since the Passover, was already well filled with people from the night’s rest, with about 40 disciples, who also gradually awakened and curiously stretched out their heads under their coats. It almost seemed to me that I was not the only one this morning with a certain premonition. As for Omar and his freedom to provide us with the upper room, I can only say what I have heard: on the one hand, his not too secret love for our Lord Jesus and also some kinship with Joseph Ben Jakob, the foster father of the Lord, was his not too secret love for our Lord Jesus and also some kind relationship with Joseph Ben Jakob, the foster father of the Lord, which played a role.
I don’t know how you actually imagine this upper room by Omar Schelumiel or have presented it so far.

You probably think of a medium-sized room with a table in the middle and some loungers around it. But this was not the case; tables and loungers were actually only set up on request, i.e. if necessary. Otherwise, up to 120 people could sit in the hall, standing or sitting on the floor. And I can tell you, at our evening praises and thorales and prayer meetings in honor of the Lord Jesus, the room was often overcrowded. Since we no longer hid, more and more people dared to visit us, also to ask the disciples of the Inner Circle about Jesus and his teaching. So I was not particularly surprised that on this first day of the week, well-known faces, passionate followers of the Lord Jesus, came together to form a harmonious community at the very beginning of the morning (that is seven o’clock according to the Roman time). It had become known that, exactly on the first day of the week, we came together to break bread and praise and worship, the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Perhaps you know the day better under the Roman name “Day of the Sun”. I was so glad to see many of our siblings in the faith. All had these bright eyes, the glory of our Creator seemed to want to break out of them. There were Hymenaeus, Judah, Sered, Sia, Tertius, Mary – the wife of Alphaeus –, Salome, Baruch, Shefa-der Kahle, of course also Luke the doctor, Miriam, Mary – the mother of the Lord –, his brother James and and and and and and

When the room filled up, harmony and joy were always tangible. Everyone brought, as he could, something in food, for the meal together after the service, Peter had provided several loaves of fresh bread and John had again not allowed himself to get the wine in fresh hoses – both for the master’s meal. It was a colorful hustle and bustle, there was the slave like the doctor, the maid, the incognito-run Roman soldier with his Israeli wife, all races and classes together, united under one roof.
Peter, who had taken a stand with the other disciples of the inner circle at the head of the hall, was clearing his way around to read from the book of Ruth, according to good Jewish custom, and the first heads turned to them, the murmur gradually sent … suddenly a roar from the sky rose, as if by a mighty wind, penetrated through the open windows into the whole house of the Omar This wind was really piercing, and I mean that literally. He penetrated through those present, and not like a cold, wet autumn wind, but it reminded me of the breathing of our Lord Jesus, only much, much more intense, even more refreshing. Every pore of the body started to tingle, everything got warm, then fresh and warm again.

This had to be the fulfillment, the baptism with the Holy Spirit that Jesus had announced. I saw, and so it must have been with myself, that something like tongues, divided as by fire, settled on the assembled community, upon each individual. Then it became turbulent; if there is such a thing, it was, “orderly turbulent”, because the whole church talked about each other, and I had the feeling that there was talk in every language of the world, and others. The brothers and sisters flocked to the street in front of Omar Schelumiel’s house and preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, each in the language given to him by the Holy Spirit. The enormous roaring had not gone unnoticed by the neighbors and passers-by, crowds poured in. People were amazed, amazed, almost horrified. I still have it in my ears, as one inquiringly shouted, “Are you not all from Galilee?” Why do we hear you everyone in our own language, when we come from different countries and regions … from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, from the media, Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea and Capadocia, Pontus and Asia, Egypt and Libya, even from Rome and the distant islands, and we hear you all praise and praise the deeds of God … what will this become?” There were, of course, scoffers, as always, when something happens that no one can quite assign. People whispered offside, others running along in front and laughing: “Haha, too much wine from the southern slope, haha, haha!” You can certainly only imagine what was going on on the street: a wonderful mess of radiant, ghost-spooken faces and astonishing, perplexed faces.

