First Fruits
Long before there was a church to gather, there was a feast. After God brought Israel out of Egypt, He gave them a celebration to keep forever, fifty days after the Passover. They called it the Feast of Weeks, and later, Pentecost. It was a harvest feast, a day to bring God the very first of what the land had produced and to remember that their whole new life was a gift from His hand.
The feast unfolded like a meal set before the Lord. It began with two loaves of freshly baked bread, lifted up and waved before God as a pleasing offering. Strangely, these loaves were baked with leaven—though at every other feast leaven was forbidden, here God commanded it, as if to say that even a people who still carry sin can be received as His own. Alongside the bread came the best of the flock without blemish, lambs and a bull and rams, given wholly to God and rising up in the fire as a pleasing aroma. A goat was offered to cover the people’s sin, so they could stand before a holy God; more lambs were offered for peace, and this was the portion the people themselves shared and ate. Wine was poured out beside it all. Taken together, the feast told a single story: a people giving God the first of His harvest, cleansed of their sin, atoned for, at peace with Him, and seated at a meal in His presence.
This was the feast being kept in Jerusalem when the Spirit came rushing in. And it is no accident that the Spirit was poured out on this day of all days, because everything that old feast pointed toward had now arrived in Jesus. He is the Bread of Life. He is the Lamb of God. He is the One who cleanses us and joins us to Himself, who atoned for our sin on the cross, who makes peace between us and God, whose blood was poured out to seal a new covenant. The feast had been a shadow; Jesus is the substance.
And so, when His work was finished, Jesus ascended to His Father. He went to present the firstfruits of all His labor—and the firstfruits He presented were Himself, risen from the dead, the Bread and the Lamb and the offering all in one. The Father looked upon everything His Son had done, and upon the Son’s own return, and was well pleased. In that joy, the love shared between the Father and the Son spilled over. It was poured out upon the people as the Holy Spirit—not a Spirit newly come into being, for the Spirit is eternally God, but a love now lavished on all who believe. The Spirit is the gift; the Spirit is the firstfruits of everything Jesus has won for us.
This gift changes everything. The presence of God now lives within His people, empowering the new life Jesus has set us free to live. We are no longer bound to live according to the flesh; we can put sin to death and grow toward righteousness, carried along by the same Spirit that filled the life of Jesus. And the Spirit gives us a way to see how that life is taking shape in us, for a tree is known by its fruit. Where the Spirit is at work, there grows love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Yet as astonishing as this gift is, it is only the beginning. Scripture calls the Spirit a seal and a down payment—a guarantee of greater promises still to come. It is hard to imagine what more we could need than the very presence and love of God, and harder still to believe there is more ahead. But there is. Even now, having received the firstfruits of the Spirit, we wait with longing for all that remains. So as you walk in the Spirit through this new life, know that you are unwrapping a gift that never runs out, never grows old, and only deepens with time. Keep the faith. Run the race. Live more and more in the Spirit—and you will come to know every blessing Jesus has promised.
Today we celebrate Pentecost: the day the love of God was poured out upon us, and we received the firstfruits of our salvation in the Holy Spirit. We give thanks for the Spirit we have been given—and we wait with eager joy for all that is still to come.
Peace be with you,
Pastor Bruce
