Developing the Standards
Back in the day, if you had a Sony TV, a JVC camcorder, and a Magnavox VCR, there were no guarantees that they would work together. People often bought all their gear from the same brands to ensure compatibility, which generated customer loyalty. Over time, cooperative organizations like Underwriter Labs (UL) or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (who created wi-fi) developed standards for safety, reliability, and security that manufacturers learned to adopt to ensure that their products would work consistently. The more companies that adopted these standards, the more easily their products could work together.
Of course, it takes time to form consensus on device standards—especially when two options compete in the same marketplace, like when blu-ray and HD-DVD duked it out in the early 2000s, or VHS and Betamax did the same three decades prior. And even when there’s only one standard, there’s often a ton of lag time between creation and implementation. Development of the Bluetooth standard for short-range wireless radio communications began in 1989, but the first wave of popular Bluetooth headphones didn’t crest until 2004 with Beats By Dre. In the 20 years since the format has been continually tweaked to ensure that wireless headphones can work with as many devices as possible.
Imagine if all that work happened at once.
What if all the major players in the field were all in one place and suddenly experienced a phenomenon that instantly allowed all of their devices to communicate with each other?
That’s almost exactly what happened thousands of years ago.
Except it happened with people.
Acts 2: The Setting
The setting was Jerusalem, and it was the 50th day after the Jewish Passover feast. (As Christians we now call it the feast of Pentecost, a term derived from the Koine Greek for “fiftieth,” but at the time it was known by a different name.)
Jesus, who’d preached an upside-down kingdom, had been killed because he was perceived to be a threat to the Roman order. But somehow he was resurrected according to eyewitness accounts, and then after appearing several times, literally ascended directly into heaven.
Now it’s ten days after that ascension. As news of his resurrection spread, a buzz was building among his followers. The text doesn’t give us an exact number, but Acts 2 tells us that all of these followers had gathered in one place, presumably in accordance with the established Jewish feast.
We don’t know what they all were thinking and feeling going into this gathering, but we can infer from clues in Acts and the other Gospel accounts that not all of them were on the same page regarding who Jesus was and the significance of what had happened. Consider that when Jesus first appeared to the women after his resurrection, their account probably wasn’t initially believed as credible because of societal biases against women. Or consider the story of Jesus appearing to the travelers walking to Emmaus. Even though they knew the general outline of the story, Jesus had to explain to them the significance of all that had transpired, including remedial coverage of the Old Testament prophets to reveal how his ministry was the fulfillment of theirs.
Nevertheless, the news of Jesus’s miraculous appearance had certainly spread in a short period of time.
Commentary
Download That New Pentecost When It Drops
In moments when I’m most prone to lose perspective because of some issue with technology, I’m grateful that God can use that same technology to get my attention and shift my perspective. (It’s as if he really knows how I’m made or something.) A few years back I made a provocative reimagining of Psalm 23 called “The Lord Is My Phone.” To deepen the metaphor, today I see the Lord not in my phone, but in my firmware.
How Firmware a Foundation
Firmware is a tech term for a program designed to interface between a piece of hardware—such as a computer, laptop, or tablet—and a piece of software, like an app or a browser. It’s like an operating system—such as Microsoft Windows, or Apple’s macOS—but it’s a smaller piece of code that is customized for a piece of hardware, sometimes embedded deep into the hardware itself. If you’ve ever had to download a driver program to get your printer to work, firmware is kind of like that—unique to each device. If people were like computers, the body would be the hardware, our brains would be the software, and the firmware would be like a personality code, a standard that helps the brain and body function in a way unique to that person.
(This analogy is sure to break down at some point, but stay with me.)
Unless you’re in tech support, chances are you’ve probably never even seen your device’s firmware. But if your firmware settings are messed up, your hardware cannot function correctly. Firmware and device drivers are designed to work behind the scenes to keep our devices running smoothly; the difference is that drivers are sort of like firmware for peripherals, items like printers or webcams, which we connect to our computers to get things done.
I can use a Microsoft laptop to connect with a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, a Logitech webcam, an HP monitor, and a Numark DJ turntable controller—all at the same time—and I can assume they will all connect smoothly, despite the fact that they each have different hardware, firmware, and software. Most consumer tech uses a USB, which makes everything “plug-and-play.”
But it wasn’t always this easy.
Developing the Standards
Back in the day, if you had a Sony TV, a JVC camcorder, and a Magnavox VCR, there were no guarantees that they would work together. People often bought all their gear from the same brands to ensure compatibility, which generated customer loyalty. Over time, cooperative organizations like Underwriter Labs (UL) or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (who created wi-fi) developed standards for safety, reliability, and security that manufacturers learned to adopt to ensure that their products would work consistently. The more companies that adopted these standards, the more easily their products could work together.
Of course, it takes time to form consensus on device standards—especially when two options compete in the same marketplace, like when blu-ray and HD-DVD duked it out in the early 2000s, or VHS and Betamax did the same three decades prior. And even when there’s only one standard, there’s often a ton of lag time between creation and implementation. Development of the Bluetooth standard for short-range wireless radio communications began in 1989, but the first wave of popular Bluetooth headphones didn’t crest until 2004 with Beats By Dre. In the 20 years since the format has been continually tweaked to ensure that wireless headphones can work with as many devices as possible.
