When the Holy Spirit Comes Upon You (Acts 1:1-11)

When the Holy Spirit Comes Upon You

 

Acts 1:1-11

 

A few days ago, I drove to Philadelphia with my daughter Maria for her interview in the city. on the way, talking about this and that, we also talked about the hot weather, wild fires, and deteriorating natural environment. Maria said, “Our generation received a lot of education on environmental problems, so we are deeply aware of such problems. When our generation begins to exert influence on the society, there will be more efforts to solve environmental problems.” Her idea was optimistic. But mine was not. Even if people’s awareness of environmental issues is high, people will not give up more immediate benefits, especially economic benefits. We are concerned about plastic waste but all the products on the store shelves are heavily wrapped with plastic, and we are worried about greenhouse gases and global warming but highways are packed with driver-only cars. While people are enjoying such benefits, the earth is being destroyed rapidly and soon it will fall into an irrecoverable condition. It may have already entered into such a state.

 

Today I am going to talk about “recovery.” The last word that Jesus gave to his disciples is this: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This word contains God’s hope to restore the fallen world. “The coming of the Holy Spirit” may be the most “epoch-making” event in the realization of the hope. Nevertheless, it is not so easy for us, living in this world, to appreciate the importance of this event. It is because we have more urgent problems and desires than the hope of God. It is like we drink water in a plastic bottle to quench immediate thirst and to do the earth harm. In today’s passage as well, we can see such a conflict between Jesus and his disciples. Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples and spoke about “the kingdom of God” (verse 3). Concerned more about “the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel, however, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (6) What they expected from the Lord was that he would restore the Kingdom of Israel. It was setting the country free from the oppression of the Roman Empire and rebuilding a strong and prosperous kingdom. But Jesus disappointed their expectation. He answered: “It is not for you to know the times and dates the Father set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

 

The coming of the Holy Spirit is a marvelous turning point upon which the Kingdom of God began to restore. In the entire history of the Bible, the Spirit’s coming upon the disciples is that the Spirit of God is coming back to men. According to Genesis, the Spirit of God was with people at the beginning, but he left them because of their degradation. Therefore, by comparing “the Spirit’s leaving” in Genesis and “the Spirit’s coming back” in Acts, we can understand more clearly how God restores His Kingdom. Genesis chapters 3 and 4 record sins committed by the first persons Adam and Eve who ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and their first descendant Cain who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy. While these are “the buds of fall,” there is also “the produce of fall.” Genesis 6:1-3a says: “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.” According to this word, God’s Spirit could not be with humans because they became flesh. And direct evidence showing their being flesh is that flesh became “the standard of beauty” in human eyes. Another incident showing the produce of fall is people’s building of the Babel Tower as seen in Genesis 11. Making bricks and building a high tower with the bricks, they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4). Now people, who had become flesh, forgot God and sought “the glory of man.” They also united their strength in order to survive and prosper by themselves without God’s provision and protection.

 

Our beauty is not in the flesh, and our glory is not in what we have made, and our power is not from ourselves. True beauty, glory, and power belong only to God. God created people in His image, and His Spirit worked among them in order to share God’s beauty, glory, and power with the people. As a result, people came to live a happy life of rejoicing the glory of God and enjoying the beauty of God. This is true happiness: rejoicing the glory of God and enjoying the beauty of God. This happiness is spiritual happiness, eternal happiness, truly satisfying and peaceful happiness, and life-giving happiness to us. But now people, who have fallen and become flesh, do not delight in the beauty and glory of God any longer. Instead, they come to seek and boast of human beauty and human glory. Armed with their prideful beauty and glory, they stand against God and raise themselves to the height of God and even higher. In this reversed value system, they are drifting far away from God and getting more miserable and hopeless. In order to forget the toiling pains and emptiness of sinful life, people work harder in seeking the beauty of flesh and achieving worldly prides. Such efforts, however, bring forth the vicious cycle of estranging us from God even further. There is only pitch-black darkness.