I don’t know how long it all went and how exactly rest came back to the crowd of people. I only saw Peter, my brother Thomas and the other ten disciples of the “Inner Circle” standing together in one place and heard Peter raise his deep, sonorous voice and give an explanatory sermon, which was eager for all those present and again astonishedly followed. Unfortunately, I don’t have such a good memory as our dear brother Lukas, the doctor. But I know that Luke wrote an account of the work of the apostles to his friend Theophilus. The report was named “Acts of the Apostles” at some point, and I think that Luke wrote down the whole sermon there word for word. I thank our God for blessing Luke with such memory. It is really worth reading the sermon if you have this book. It is very informative and Peter has well explained how the prophetic words have come true. Surely the Holy Spirit was at work here too. I mean, Peter was a fisherman, how else could this guy have explained everything so fine? But I still remember verses that the prophet Joel once wrote, which Peter also quoted. They’re like carved. Right at the beginning of the events, the same verses went through my head: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out from my spirit upon all men; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will have visions, and your elders will have dreams; and upon my servants and my maidservants I will pour out of my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

That was exactly what happened. Later I learned that many, many people who are imbued with the Holy Spirit have had dreams and visions and have prophesied many. I found it particularly beautiful at that time that one can hear from the verses that God makes no distinction between men and women, old and young, Israelis and the nations, Jews and Gentiles … But this knowledge gradually came and we had to learn to implement this knowledge.
I want to come to an end slowly with my account of this wonderful Shavuot, my dear friends. But one thing I have to tell you, for this Shavuot in the year of death, the resurrection and the ascension of our beloved Savior, the Messiah Jesus Christ, was truly something very special. One could almost say that it was like a day of the birth of the church of Christ.

Looking into the crowd that listened to the brother Peter, I could see in addition to the astonished, the radiant and the doubting faces also deeply affected people. The air was for cutting when Simon Bar Jonas had ended. From the crowd you could hear muttering and moaning until a certain man raised his voice. He was seen to have the sermon met his heart. He asked what many of those present probably asked themselves, namely what he and the people should do. Those who had now understood that the Jesus whom they had crucified, who rose from the dead, ascended to heaven and sat only to the right hand of God, was their promised Savior. Tears were seen running down his face, as if his guilt was breaking out. Peter’s answer was simple and impressed those present so much that I too want to take the time to write the words thicker: Repent, and each of you is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I saw a lot of people who shook their heads, turned away, even walked away, but even more of those present fell on their knees and shouted to the God in heaven for forgiveness. With many tears, but also with much joy for the saved souls, the first church grew so much on the day that it was then started to meet for the services in different houses. It is said that there were about 3000 souls who were saved that day. But also the number of those who went to the temple daily to the glory of Jesus to spread the Gospel increased by the day. Many people were baptized on the same day, and it can be rightly said that this release of the Holy Spirit brought about something in people. They somehow changed positively; they became more joyful, loving, peaceful, more patient, kind, kind, more faithful, more gentle, could master themselves better … All this did not happen immediately, not from now on the same, but little by little one saw these changes in people. A brother of the second generation, you may also know him, Paul by name, called these events to the man who received the gift of the Holy Spirit quite appropriately: the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Oh how glorious, I rave again and again when I notice in myself how the Spirit of God guides me, how he works and weaves in me, reminds me of Jesus and his words.
So it is no wonder that the new church of Christ often, actually daily, met for prayer and worship, divided everything and gave it all away with joy and rejoicing heart also to the needy. It was simply exuberant, overflowing love at work, the love with which Jesus also met his fellow man: selfless and sincere, not jealous, not too important to himself, unbittered, pure, sacrificial. To approach Jesus himself in his nature, I see as not possible, we are still trapped in our old, sinful body, but he was sinless. But I see on many siblings and also on me how they stretch and stretch to become like Jesus, with great zeal and determination.

Oh dear ones, I would continue to tell and write to try you even more to infect with my euphoria, but you only wished for a short summary of what happened, and so I also look at my almost empty ink barrel and command you to the blessing of our triune God. May you, even if it are turbulent, even if the world may stand head, give space to the good spirit of God, the Spirit of truth in you, which you believe in the name Jesus Christ. And if in your midst there should indeed still be someone who does not feel the work of the Holy Spirit in himself, I cordially invite him to accept the grace of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins through his blood, and to lead a life with Jesus through the Holy Spirit into himself.

I don’t promise too much when I say, Jesus? It’s worth it!

Amen. Author Christian Irle 🦁🦁 to reach also by email:

Ariel at lionofjudah.info – we will be happy to forward your message.