In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Pentecost means fifty. In the Jewish calendar it is fifty days after Passover, called the Feast of Weeks: meaning a “week of weeks,” or seven times seven weeks, and on the fiftieth day after the Passover, Jews celebrated this day. The Feast of Weeks, Jewish Pentecost, was, among other things, associated with the giving of the Law by Moses to the people at Mount Sinai, following upon their Exodus from Egypt. Many Jews made pilgrimages to the Jerusalem Temple for this festival.
Saint Luke says that fifty days after our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead on Easter Day, during the Feast of Weeks on Pentecost, the disciples were gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, the same Upper Room where, on Maundy Thursday, they had kept the Passover with Jesus. Jesus had appeared to them again recently (we keep this as Ascension Day, forty days after Easter) and a cloud received him out of their sight as he was taken into heaven. At that time he told them to stay in Jerusalem and “to wait for the promise of the Father.” Then they would receive “power” and preach the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The power came. It transformed them. Saint Peter is Exhibit A of this transformation. The man who, fifty days earlier, had quailed before the power of the high priests as Jesus was condemned; who had denied three times knowing Jesus and wept when Jesus looked at him; this man now stood up in the city, preaching the Gospel of Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and conqueror of sin and death. Pilate was still governor. Annas and Caiaphas were still running the temple. Nothing had changed, except Peter and his fellow disciples. Far more than Jesus’ empty tomb itself, their transformation is the evidence we have of Jesus’ Resurrection; and it is why Saint Thomas Church is keeping the feast of Pentecost today.
What happened on that first Christian Pentecost reversed an ancient curse the human race brought upon itself in our fall from the obedience and grace of God. The curse multiplied after Adam and Eve first cooperated with the serpent. Cain slew his brother Abel, and many more ills proceeded. A turning point is the story of the Tower of Babel, our first lesson in today’s liturgy. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, founded Babel, the primeval base of Nineveh and Assyria and Babylon. “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass…[that]…they said to one another, ‘Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach to heaven.’ ” (Gen 10:9-11; 11:1ff)
Against this hubris God set his face. “Behold the people is one, and they have one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language…” So he did, and they left off building, scattering abroad upon the face of the earth. Babel means confusion. The confusion arose from their wish to be gods, to take heaven as their possession, as the serpent had originally promised to their aboriginal parents in the Garden.
The Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Gift of the Father to the disciples through Jesus, transformed the confusion of Babel into a symphony of praise. He descended with the sound of a rushing mighty wind and appeared on the disciples as tongues of fire; he drove them down the stairs and out into the street where all the Pentecost pilgrims were. How is it, these pilgrims marveled, that each of us hears these Galileans speaking God’s praises in our own language? Acts 2:1-13
That was the overture. Babel’s curse became a blessing. Then came the symphony’s main theme. It was left for the coward Peter to be the bold rock. The one who wouldn’t admit to knowing Jesus now confessed his name, sang his praises and first preached his Gospel. “Jesus of Nazareth, who did signs and wonders among you, the one whom you (we, I) betrayed and by wicked hands delivered to death; he is risen. This was no accident; it was God’s plan. We are witnesses. Save yourselves. Join us: Repent from dead works; believe; be baptized; receive the Holy Spirit and times of refreshment.” (Cf Acts 2:22-40)
Pentecost is a time that is still unfolding. It is a mystery still in operation. It includes us. When we hear the Lord’s praises in our own language, when he hear and receive Jesus Christ preached and taught as our Lord, we extend the audience. When we repent from our dead works and walk by the Spirit, we enlarge the company of disciples. This physical temple and what goes on in it are the effect of Pentecost and its power. Be sure that those who built this tower did so not out of Babylonian pride but Pentecostal faith and love. They knew the secret that Peter and his fellow disciples learned at the beginning; that the more surrendered we are, the more room there is in us for the Holy Spirit to fill; the more empowered we are to live in the Kingdom of God.
My dearly beloved brothers and sisters, let us pray for God’s grace. Let us ask him to remove our pride and arrogance and sin. Let us beg for his Spirit to fill us. Let us have but one boast, and that is in the power of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us know that the power of the Holy Spirit transforms bread and wine, and transforms us as we receive them by faith, into the Body and Blood of Christ. And let us be sure to love one another as he has loved us. Whatever may happen after that, all will be well. Come, Holy Spirit, come!
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
