Come, Holy Spirit

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. God is one. Amen

Today we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost that marks the coming of the Holy Spirit to the people of Jerusalem—and to us. The remarkable 19th century Russian Orthodox priest and saint, John of Kronstadt, has written of the feasts of the Church, and I quote: “We should not allow ourselves to celebrate any Christian feast without seriously considering: what is its meaning and what is its purpose; what is our responsibility toward it?... Then the feast will become profitable for our soul’s salvation. Otherwise the enemy of our salvation [that is, the devil] will snatch us and turn the feast of God into a feast of the flesh,” concluded St John. [cited by Joanna Manley in The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox, p. 949]. I find these questions posed by St John challenging. What is the meaning and purpose of Pentecost? What is our responsibility toward it?

The Greek word Pentēkostē means “fiftieth” and refers to today being the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as the fiftieth day after the Jewish festival of Passover. That number “50” was quite significant in ancient Judaism because it celebrated the Year of the Jubilee, which occurred every 50th year when all slaves were to be freed. all debts forgiven, and all land returned to its original owners. It is not clear how much this ideal was actually fulfilled, but the principle is clear. “The property a Jew possessed was not his own. It was God’s land, given to the individual only as a stewardship” [that is, to be looked after well], as a note in The Orthodox Study Bible for Leviticus, chapter 25, verse 8 indicates. In both ancient and modern Judaism today is the festival of Shavuot, when Moses received the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai. So, for both Jews and Christians, today is certainly a day to celebrate. As St Leo the Great preached, and I quote: “The earnest Christian may easily perceive that the beginnings of the Old Covenant [with the Jewish people] were at the service of the beginnings of the Gospel and … the same [Holy] Spirit who [began] the first [covenant also] established the second covenant.” [cited in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, NT, Vol. 5, p. 20].

The epistle reading today from the second chapter of the book of Acts, chapter 2, verses 1 to 11, considers the meaning and purpose of Pentecost for us as Orthodox Christians. A close reading of those verses indicates that the Holy Spirit had a different impact upon the apostles “who were all together [inside a house] in one place” and upon the crowd outside in the streets and squares of Jerusalem. Both groups of people had heard “a sound like a violent wind blowing from heaven.” For the apostles, “the entire house where they were sitting” [was filled with this wind]. And tongues spreading out like a fire appeared to them and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the [Holy] Spirit enabled them”. Now, the apostles were certainly surprised, but they had been promised that the Holy Spirit would come to them. Moreover, “when this sound occurred, a crowd gathered and was in confusion because each one heard [the apostles] speaking in [their] own language. Completely baffled, they said, ‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is that each one of us hears them in our own native language?’… All were astounded and greatly confused, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?...”

Note that the Holy Spirit came to each apostle personally; and each apostle then went outside to preach to those who did not understand what was happening. Those outside had not seen the fire that came to rest upon each of the apostles, but many people in the crowd did sense that something important was happening and were trying to understand how they should respond. As a study note in The Orthodox Study Bible says, the Holy Spirit “is shown to have the overwhelming power to unite, even in diversity [that is, when there are many differences among people]. A key lesson of Pentecost is that the people hear the Gospel in their own language,” concluded the study note. Thus, Pentecost also marks a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel when the Lord “confused the languages of the entire world” to the possibility that guided by the Holy Spirit all the peoples of the world will understand each other and serve the Lord.

Pentecost is rightly seen as the birth of the Church in the New Covenant, because this was when God brought the Church of Christ into being, as the Holy Spirit came down to humanity. After Peter’s speech to the crowd, set out in Acts, chapter 2, verses 14 to 40, about 3,000 people were baptised. Notice that this happened because two quite different groups of people—the apostles who expected the Holy Spirit to come to them, as well as many thousands of people who did not know the Holy Spirit was coming to them—both accepted the power of the Holy Spirit coming into their lives. It is the same for the world today. The Holy Spirit comes to baptised Christians who expect Him to come, as well as to others who do not know the Holy Spirit until He comes to them. However, it is important to remember that the Holy Spirit is much more likely to come to others who do not yet know Him if we reach out and tell them of our own belief in the Holy Spirit.

Let’s return to that question St John Kronstadt posed to us: “What is our responsibility toward Pentecost?” I think on this Pentecost it would be good for me and for each of us to accept our personal responsibility to reach out to others and to seek to communicate to them the power of the Holy Spirit to transform their lives. Now, none of us were present at that historical event in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. However, St Gregory of Nazianzus has preached on how the Holy Spirit comes upon each of us in our lives now just as He did upon the Apostles and the people in Jerusalem so long ago. St Gregory told of how the Holy Spirit always moves, and I quote, “by gradual increase … and progress from glory to glory, [so that] the light of the Trinity might shine upon the more illuminated…[The Holy Spirit] gradually came to dwell in the disciples. He measured Himself out to them according to their capacity to receive Him [at different times]: at the beginning of the Gospel, after the Passion, after the Ascension, making perfect their power [from Him], being breathed upon them, and appearing in fiery tongues….You see lights breaking upon us [in the same way], gradually,” preached St Gregory, “… [with the Holy Spirit] neither proclaiming things too suddenly nor yet keeping them hidden to the end,” concluded St Gregory [cited by Joanna Manley, The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox, p. 137-138].

As the Holy Spirit gradually deepens His presence within each of us, what is the Holy Spirit saying to us? The final sentence of the Gospel reading today from the Gospel of St John, chapter 8, verse 12, offers a clear answer—that Jesus Christ is “the light of the world” and that everyone, in all ages, who believes in Christ and follows Him “shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” A note on this verse in the NET Bible, Full Notes edition, comments: “The coming of Jesus [Christ] into the world [calls forth] judgment: A choosing up of sides becomes necessary. The one who comes to the light, that is, who follows Jesus, will not walk in the darkness. The one who refuses to come, will walk in the darkness…. There are only two alternatives… So it is with a person’s decision about [whether to believe in] Jesus [Christ],” concluded that note [note T in the NET Bible on John 8.12, p. 2021].

So be it, on this Pentecost. Let each of us decide today that with the help of the Lord we will continue to walk with Christ, the Light of our lives.

And so, we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages.              Father Emmanuel Kahn