Pentecost Sunday
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Today, we come to the apex – the pivot-point of the history of salvation. This is the linchpin that connects the risen Christ with each of us. As always, we need to step away from what, on surface, appears to be historical detail. If we don’t, we’ll find ourselves in irreconcilable contradictions. Although it pains us, with our current fixation on useless detail, in order to understand what we’re reading and hearing, we have to give up useless attempts to know exactly how the first disciples experienced the risen Jesus. They’re telling us what happened, not how it happened.
Let’s begin our exploration with the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles. Luke sets the event on the Jewish Fest of Weeks – in Hebrew, Shavuot, in Greek, Pentecost. This festival is celebrated seven weeks and one day after the Passover. In the time of Saint Luke, it had come to be a celebration of and rededication to the covenant on Mount Sinai. Luke’s description of Pentecost reflected several features of that covenant event: Moses ascended the mountain to receive the Law. There, he encountered God in fire and wind, and descended again to the people of Israel to ratify with them the covenant between them and their God. This covenant and the Law which embodied it created out of the tribes of Israel one people, united in a unique relationship with their one God. From that point on, there was one heritage, one language, one covenant, one Law, one faith. It established a radical separation between them, the holy (qadoš) and clean (ṭahor), and the nations (goyim).
In the reading, Luke uses poetic imagery to describe an ecstatic event. We have the noise like a great wind and the vision of fire echoing the imagery from Sinai. We have the disciples speaking out boldly and publicly from their hearts. They may be “speaking in tongues” as people mean it today. What’s happening in this description is that the covenant is not only being fulfilled, it’s being broken open. It’s no longer based on external things: the tablets of the Law, the Ark of the Covenant, or the Temple made by human hands. The covenant and it’s law of love and reconciliation is now enshrined in the disciples’ hearts. It’s dynamic. It needs to be spoken. It needs to extend not just to one nation, but to a diversity of peoples and a diversity of languages. The message of the power of God’s love in the death and resurrection of his Son has become universal – one body out of many peoples. As such, it reverses the confusion of tongues that has permeated humanity since the tower of Babel.
Saint Paul echoes this theme in his letter to the Corinthians that we heard in today’s second reading. The Holy Spirit is the uniting force that creates one body out of diverse members. Through all of its manifestations, the Spirit maintains a unity so that, as we encounter the diversity which fills our universe, we are able to recognize each element as just another of the infinite facets that make up the face of our God. The Spirit is the driving force behind the rich diversity of creation and, at the same time, is the uniting force that holds everything together. The Spirit is the life force of the Father and it is the power that overcame death and raised the Lord Jesus to life, and it will do the same for us believers. In the Spirit, we become members of the risen Body of Christ.
In today’s gospel, Saint John shows us that, for him, the resurrection of Jesus, his ascension into glory, and the gift of the life-giving Spirit of the Father is but one event. Here, Jesus shows himself to his disciples in his wounded but glorified body. He says to them, “Peace” – shalom – literally translated, “be healed.” Be healed of your pain and sorrow. Then he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus was sent from the Father to heal a broken world, so now he heals his disciples and sends them in his name to heal the wounded and sorrowful of the world. But how? How are his disciples – how are we – to heal the world in his name?
Here is the great gift. “He breathed on them.” He, through whom all things were created, breathed the ruaḥ — the creative breath that moved over the sea of chaos before the formation of the universe and brought all things into being. He breathed that ruaḥ on his disciples and gifted them with the Spirit. Why? For the forgiveness of sins. For reconciliation. Sin is the sign of the brokenness of our world. Reconciliation is its healing. Reconciliation reunites humanity with God and its people with one another. Once again, we see the living Spirit bringing all things together into one.
We mustn’t fear diversity. The diversity of stars and planets and galaxies fill the universe with unbelievable richness. The diversity of terrains and climates and forces of nature make our planet uniquely beautiful. Our human family is blessed with a myriad of races, ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs, each of which contributes to the glory of the image and likeness of God. But sadly, the destruction of our planetary home and war among peoples and between individuals is a sin bordering on blasphemy: the sin against the Holy Spirit.
We have received the Holy Spirit – a share in the everlasting life of the Father – through our baptism and confirmation. We’ve been healed and reconciled to God and to one another by that Spirit of unity that, at the same time, celebrates our diversity. Now, we have been sent. Our mission is to share what we have received – our healing and our reconciliation – with those still wounded and suffering, those living in isolation from God and from each other. That is our mission. That is the mission of Pentecost: to heal our world one peace – one shalom – at a time.