Last Friday Before Pentecost
Lectionary Texts:
1 Corinthians 12:1-13
John 14:15-17, 25-27
Only one Christian holiday (holy day) is mentioned in the NT. Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Ash Wednesday, All Saints--you name it. These words and terms do not appear in the NT. The one that does appear is Pentecost. Yet it seems to be the least noticed of all.
You all know the story by now. After Jesus' Ascension, his followers are left without his presence for ten days. Their faith is total. Their knowledge of what is going to happen is flawed. They believe that he will return in glory and establish his kingdom on earth very soon. That's not what happened.
Instead of Jesus returning in the same way he left, something else happened. Instead of Jesus appearing as a tangible being before them and apart from them, God entered them. God became a part of them in a new way. God entered them in the person of the Holy Spirit. They became filled with the Holy Spirit.
The immediate result is that they spoke in other tongues and each could understand everyone else, although this large group spoke many various languages. The miracle of Pentecost was the reversal of the Tower of Babel. In that story God created a mass of different languages to confuse the builders of the tower, so that they could not continue to build a structure to reach God, to be as high as God, and perhaps thereby to be as powerful as God. Do you remember what the sin of Adam and Eve was? It was not that they ate the forbidden fruit. It was why they ate the forbidden fruit. They wanted to deny their mortality and be like God (cf. Genesis 3:5, 22).
God wants us to be human, fully human. Jesus came to earth fully human and showed us they way toward what our full humanity could be. The infusion of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was not to make us God, or part God, or like God. It was to bring us that one thing our humanity lacked on its on, the Spirit. The chief role of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was to lead us to understand each other. The Holy Spirit has other work in us at other times (cf. John 14-16), but at the time of Pentecost the Spirit's work was to enable us to understand one another.
At this point in American history the one thing all American s seem to agree on is that we don't understand one another, particularly in the realm of politics. The belief of many white evangelicals that we are on the verge of an apocalyptic civil war is downright scary to peaceful Christians like me. Our prayers should be for a new Pentecost, a new age of understanding in this time of divisiveness.
Come Holy Spirit,
Bring us understanding in our minds and hearts. Bring us peace in our troubled world. Bring us wisdom in the midst of our failures to understand. Bring us love in our world to prone to hate. Amen.
Faithfully,
Christian
1 comment:
It is a frightening challenge to understand each other now, especially when we are faced with a threat that does not bow to political pressure. COVID 19 doesn't much care what we think of it, and as things open up and people do more dangerous things, including refusing to get vaccinated, things will get worse again. I have to pray for patience when people do things that put others in danger. In Zen we call those who persecute, attack or irk us "merciful messangers" who give us the opportunity to learn. I have had a lot of merciful messengers in the last few days. But only through kindness and understanding can I try to move them.
Post a Comment