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The Day of Pentecost
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A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
✛
Three Points about Pentecost
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Pentecost was a Jewish festival before it became the Church’s Festival of the Holy Spirit. It was the feast of weeks; that is, a week of weeks, seven times seven days, the fiftieth day after Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. The ancient Jews offered the spring grain harvest as a “wave offering” before the Lord in the Temple on Pentecost, and they celebrated the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai at the same time. Many pilgrims came to the Jerusalem Temple from the Jewish dispersion to celebrate Pentecost. It was within the annual celebration of the Jewish observance from Passover to Pentecost that the Church’s observance of Easter began.
In the year (approximately) 33 AD, the year of Jesus’ crucifixion at the time of Passover, the followers of Jesus had found his tomb empty on the third day after his death. In addition, in the time between that Passover and Pentecost, Jesus had appeared to them alive in many ways. At a last climactic appearance, forty days after the Day of his resurrection according to Saint Luke, Jesus ascended into heaven as a cloud received him from their sight; and he had told them to wait in Jerusalem to receive power from on high.
Nine days later, at nine o’clock on Pentecost morning as they were gathered in their regular meeting place of the Upper Room, the power descended. There was a rushing wind. There were tongues of fire on them. They went outside, where all the pilgrims were milling through the streets of Jerusalem. And they spoke the praises of God in the many languages of those pilgrims. Most were amazed – how can this be? Some scoffed – they’re drunk. Not so, said Saint Peter, who proceeded to preach Jesus Christ as Lord by Name. Peter was the man who, fifty days before, had denied even knowing Jesus when put on the spot by Jesus’ judges. Now he was the Rock upon whom Jesus said he would build his Church, and against which the gates of hell would not prevail. The power came. The world would be changed. Among countless other churches, Saint Thomas Church was conceived that day by that same power, though it would be two millennia and several worlds away in time and space.
Here are three things to think about with regard to this great feast of Pentecost, which is truly the birthday of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church into which we have been baptized. First, the historic significance of Pentecost. Second, the symbolic meaning of Pentecost. And third, the personal dimension of Pentecost.
First, the historic significance of Pentecost. Pentecost is the true evidence of the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection. The transformation of those frightened followers of Jesus into the bold witnesses of his death and resurrection, the preachers of his Gospel, the teachers and founders of what became the catholic (universal) Church; this is the evidence that Jesus lives. The Jesus movement was born on Pentecost and swiftly became the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, now global and two billion strong, growing, on the verge of breakthroughs and renewals unimagined. At the center of this extraordinary phenomenon is Jesus Christ – the same yesterday, today, and forever; yet always new, unfolding depths of grace to each succeeding generation; influencing arts and sciences, music, philosophy, literature, theology, politics and law, culture, psychology and spirituality age after age.
Second, the symbolic meaning of Pentecost. Pentecost symbolizes God’s reversal of the curse of human arrogance and division as manifested in the primeval story of the Tower of Babel. There, man tried to climb to heaven in his pride. There, God came down and divided human language so that the tongues of man became incomprehensible. Divide and conquer, or at least frustrate, the design of man’s pride was the divine providence. Now, at Pentecost, all those languages become the means of communication of the praises of God through the triumphant humility, the cross and resurrection, of his only Son Jesus Christ. The Good News of God replaces the boasting of man.
Third, and finally, the personal dimension of Pentecost. Each of us has our Pentecost. For faith is not a human creation or production. Faith is a gift. Every movement of the human spirit towards God is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every prayer that is uttered to God, anywhere, is by the Holy Spirit. No one says, Jesus is the Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved; and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, who emboldened the first apostles to preach Jesus Christ, also moves the hearts of people to seek, to discover, and to receive Jesus Christ into their own lives. Just as the Holy Spirit, for example, overshadowed Mary and empowered her to embrace her vocation, in spite of her fears for the consequences, to be the Virgin Mother of Christ; just so, the Holy Spirit enables us to believe and trust in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and to pray, by him, with him and in him, to the Father. The Holy Spirit teaches us the mystery of the power of self-giving, self-sacrificing love. The more surrendered we are to the Holy Spirit, the more powerful we are in Christ. This is our Pentecost. May it be ours, personally and individually. May it be ours, corporately and as a parish family. Come Holy Spirit, come!
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
