Pentecost was originally the ‘feast of weeks’, a festival celebrated after Passover and before Sukkot (see Exodus 34:22). It eventually turned into a celebration of being given the Law. It was the custom on that day to read the story of Ruth and that part of the book of Exodus that set out the heart of the Law (chapters 19 and 20). All in all, it was a celebration of the gift of God himself to his people. It was certainly an appropriate day for God to complete that gift by giving the Spirit to the new and frightened Church.
Luke tells the story of Pentecost very briefly, but every detail conjures up echoes. His story is full of poetic images. The powerful wind is like the noise that warned people that God was about to make his presence felt in a special way on Mount Sinai when Moses received the Law (Exodus 19:16). There was both wind and fire when God passed by the prophet Elijah on Mount Horeb, but after the noisy warning, God was to be found in the gentle breeze (1 Kings 19:11). ‘Breeze’ and ‘Spirit’ can be the same word in the Greek spoken by the first Christians. Luke may also have had John the Baptist’s words in mind – “he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16).
The Spirit gives the disciples all the gifts they need to begin their mission to the world. It is very practical. The first gift is one of being understood by every nation. The crowd that had gathered in Jerusalem for the festival came from all the nations of the Diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish nation all over the civilised world as a result of persecution after persecution. But Luke’s list of nations is very purposeful and carefully constructed. He begins in the East with Parthia, Rome’s traditional rival, and goes along through the Roman Empire, ending in the West with Rome itself. The countries he mentions along the way also appear in astrological lists where each country stands for a sign of the Zodiac. Luke really wants us to see that the Spirit moves the Church to speak to every nation under heaven.
The story of Pentecost takes its place in the grand scheme of God’s plan to save the world from evil. This story began with Adam’s sin of thinking he could manage without God. It includes the tale of the Tower of Babel which symbolises the fragmentation of the human race into nations that are incomprehensible to one another. Now, by Jesus’ death and resurrection, people no longer have to follow Adam’s way to death. They can follow Jesus to life. The gift of the Spirit heals over the divisions between people.
There is a great contrast between the state of the frightened little group of people hiding in an upper room, afraid to go out in public for fear of suffering the same fate as Jesus, and the confident and articulate proclamation of the Gospel to a world that is ready to hear it. The Spirit transforms Peter, the coward who denied Jesus, into Peter, the leader who has the confidence to speak as the Spirit moves him. The Spirit removes all obstacles and enables the new Church to speak and fulfil its mission even in the face of persecution and hostility.
This is not something that just happened a long time ago. The gift of the Spirit is given wherever it is needed. For example, the Church remembers Saint Carl Lwanga of Uganda this week. His superior, the lead catechist, was beheaded when he protested about the massacre of Anglican missionaries in 1885. Lwanga immediately took over and secretly baptised a group of catechumens in May of 1886. They were found out and he and eleven others were burnt alive on June 3rd. Carl and his friends were canonised in 1964 by Pope Paul VI who also declared that the Anglican martyrs are also “worthy of mention” because they too endured persecution and “death for the name of Christ”.
Author: C B Whittle