My Introduction to Pentecost

“As I lay on my back and prayed into the darkness, I saw a Scripture in light—Luke 3:16…”

All Scripture passage are from biblegateway.com New International Version (NIV)

Because I was raised Catholic, I had never read the Bible until I went away to college. I heard about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for the first time as I read the book by David Wilkerson, The Crossand the Switchblade. He was an Assembly of God (Pentecostal) pastor loving his stable, rural Pennsylvania congregation until the night that God spoke to him clearly to go to New York and help the street gangs there. He converted several gangs and gang members, including a leader named Nicky Cruz, and started an organization called Teen Challenge.

It was 1965, and I was a flaky student at the University of Washington. While I was on lunch break at my summer job in the university district, a female colleague sashayed up to the table where I was talking with a fellow student worker. At that very moment, I was disparaging stupid people who believed in Christianity without questioning its principals and tenets. At that point I viewed the Christian faith as nothing more than an emotional crutch for people who needed one. Full time kitchen worker Darlene Sizemore plopped a copy of the book beside each of us. Instead of studying for finals, I read the book all day and into the night. I was blown away that Christianity could be like that. I told God that if all that was real, and if He could show me that such miracles could happen to me, I was His. But I wanted proof!

One thing concerned and puzzled me. There was a chapter in the book (chapter 21) about something called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Author Wilkerson felt it had a big part to play in their success with the gangs. To me, it sounded weird, religious, and cultish. I asked Darlene about it the next day. She whipped out her Bible and turned to Acts 2, which describes the disciples of the post-resurrection Jesus waiting in an upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus had commanded them to tarry in Jerusalem to be endued with power from on high. Remember, these were men who had cast out demons and healed people while Christ was alive. Women had received the gift of prophecy. Yet, they needed something more. They had no idea what to expect. They just knew it was an additional anointing they all needed and they had to wait for it. Acts 2:1-8:

“When the day of Pentecost (a Jewish feast day) came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues  as the Spirit enabled them.

⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?”

She turned to other passages about the Holy Spirit like Acts 10. Peter was supernaturally called to Caesarea to the home of a Gentile.

^“44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. ⁴⁵ The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. ⁴⁶ For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, ⁴⁷ ‘Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.’” (Acts 10:44-47)

The Apostle John called the third person of the Godhead an Advocate, sometimes translated as Comforter. His job is to guide, teach, convict, encourage, reveal, and empower us day by day. (John 14:6)

Peter and the other apostles felt that the additional empowerment was the fulfillment of a passage in Joel 2:28-29,

“And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your old men will dream dreams,
    your young men will see visions.
²⁹ Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

In fact, the Holy Spirit shows up in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible by name in Psalm 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10. The ruach elohim (the Spirit of God) is there at creation in Genesis 1:1.

Darlene showed me enough to not run out the back door, but I determined to proceed cautiously and not get caught up in anything weird.

As my newfound faith developed, I sensed that I should quit smoking and that if I would obey that prompt, I would never crave another cigarette. I surprised myself by smoking through the pack I was working on, then quit. It was easy. I was water baptized and began reading my new King James Version Bible. I made a fool of myself witnessing to all my friends with such zeal that they wanted to run the other way.

Finally it was time for me to seek the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was the tongues thing that flummoxed me. Most Saturdays, I would get on a bus and ride to Ballard where Darlene lived. I’d stay the night in her tiny rented home, and the next morning we would attend the Philadelphia Church, an independent Pentecostal church with roots in Scandinavia. Darlene slept in a room with two twin beds. I went to bed first, so I was alone in the room. I had seen Linda Meisner from the book in person at a local meeting. She told the people there that if we want to hear from God, take some time to quiet our minds and listen, so I did. As I prayed into the darkness, wondering if such a weird thing could ever happen to me, I saw a vision of light. It said, “Luke 3:16.” I had no idea what that passage said so I leaped out of bed, turned on the light, and read, “John answered them all, 'I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.'”

