Reflection on Pentecost
For Christians, the Feast of Pentecost commemorates the day on
which Jesus’ disciples received the Holy Spirit. It
was a moment in time when God broke into humanity to fulfill the
promise that Jesus made to His disciples: “The Advocate, the
Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – He will
teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
(John 14: 26). Jesus knew that the gift of the Holy Spirit
was the most important gift He could give them because it was the same
Holy Spirit that led Jesus throughout His life. “He
grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was
upon Him.” (Luke 2:40)
It is most fitting that God chose the Feast of Pentecost to send the
Holy Spirit because for the Jews the Feast of Pentecost marked another
time when God broke into humanity and gave the Ten
Commandments. The Ten Commandments were the laws by which the
people of God were to live in relationship with their God, families and
society. By following these commandments, the people of God
would be an example to others as to how they should conduct their
lives. Therefore, the whole Pentecost tradition includes
receiving both the law and the Spirit. Both are given by God
to His people to provide direction for their lives.
All of us have been given the Spirit in Baptism, but for the majority
of us who were baptized as infants, we have no recollection of that
moment when our godparents spoke on our behalf. As a result
we first became acquainted with the law taught to us by our parents,
priests, nuns and religious education teachers. Your
experiences may be different than mine, but I was under the mistaken
notion that God would only love me if I obeyed His
laws. Consequently, when I sinned, I knew that I
had offended God, and I assumed that I fell out of His love.
It wasn’t until I became a parent myself that my image of God
as “law giver” began to change. I
realized that my rules (laws) for my children, such as “Never
run into the street” were given for their
protection. It was given because I loved them, but I did not
have a conversation with them to explain the spirit behind my
rules. The fact that they would at times go into the street
did not change my love toward them in the slightest. It is
not that I had never been taught that God loved me; it’s just
that I had trouble believing those words until I had an experience to
draw upon.
Obviously laws serve a needed place in our lives, whether it is in
society or in our relationship with God, but in and of itself it does
not have the power to transform a person’s heart.
It can only modify one’s behavior. Transformation
is the work of the Spirit. Law at best creates uniformity
whereas the spirit creates unity where love and peace reside.
A sign of the Spirit’s unity was given on that Pentecost Day
when the Spirit descended upon the disciples in the form of tongues of
fire and each were filled with the Holy Spirit. The passage
in Acts tells us that Jews from many different countries who had
gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost all heard in their own
language what the Spirit proclaimed through the disciples.
The miracle is not that each person heard what was proclaimed in
his/her own language. The miracle is that each individual
heard the word of God spoken to him or her directly. It was
no longer only hearing the word of God through someone else, as they
were accustomed. Throughout Jewish history, God had spoken
through selected people such as Moses and the prophets.
Pentecost began a new era in which everyone, regardless of his or her
language of origin, could hear the word of God through the
Spirit. The evidence that they were open to listening to the
message of God is seen in the fact that three thousand of them were
baptized that day. Scripture doesn’t say that all
were baptized leaving us to understand that others were not willing, at
least at that moment, to embrace God’s invitation to
discipleship.
Whether we are the product of infant baptism or had an adult experience
of baptism, the Spirit of God is within each of us. As a
Unifier, the Spirit prompts each of us to hear God’s word to
be one with Jesus who is one with the Father. It is through
this relationship that we become one with each other. God is
the one who chooses us in the Spirit. It is not about
following the “law” to make ourselves worthy
first. If it were a matter of our worthiness, none of us
would qualify. Paul, a strict follower of the law until he
had his Damascus road experience, ultimately came to the conclusion
that is was God who first loved us and it is up to us to hear
God’s call and respond to it. Pentecost is a time
for each of us to hear God’s personal invitation to live a
baptized life. The question is whether we will respond to His
message or will His message be drowned out by the languages of the
world that we are accustomed to hearing on a daily basis.
Don Stanner, Lay Minister