Pentecost Changed Worship Forever
In this interview, we talk with Eugene Luning, author of the Moments with Jesus Encounter Bible. We discuss the 20th chapter from the new book, co-authored with Pastor Bill Johnson—Pentecost—the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Destiny Image: Last Week, we covered the Ascension. This time we’re talking about the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit among the Apostles. What a crazy thing to be talking about! What a crazy thing for us to experience. Can you set us up?
Eugene Luning: Absolutely! What I enjoyed about writing and working through the flow of this final chapter of the Moments with Jesus book was thinking about the continuity from the Ascension to the Indwelling. If you read the book, that’s where it starts: you just left from the Mount of the Ascension. And I had to add that personal detail of going back to the Upper Room. “Hey! There’s His cloak! Wow!”
I personally lost my father when I was pretty young. I remember the experience of holding of his sweaters that still smelled like him. I wanted us to have that with Jesus in this episode because there’s something so intimate about the clothing or aroma of someone that we love.
I wanted us to then be in that same Upper Room—ten days later—when all of the sudden Heaven opens up, tongues of flames appear, and suddenly there’s a new inner life operating in Apostles and the disciples. I wanted to have that whole spread happening in this chapter to show it was ten days in their life. Ten days flies by, and yet in ten days, it’s totally changed human history right here in our midst.
This is a good one! I’m excited to talk more about it!
DI: Yeah, that detail of the cloak. I think that’s probably my favorite piece of the whole chapter. Through reading the Gospels and your re-telling of then, we’ve built up such an affinity and affection for this man, Jesus. Last time, there was this bittersweet moment of seeing Him leave, and there’s this pit in your stomach. Now, there’s your memory when you capture a whiff their clothing. It’s just so human.
Personally, when I read through the Gospels, I don’t always have the best imagination of putting myself in the shoes of the Disciples and Apostles. So I love that you’ve helped us do that. This little detail is just full of artistry and captures the emotions on the moment.
Well done!
EL: Thank you!
DI: Can we talk about the Upper Room? So this is the place where they had the Passover, right?
EL: Well, there was a little bit of creative license there. We don’t exactly know. We do hear about an Upper Room a couple of times. We don’t know if it’s the same Upper Room.
But I love the continuity that they had their feet washed there perhaps. Then they left from there to go out to the Garden of Gethsemane. And maybe that was the same Upper Room where they hid themselves the cross and the Resurrection. Maybe that was the room where suddenly He stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Maybe it was the same Upper Room where they kept coming back. The next thing you know, it’s the day of Pentecost.
I like that detail—if it’s true—because we get familiar with a space, like a room. So if we imagine it—they live and eat in that space, it becomes like a home base for all this crazy stuff that’s about to be coming.
DI: Yeah, it’s a great device. I do think something to that. They were kind of operating in Jerusalem out of this reoccurring place that’s mentioned. I think it’s fitting.
Then, it’s the moment where the Disciples gather to pray. First of all, let’s talk about who might have been there. Was it just the remaining Eleven Apostles? Or was it more?
EL: It’s interesting because after Jesus ascends, here’s what it says in Acts 1:13, “Upon entering Jerusalem, they went straight to the upstairs room where they had been staying. There present were Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas the son of James, and by common consent all of these men, together with the women who had followed Jesus, Mary His mother as well His brothers devoted themselves to prayer.”
So we’ve got the inner core of the Disciples group, but we also—and I always loved this detail—that were all these women who followed Jesus. In Luke, we find out that they had actually provided for Jesus out of their own means.
Ladies, this is a big thing that you have always done: supporting and leading the Body of Christ. And I love it! I love that His mother and brothers are there! These are wonderful details, aren’t they?
DI: That’s awesome. At one point, it says He appeared to 500 people. Maybe some of them were there too.
EL: It’s fun to think about it. How crowded that room got as more and more exciting things began to happen. I imagine it was packed to the gills.
DI: So they’re in the Upper Room and they’re devoting themselves to prayer. And you capture it perfectly! What it must have been like to pray after Jesus’s Ascension? What was Jewish and Hebrew prayer tradition and how did that differ from this new thing of talking to a man you know?
EL: Well, obviously it was formulaic in lots of ways. They had certain prayers. They would use the Psalms as prayers. If you’ve ever seen an image of Jewish people today, you see men who are rocking at the Wailing Wall. And there’s this certain somber prayer of “I am nothing. You are everything,” with their shoulders stooped. That’s an essence of what it had been like. This was Yahweh. You wouldn’t even write out His Name in full. He was so remote, so all powerful that you didn’t know Him at all.
That’s why I gave—and frankly, I had a little bit of a chuckle writing it—how they probably started to pray in the Upper Room, like, “Oh Thou Lord!” You know, speaking very distantly from the One that they’re talking to.
Again, creative license, but I believe in that room that somebody was audacious enough to say, “Wait a minute! We’re talking to Him! Jesus! Our friend!” And I think that was one of the great turning points in all history: when people suddenly realize that the One they loved with their whole heart, the One they knew, the One they knew His aroma, they knew what made Him laugh. That’s who they talked to.
