A series of not so random events. . .

Which comes first?  The chicken or the egg?  So it is that we oft spend too much time delving into the timing of things rather than the appreciation of what God has done.  To us, the things of salvation may appear to be a series of random events, unrelated to each other, and without place or purpose in the larger scheme of things.  God is like us -- mostly reacting and not proactive.  God creates and sits down to rest and appreciate what He has made and man screws it up so God goes back to the drawing board.  The law offers a righteousness of obedience but man screws it up and so God goes back to the drawing board.  Jesus comes with salvation and life by the cross and empty tomb but man finds it hard to swallow so God goes back to the drawing board.  In the end, it appears as if things were an afterthought or a back up plan to the intention of God.  The almighty Lord seems to be constantly fixing what has gone wrong.

That would be a mistake.  God does not plan and react with back up plans and detours to make up for what has gone awry.  His omniscience is not the passive knowledge of one who knows what it going to happen but the very aspect of His divine love providing for what will happen with grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy.  He depends not upon us as a GPS reacts to our twists and turns on the highway.  No, He is the God who uses His knowledge for one purpose -- to rescue, redeem, and restore the people lost to Him.  Pentecost is no different. What Christ has done is not some addendum or correction to the story God had meant to write but the story itself.  The work of the Spirit is integral to that story and the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is as essential to the work of redemption as is the Redeemer Himself.

The paschal mystery of Christ’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension does not exist in some plane of its own but as the focal point of all that went before and all that is to come.  The Spirit whom the Risen Lord promises is not some replacement for His own presence but the divinely ordered new creation by water and the Word.  It is not a choice between baptism and preaching but preaching that leads to baptism.  The God who reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not simply showing us the mystery of His identity but expressing that identity for us in the work of our salvation.  Now, at Pentecost, the Spirit is given so that this work of salvation may draw us into the very inner life of God as much as we are able in this mortal life until the new heavens and new earth take the old limitations away and we know fully, face to face.

Neither does the work of God in the Old Testament exist in some plane of its own -- distinct from and unrelated to Christ's incarnation, obedient life, life-giving death, and glorious resurrection.  When Christ opens the Scriptures to His disciples, He does not do so to explain the workings of God but to reveal them in their perfect unity, all working for us and in us that we might be His own now and forevermore.  Pentecost is part of that revelation and part of that one fulfilling purpose of God.  The Spirit is not optional anymore than Christ is optional to that purpose.  The sacraments are not optional anymore than the Word is optional to that work.  On Pentecost we see the integration of the Trinity in the work that has been largely focused upon Christ and the will of the Father who sent Him.  But going forward there is a blessed unity of God and His work that is our great delight and the mystery we meet both with awe and faith.  God has hungered for us and our redemption and now the Spirit fills us with the hunger for Him and the things of His kingdom.  For now we know in part but we still know.  Then we shall know face to face but what we know is not different.  It is the fullness of what we already know now.  Thus the Spirit brings God's life to work in us for this moment and for eternity.