Greetings,
Thank you for staying with me through these 49 days, for praying for me and encouraging me to continue. I hope that you were encouraged and challenged in your walk with the Lord.
I pray that you will grow in your love of the Lord, that you will step out in faith and be amazed at what the Lord will do for you and those around you.
May the peace and grace of the Lord be with you always,
Tricia
Day 49 of 49
You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain.
Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.
And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there.
You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
Deuteronomy 16:9–12
Jewish tradition states that Israel received the Torah at Mt Sinai on Shavuot. The celebration focuses on the giving of the Law.
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”
So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”
And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written.
The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.”
But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.”
And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.
And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?”
And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’
So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.
And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’ ”
And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell.
Ex 32:1–28.
According to Deuteronomy, the Feast of Weeks was the concluding festival for the grain harvest when the people brought a freewill offering of gratitude to the Lord. Like the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, this one required God’s people to travel to Jerusalem.
So while the disciples waited in the upper room, the Lord assembled his people from all over the world to be at the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Holy Spirit came to the disciples, empowering and giving them the boldness to witness. At the Temple they began to share the hope of Jesus Christ, and everyone from all over the world heard the message in a language they could understand.
At Sinai, the Lord brought the letter of his law to the people, and 3000 died because they could not keep it. At Pentecost, the Lord brought the provision of grace through Jesus Christ, and 3000 were saved, because the Lord had paid the penalty.
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Romans 7:4–6
The narrative of the Pentecost.
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?
Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.
But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
For David says concerning him, “ I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.
For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “ The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Ac 2:1–41.
I’ve always wondered about the tongues of fire. What did they signify? John the Baptist had claimed that they would be baptized with fire.
Fire destroys, but it also gives light, cleanses, and purifies.
God used a flaming torch to represent himself in the covenant with Abraham, Gen 15:17. He spoke to Moses from a flaming bush, Ex 3:2. He led the children of Israel through the night with a pillar of fire, Ex 13:21.
God calls himself a consuming fire, Deut 4:24.
Throughout the prophets we see judgement coming in the form of fire. Hell is described as a lake of fire.
In the Law, everything that could stand fire had to be passed through the fire for cleansing. Sacrifices involve fire, some just partial and some a total consumption.
God tends to us and watches over us just like a jeweler tends his refining fire (Zech 13:9). Everything that can stand fire had to be passed through the fire for cleansing (Ex 31:19).
Shadrack, Meschak and Abedneggo were freed by the fire (Dan 3:26).
The Lord makes his ministers a flaming fire (Ps 104:4).
Jewish tradition says the candle is symbolic of the body, while the flame represents the soul that is always reaching upward (JPS Guide to Jewish Traditions).
Did the fire symbolize the cleansing and purification of the Holy Spirit? Did it represent the gift of eternal life? Did it represent the anointing as ministers of God, declaring the message of God?
Whatever the purpose for the flames, we know that the Holy Spirit came to help us live the Christian life, showing the love of Christ to those around us as we share with boldness the hope that is in him.
The disciples changed from a motley crew, afraid of the Jewish leadership, to a unified group with the purpose sharing the hope and love of Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection.
The people from all the nations who came and received the message, took that message home with them.
A few people committed to Jesus Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit changed the world.
Lord, thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit to lead and guide me. Help me to be sensitive to his leading. Let me make a difference for good in the people around me by sharing your word, love and hope.
TRICIA LATHROP 