This year, the Day of
Pentecost falls on May 30. Pentecost is always the fiftieth day after Easter
Day. It is not the beginning of a new season, but rather is the last day of
the Easter season—the great conclusion to the greatest season of the Church
year. Even among the Church's seven "Principal Feasts," Pentecost takes a
special rank. Most liturgists and theologians would place Pentecost in the
top three or four celebrations of the Church. It marks that dramatic day
when, following Jesus' ascension into Heaven, the Holy Spirit came to the
community of the Apostles. This event (vividly described at Acts 2:1-11)
infused the Church's ministry with the very presence of God. Pentecost is
sometimes referred to as "the birthday of the Church" since that was the
moment when the Church was empowered by God Himself to begin its mission
into the world. The Day of Pentecost is the assurance that the Church is
what it claims to be: the continuing Body of Christ and the Way to live in
the saving acts of a gracious God. Pentecost boldly
proclaims that the Church's power is nothing less than God's own power! Who
wants a Church that is only as good or as strong as we are in ourselves?
Pentecost celebrates the fact that the Church has the transforming goodness
and strength of God to offer to human life.
Let me be very clear about
one issue that comes up repeatedly with regard to Pentecost and the Holy
Spirit. The account in Acts 2 certainly describes the Church being
supernaturally empowered. Specifically, it shows language barriers being
broken—those in the crowd from all over the region all heard their own
native languages being spoken by the Apostles. Whether the gift was to the
Apostles themselves in speaking or to the people in hearing is not really
clear. But one thing is absolutely clear: this is NOT about "speaking in
tongues," i.e. glossolalia, ecstatic utterances that are not an
earthly language. Nowadays, that phenomenon is mostly associated with
charismatic-style worship and "pentecostal" churches. But because the
miracle of Pentecost refers to known, human languages, glossolalia is an
altogether different thing. Pentecost is about the life of the whole
Church and an essential reality of all Christian life; "speaking in tongues"
(genuine though it may indeed be) is not.
People are sometimes
confused by the unfortunate modern-day connotations of the old-English
translation "Holy Ghost" (used from 1380 until 1952). That can lead to
thinking of the Spirit as essentially "Jesus' ghost." That is not at all
what Scripture says and shows! The Holy Spirit is not a "ghost," but rather
is God Himself in dynamic, unpredictable, and personal presence in Creation
and human life. The Holy Spirit is fully God just as the Son is, and
coexisted from eternity with the Son. We see the Spirit at work in the
creation of the world and in the history of the Hebrews as God's chosen
people. It is God the Holy
Spirit who has sustained the Church's holiness for two thousand years
despite the Church's many failings. It is the power of the Spirit that
enables us to build up the kingdom of God more and more in human life.
Baptism is the gift of the
Holy Spirit to the one who is being baptized. It is through that gift that
the Christian is able to know God personally, live in God's will, and
receive God's grace. Even so, this happens only after the Spirit
filled the Church at Pentecost. We can all-too-easily forget that the
activity of the Holy Spirit is primarily a communal reality! It is
first and foremost about the life of the Church. Experience of the Spirit
will certainly be "personal," but it is only very rarely individual. Beware.
Moreover, it is essential that we fend-off the strong temptation to equate
the will and the work of the Holy Spirit with our emotions! This happens so
commonly that it is (at best) nauseating and (at worst) quite dangerous and
destructive. The Spirit has nothing to do with our content subjectivism—what
makes us feel good, or comfortable, or correct. The Holy Spirit has
everything to do with what brings our lives closer to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Given the realities of human nature, I would argue that the leading
of the Spirit in the Gospel is more likely to be uncomfortable,
disorienting, and challenging for us.
Something of this is gathered from the imagery in Scripture evoking the
nature of the Spirit: "like the rush of a mighty wind, " and "'tongues
of fire. " We know that wind and fire exist beyond us, and have power
that compels our humility. It is necessary to keep that perspective. So it
is with the Spirit.
It is also a power that
inspires our gratitude. The Holy Spirit comes to us to make us God's own. To
that, we can only respond: "Come, Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God!"
In Christ,
Shannon+