 

Jesus is “God’s beauty” and “God’s glory” sent to us. Through him, God revealed His glory and showed His beauty to us. 2Corinthians 4:4b says, “Christ is the image of God,” and 4:6 also says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” According to these words, God did two things for us. one is sending Jesus to this world so that we meet God’s glory on earth. The other is shining his light on our hearts so that we realize God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. Jesus is God’s beauty and His glory, but it is not easy for us humans to see God’s glory in Jesus. Especially because we have been seeking human beauty and human glory, it is actually “not possible at all.” In human eyes and in terms of flesh, Jesus is not beautiful or glorious. Prophesying about the coming Messiah, Isaiah 53:2,3 says:

“He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

                and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

                nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

         He was despised and rejected by mankind,

                a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

                he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

 As foretold by prophet Isaiah, Jesus was born as a son of poor Galilean carpenter Joseph and laid in a manger. He lived a life without a place to lay his head (Matthew 8:20), and after having gone through many sufferings, he died on a cross. A writer says, “God’s glory was completely hidden in Jesus.” Although God’s glory and beauty is disclosed completely in Jesus, at the same time, the glory of the Lord is completely closed from those who seek the beauty and glory of flesh in the world. With regard to this, 2Corinthians 4:4a says, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ……”

 

Then how can we see God’s glory and beauty in Jesus? It is repenting and believing Jesus as the Lord, and as a result, receiving the gift of God, which is the Holy Spirit. What the Holy Spirit does in us is this: He opens our eyes to the glory of the Lord and shines the light through which we see the glory. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, it is purely a spiritual work. only through the work of the Holy Spirit, we can appreciate the beauty of Jesus as it is. What is more, when we wake up to the glory of Jesus, we are deeply disappointed with what we have been seeking in this world, and keep us away from them as we do from “garbage” (Philippians 3:8). Now we come to feel shame of what we have been proud of, and we come to hate what we have been attracted in the world. We come to love Jesus and desire to be like the Lord. This is truly the restoration of our souls made by God’s hand. When we wake up to the glory of the Lord, each of us becomes “a vessel carrying the glory of Christ.” And the vessel is used by the Holy Spirit for God’s works to save the world. 2Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

 

Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” What power do the disciples receive when the Holy Spirit comes upon them? We may be able to understand the power by examining how the disciples were changed with the power. When the Spirit came upon them, the disciples began to speak in different tongues (Acts 2:6), and performed wonders and miraculous signs (2:43). Even as Jesus had done, they healed a man crippled from birth, and raised a dead person alive. With all these, however, there was a more fundamental change in the disciples. Acts 5:41 says, “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” Here “the Name” refers to “the Name of Jesus Christ.” While testifying that Jesus is the Lord, the disciples were arrested, dragged before the rulers, and flogged there severely. What a depressive, shameful, and painful thing they suffered! But the disciples, rather, rejoiced in the suffering “because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” And they never stopped teaching and preaching the good news that Jesus is the Christ. The disciples had “Jesus.” Jesus is God’s glory, God’s beauty, and God’s power. In the Holy Spirit, the Lord dwells in the souls of the disciples as “Living God.” Now the disciples have nothing in want. To them, even suffering disgrace for the Name is a great joy. This joy is their power. Who can resist such people? Even the rulers in the world and the Devil cannot overcome them.

 

My daughter Maria said that she had received a lot of education on environmental issues, and therefore, she was very sensitive to such problems. But there is one thing that she doesn’t know. It is “the beauty of the earth before contamination.” Maria doesn’t know well how clean and how beautiful the rivers and mountains were in the past. Maria doesn’t know the days when people drew drinking water from the rivers and washed clothes by the streams. Maria doesn’t know how weird it sounded to buy water with money long ago. And along with the changes of generations, there will be fewer people who remember how clean and beautiful our lands were. The beauty of the earth will fade away in people’s memory, and after all, we will forget where to go back and what to restore. This is also the case for the degeneration of man. Because it has been quite long since people left God and lived alone in their sins, we have lost our memory of how beautiful we were in God. Then God sent us Jesus who is “a true man.” God also sent His Spirit so that we realize the glory in Jesus. Furthermore, God calls us as Jesus’ witnesses in order to restore the world. I pray that, by the work of the Holy Spirit, we may open our eyes to the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ! I pray that, by rejoicing Jesus alone, we may be full of power and live as a powerful witness of his glory and beauty!