Imagine if all that work happened at once.
What if all the major players in the field were all in one place and suddenly experienced a phenomenon that instantly allowed all of their devices to communicate with each other?
That’s almost exactly what happened thousands of years ago.
Except it happened with people.
Acts 2: The Setting
The setting was Jerusalem, and it was the 50th day after the Jewish Passover feast. (As Christians we now call it the feast of Pentecost, a term derived from the Koine Greek for “fiftieth,” but at the time it was known by a different name.)
Jesus, who’d preached an upside-down kingdom, had been killed because he was perceived to be a threat to the Roman order. But somehow he was resurrected according to eyewitness accounts, and then after appearing several times, literally ascended directly into heaven.
Now it’s ten days after that ascension. As news of his resurrection spread, a buzz was building among his followers. The text doesn’t give us an exact number, but Acts 2 tells us that all of these followers had gathered in one place, presumably in accordance with the established Jewish feast.
We don’t know what they all were thinking and feeling going into this gathering, but we can infer from clues in Acts and the other Gospel accounts that not all of them were on the same page regarding who Jesus was and the significance of what had happened. Consider that when Jesus first appeared to the women after his resurrection, their account probably wasn’t initially believed as credible because of societal biases against women. Or consider the story of Jesus appearing to the travelers walking to Emmaus. Even though they knew the general outline of the story, Jesus had to explain to them the significance of all that had transpired, including remedial coverage of the Old Testament prophets to reveal how his ministry was the fulfillment of theirs.
Nevertheless, the news of Jesus’s miraculous appearance had certainly spread in a short period of time.
Acts 2: The Drop
In electronic dance music, there’s a phenomenon known as the drop. The DJ creates a repetitive looping sound, ascending in pitch and aural intensity and lasting for several bars, until the moment they drop the bass into the song, filling the room with an energy that propels people into movement.
In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit’s manifestation was kind of like that. Imagine the hype surrounding a Beyoncé or Taylor Swift album, personalized to each listener for maximum effect. Yes, there was an incredible sound (“like a mighty rushing wind”) and an incredible spectacle (“flaming tongues of fire”), but the secondhand effects were even more mind-blowing. As soon as the Spirit’s effect took hold of the people in attendance, it immediately made an impression on everyone in the vicinity:
At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.
They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.
The Holy Spirit drop at Pentecost allowed people to communicate with each other about what God was doing in their midst. They didn’t just hear the news—they heard it in their own language. Many theologians will tell you that the Acts 2 narrative is evidence of God choosing to undo the confusion unleashed at the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Instead of language being used as a tool to help people scatter and disintegrate, God is supernaturally harnessing the power of language to bring people back together, superseding any possible logical explanation for the phenomenon other than God’s exceeding love, mercy, and power.
The Drop, Reenacted
Pentecost is part of the church’s liturgical rhythm because God calls us to inhabit that moment, expanding our holy imagination to place ourselves in the center just like those early believers. As Jesus told his disciples in Acts 1, we are invited to receive the Holy Spirit’s power to bear witness to God’s activity. In so doing, we allow God to reset, reformat, and reposition us to share that good news most effectively with the people in our vicinity who need it from us the most.
And where the original Pentecost was an event, God invites us to reenact Pentecost as a practice.
This is how God’s Spirit reminds me of firmware and its relationship to device drivers—because often God’s movement happens in the background, without much fanfare, and yet somehow personalizes events and happenings in ways customized for each person. Without the Spirit’s active presence in our lives, we would be unable to connect with God or even truly understand Scripture. It’s the Spirit’s invisible activity behind the scenes that makes participating with God possible.
This, I’m convinced, is one of the reasons Paul told the Ephesians that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in their bodies. Our bodies, rather than limiting God’s power, become expressions of its multiplicity. The movement of the Spirit is dynamic and powerful, and also adaptable, tensile, and amorphous. God, through the Holy Spirit, refuses to be boxed in, and God’s methods can never be defined solely by what God did in the past.
This is also why Pentecost is a regular recurrence. From time to time, our awareness of and reliance upon the Spirit need to be refreshed. No, Pentecost isn’t an app—but like an app, we must be faithful to keep checking for updates, looking for new ways God may be directing us. No, there’s no such thing as a perfectly functional, universal translator device—but we don’t need one when we have the Spirit. We serve a God who is unlimited by the constraints of our technology.
So this Pentecost, let’s look for the Spirit’s movement in unexpected places, ways, and people. If, like me, you’ve ever struggled to get your devices to interact with each other, let that be your reminder of how amazing God is, that the Spirit is capable of customizing each encounter we have with God and each other in accordance with the imago Dei firmware etched in our hearts and minds. As you anticipate God’s movement, allow yourself the gift of delight when you’re surprised by how God confounds your expectations.
And don’t forget this basic axiom that unites DJs and club patrons around the world: When you feel the drop, it’s time to move.
Jelani Greenidge
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