This reading from Acts is the stated lesson in all three cycles of the lectionary. The preacher may therefore want to consult the expositions in Cycles A and B also.

In our first lesson for last Sunday, just before his ascension into heaven, the risen Christ commanded his disciples to remain in Jerusalem and to wait until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49) by the gift of the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 1:8). Only then would the disciples be equipped with the power and ability to be Christ's "witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Our text for this Sunday now records the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon them.

 

We often make the mistake of speaking of God's Spirit as a beautiful, ethereal feeling that …