The Pastor’s Reflections
he Pentecost account begins with a seemingly simple statement, “When the time of Pentecost was fulfilled they were all together in one place.” Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, is making reference to the Jewish Feast of Weeks, Shavu’ot, also called Pentecost. He’s giving a framework for the event that he is about to present. What’s this feast all about?
The Feast of Weeks was given that name because it took place seven weeks, a week of weeks, after the feasts of Passover and Firstfruits. The biblical Feast of Firstfruits celebrated the early barley harvest, and was held on the Sunday after the Sabbath following the Passover. The Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, was celebrated fifty days after Passover and commemorated the wheat harvest.
Luke was making an important point with this simple reference to these three Jewish feasts, Passover, Firstfruits and Pentecost. Jesus was the Passover lamb whose blood redeemed us from the death our sins merited. He rose from the dead on the Feast of Firstfruits. On Pentecost, fifty days after his resurrection, the wheat harvest was celebrated. Luke was presenting those who were gathered in the upper room as the first harvest of the redeemed world, the Church.
“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.” This is the foundation Luke used for his account of the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. He built on it by adding several wonderful and rich images.
After the death of Jesus the disciples had either fled Jerusalem, or went into hiding. The Jewish feast had just concluded but there were still many pilgrims in Jerusalem. Suddenly the disciples, and the people milling about outside, heard the sound of “a strong driving wind.” It seemed to fill the entire room where they were. This sound harkened back to the first moment of creation when a mighty wind swept over the waters of chaos. The sound of the wind announced the beginning of a new creation.
The sound of the wind was followed by the appearance of “tongues as of fire which parted and came to rest on each one of them.” Fire was often associated with God in the Old Testament. God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and later appeared in fire on Mount Sinai when God gave him the Law. The fiery power of God came to rest on each one of the disciples, “and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”
The sound of the wind was loud, as was the proclamation of the disciples. “There were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language.” We can now begin to pull together the imagery of the Jewish Pentecost and the Christian Pentecost that Luke combined in this account.
Luke, in his magnificent recounting of the Pentecost event, unfolded the dynamic of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus died a horrible and ignominious death, but it was the first necessary step to his resurrected life. Three days after his death his disciples saw him alive and glorious. For forty days he appeared to them, ate with them, and instructed them. He was preparing them for a life-changing event. Jesus told them that he would soon rise in ascension to take his place with the Father. But he assured them that he would not abandon them like orphans. He promised that he would send the Spirit to them.
They waited for ten days after his ascension. The Spirit indeed came to them in the dramatic majesty of fire. God’s Spirit divided itself among them imparting to each of them the divine energy to continue the mission of Jesus. Through his life, death and resurrection Jesus eternally bonded himself to the human family. He experienced all that we would experience in life – pain and suffering, joy and sorrow, hope and desperation. Having passed through the darkness of death, he ascended to a new and resurrected life. Through the Spirit’s descent he stretched out his helping hand as an invitation for all to follow after him. The effects of the Spirit’s descent were immediate.
The disciples “began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” When God first reached out to the human family, he told Abraham that he would make his descendants “as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.” He wasn’t speaking of one specific group of people. The day would come when that promise would break out of the confines of the chosen people and extend to the entire world. All people, for all time, would be invited to hear the Good News of salvation. Everyone would be called to enter the Paschal Event and ascend to the Father.
All of the disciples of Jesus, the first small group and all who were to follow them, became missionaries that Pentecost day. Each of us have been commissioned to take up the mission of Jesus. We are to teach, and heal, and comfort, and pass on the fire of the Spirit to others. We are to “set fire on the earth.”
With the Feast of Pentecost we’ve come to the conclusion of fifty days of prayer and deep reflection on the Paschal Mystery, Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension. But we mustn’t move on to “ordinary time” without remembering the word of the angels to the disciples who witnessed Jesus’ ascension, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” The angels were telling them to get their heads out of the clouds – to come back down to earth! To let Jesus ascend and to pick up the work he began. For us, “ordinary time” is the time of the Spirit. It’s everyday time. As disciples of Jesus we’ve been anointed with the fire of the Spirit. We’ve been commissioned to continue the mission. It’s not a time to say we’re Christians. It’s the time for us to be Christ in the world – to channel the brilliant fire of the Spirit into every dark corner of the world. It’s the time for us to continue to build the new world Jesus began. For us Christians, that’s ordinary time!