I was preaching to my own heart when I wrote that chapter because I want to continue to talk to Him that way. That’s how we should always talk to him. Like we know him! Like it’s comfortable. Yes, we are nothing compared to Him. And yet He stooped down to our level to make us His friends, so let’s talk to Him now. Let’s approach Him with confidence.
Whoever was the bold one who do that, I want to shake their hand when I’m in Heaven and say, “You did something there! That’s beautiful.”
DI: Yes. I’m sure we feel the temptation to slide back into almost scripted motions during prayer. When you find yourself in those places, what do you do? How do you shake out of that? “Wait! I know Him! I can talk to Him!” What does that look like for you in your prayer life?
EL: I’m so glad you asked because it happened this morning! I was praying, and it was rote and boring. In that moment, I just got frustrated. I’m sure all of us can relate to that. You just feel like, “What am I doing? Why am I getting into this old, personal liturgy?”
This morning what I did—and maybe you’ve had this experience—instead of going through the motions, I decided to sit down on the ground, close my eyes, open my hands, and just listened. Instead of rote praying at him, I said, “I’ll sit and wait upon You.”
Quite frankly this morning, nothing happened. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t have any visions. I was just still before Him. Yet when I then pivoted to get into the Word, read, and think, I felt a great deal of Peace. It was as if he’d brought me back to the mindset of “Ok, He can speak.” Then I went into the Word and enjoyed that time.
Sometimes when I’m in that space, I’ll almost laugh out loud. “Jesus, I’m doing it again! Lord, I just give you the day. I want to follow you. That’s all I want.” Then, quite frankly again, I get up and I just go live it for Him!
So I would say if you’re ever feeling rote and stuck in a rut in your prayer life, just shake it loose. Chuckle to yourself. Go do something. Take the dog on a walk! Whatever it needs to be to get back into the presence of the One who’s alive and not this monolith in Heaven. Do something different. That would be the word for our hearts. Do something different!
DI: I like that. But you use the Word, so I want to poke a little bit. So, liturgy. Is there a place for liturgy? How do we incorporate helpful rhythms and routines without getting out of order?
EL: I’m a nerd. I like to do the dishes sometimes listening to choirs from Cambridge England.
DI: That’s the only way to wash dishes.
EL: [laughs] I like to listen to those glorious requiems that are part of high church. I think it’s very beautiful. I think that’s why we love going to cathedrals and seeing amazing spaces that have this aesthetic. Wow, it’s grand and overwhelming.
I also agree that there are times and spaces where going through a particular rhythm feels incredibly peace-bringing to our hearts. No question about it!
For me, I think when we can sense in our own hearts that we’ve moved into a space of boredom and “this is something that I know so well that I no longer have to pay attention to it”, then we know that we’ve hit that threshold.
I would say if liturgy—if a rhythm—is truly connecting your heart to Jesus and you’re abiding in Him richly in that space of liturgy, then keep doing it! But if you’re bored, then change and do something different. Approach Him in a different very first hand, very non-liturgical way—right now!
Don’t stick with what makes it sedentary because that the way of the pharisees. Then eventually you start making excuses for the sedentary, and then it becomes a system rather than the actual way of Jesus.
So your own heart is the best barometer for what is the right time and the wrong time for those sorts of things.
DI: That’s good. I imagine likening it to spending time with a friend. If you and I were to always get coffee every Wednesday at the same time and at the same coffee shop, and then maybe afterwards, we take a walk around the riverside or whatnot—that would be a cool liturgy of friendship. But, at some point if that becomes stagnant and our routine isn’t relationship building or no freshness, then maybe we should do something else. Maybe we should go to the driving range and hit golf balls, for example.
Whatever keeps us close to Him.
I do love C. S. Lewis’s thoughts about liturgy in his letters to Malcolm, chiefly on prayer. I believe its in the first or second chapter, so I recommend it to our readers.
Let’s talk about approaching the Father through Jesus. In the Upper Room, this is the first time that people are coming to the Father through someone—the One. What does that mean for us?
EL: I love when you go back in time, before the Upper Room, when you look back at the last discourse. I love John 13-17 because this is Jesus knowing what He knows about the coming crucifixion and He’s trying to get across to His Disciples, “Listen. Things are about to be very different.” And some of his last instructions are so spot on with your question.
Looking at John 14, He says, “Whatever you ask the Father in My Name, I will do. That the Son may bring glory to the Father. And if you Me anything in My Name”—and really that means, in Jesus’ Spirit—”I will grant it.”
Flipping over two pages to John 16, and I love this, “I assure you that whatever you ask the Father, He will give you in My Name. Up to now, you’ve asked nothing in My Name. Ask now and you will receive”—listen to this caveat—“that your joy be overflowing.”
So I wanted to make sure that was in this chapter of Moments with Jesus. Because the way we approach Jesus, in approaching the Father, we know that Guy! We’ve fallen in love with Him! So talking to Him is becoming more and more natural the deeper our relationship goes. Then—and you can imagine—He pivots on the Throne of Heaven and goes, “Hey, Father. It’s Eugene. It’s Jenny. It’s Reagan.” And he brings our request—the spirit of it through His own Self, His nature ,and His Spirit—to the Father. They confer, then amazing things happen.
I love this moment because as we learn to approach Him with confidence, we’re approaching the Godhead. And this is just a whole new status of being a human in the economy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Talk about amazing!