Of course, I ran out of the room and showed Darlene. The church had two services on Sunday. My appointed time would be after the evening service, downstairs in the community hall, kneeling against a metal chair. Several ladies gathered around me, tarrying and praying in their own prayer languages. I was waiting for some big manifestation…you know, shaking, fainting, my own tongue taken over, an angel with a flaming sword…that sort of thing. Nothing happened. The prompt was, and mind you I didn’t want subjective prompts, was to just start speaking, saying whatever came to mind. “Step out in faith.” No, I wanted a sign. Something like my vision, that could not be dismissed. But no, the prompt kept coming. “Step out in faith.” Finally, I got so bored waiting that I did that. All the ladies got so excited. I looked up and them and said, “Hey, this is just me.” Darlene said, “Well, who do you think it’s going to be?” So that was it. My baptism in fire. I went to bed that night perplexed and not wholly convinced, but in the morning, Darlene, who slept in the other twin bed, told me I sang a song in tongues in my sleep. OK, I get it. For me, it’s by faith. I did eventually get an angel, but that was much later and is another story.

I still pray in tongues, and it still feels strange. It can attract strange people with strange ideas. Like any powerful instrument, whether a phone, TV, computer, or rifle, great good can come from it or great confusion. Even evil. The gifts of the Spirit as laid out in 1 Corinthians 12 have always caused controversy and fear in the Body of Christ over the centuries. An anointed word of wisdom, a word of extraordinary knowledge, the gift of supernatural faith, the gift of healing or miraculous powers or prophecy were the rocket fuel that launched the New Testament faith into the Jewish-Roman world. Many say it all stopped when the last apostle died. Tongues have brought an accusation that what goes on today is of the devil. However, during the Jesus movement that began in the 1960s, while the mainline churches protected their boundaries, their dignity, and their people from the wiles of the devil, the Pentecostals were out on the streets looking for people like me, people who were agnostic but ripe for the picking. People who knew they were lost and really wanted to be found.

Although glossolalia is an odd thing for a Christian to do, the churches that promote waiting for the baptism with tongues are the churches where healings take place, where prophecy is common. Yes, I’ve prophesied and been prophesied over, but only in an environment of faith and worship. The Holy Spirit doesn’t want to barge into an unwilling pastor’s church and take over. People need to yield their tongues, minds, and hearts to which ever way the wind of the Spirit is blowing. In my wonderful Lutheran church, nothing surprising will ever happen. In a Pentecostal church, plans often get blown off the podium. The preachers at the Philadelphia church would pace and sweat and holler, but the congregation would be laughing uproariously or shedding tears at the stories. I thank God for my time there.

The gift of tongues and interpretation is one of the items that oft goes awry or is misunderstood. The speaker is not really speaking French, Chinese, or Swahili. The interpreter doesn’t really hear those earthly languages. The interpretation comes telepathically, separate from what the speaker has just offered aloud to the church. On a rare occasion, which I’ll share in another post, a listener does hear their own language. I personally believe that the miracle is in the ear of the hearer, not the one speaking. Remember, the people in the upper room were simple Galileans. The people outside were from everywhere. There is no reason to assume that the Galileans could speak Swahili or Egyptian.

The problem is that when God’s grace is running rampant and lives are being changed, the devil isn’t far behind with a bag of tricks. These powers, given wholly by God and channeled through weak human vessels, draw in money, fame, and power over the congregations. As Pentecostal churches grew over the decades, the movement began to choke on its own success. Megachurch pastors often live in mansions, and evangelists fly around in their own 747s. This is a far cry from when Jesus told his disciples, “‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” (Matthew 8:20)

The worst abomination in the church today is the melding of church and politics. However, that is not today’s topic, so that’s all I’ll say about it.

This essay can also be seen at https://medium.com/@janetkatherineapplebysmith/my-introduction-to-pentecost-b7f541799b8a and at https://theologylighthouse.substack.com/p/my-introduction-to-pentecost.