Acting in accordance with the reality of Pentecost
Pentecost is one of the three greatest events in the liturgical life of the Christian community. Often the very birth of the Church is directly associated with the day of Pentecost.
Since Pentecost is a significant church festival, it is worth seriously posing the question: was the event of Pentecost a true event?
It is possible to continue reflecting further if the answer is more or less affirmative.
So then, Pentecost is a historical event in Christianity, although a mysterious one and not entirely comprehensible, an experience full of surprises for the disciples and an irruption and outpouring of God’s presence over the customary order of the day of the prayer gathering. But why Pentecost?
In other words, what is the place of the event of Pentecost in world history, alongside such globally significant events for Christianity as the birth of Christ and the resurrection of Christ?
The history of Christianity, and also its present reality, unfortunately testifies that Christians, in organising themselves into institutions, influence and interest groups, as well as in the everyday life of their Christian life, live in complete denial of the event of Pentecost. Why? For at least three reasons, which I will mention with examples.
1. Race or ethnicity. Until the 1970s in the USA, there was racial discrimination in enrolling at certain Faculties of Theology or Bible schools. This meant that African Americans could not become pastors, because theological education was denied to them. Even now racial differences are felt in the separate existence of “white congregations” and “black congregations”.
2. Age. We do not really believe that the Spirit of God could use children, teenagers and young people to point out our mistakes or wrong attitudes. We do not accept criticism from children, teenagers and young people, because supposedly they understand nothing of the things of God; let them learn Bible stories, recite poems, and occasionally delight us with their singing at congregation festivals. But a child puts immense faith into their prayer, and if only we allowed the thought that children and teenagers too can truly pray, perhaps we would see mountains move?
3. Gender. The fact that women were pushed out of active participation in the deutero-Pauline congregations very early in the history of Christianity is a widely known and discernible fact, the consequences of which we taste even today. Human sinfulness, in all of these mentioned manifestations, has triumphed over the spiritual!
Paul wrote to the Christians of Thessalonica: “Do not quench the Spirit! Do not despise prophesying!” (1 Thess. 5:19,20) But none of us think that we could quench the Spirit of God, because God is God, and if He feels quenched, He will surely strike with lightning before our eyes or topple a cliff into the sea to draw our attention, so that we understand and obey.
Yet the Holy Spirit, who is a Person of the Triune God, is unfortunately not comparable to Allah in wrath, nor to the Greek Zeus, nor even to the ancient Hebrew interpretation of Yahweh-Sabaoth (God-Warrior). In the New Testament we come to know the Holy Spirit as the Creator of life, who caused the God-Man Jesus of Nazareth to be born. Afterwards the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness; the Spirit did not push or drive; going into the wilderness required Jesus’ own response to the initiative and his cooperation. A little later we encounter the visual interpretation of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament in the event of Jesus’ baptism. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove. But this does not mean that the Spirit of God is a small, winged creature! The Evangelists wished to say that the Holy Spirit is God, who can be ignored, hurt, grieved, blasphemed, quenched and even driven away. If this were not so, Paul would not have instructed the Thessalonians: “Do not quench the Spirit! Do not despise prophecies!”
On the day of Pentecost the Spirit descended upon the disciples in the form of tongues of fire. The Spirit came because Jesus’ promise of the Spirit, as foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament, was joined with the faith and will of the disciples. The Holy Spirit, in coming, did not make the disciples into an exclusivist little club whose members’ profile was carved in stone – a middle-aged Hebrew, male, speaking Hebrew and Aramaic. The event itself – the proclamation of the gospel message in other languages, so that every foreigner of every age and regardless of race and gender might hear the good news of a loving God who forgives sins – powerfully shows for what purpose the Holy Spirit had come:
“I will pour out my Spirit upon all the living,
and your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions,
even upon the menservants and the maidservants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.”
(Joel 3:1-2)
The Holy Spirit opened the doors in the upper room to the whole world! It is worth paying attention to the fact that Judas was not among the disciples, so their number was not 12, but 11. Moreover, Mary was present, spoke in tongues and preached the gospel together with at least 119 other disciples. One need not be a mathematician to observe the expansion from the exclusive “club of 12” to 120 disciples who preached in other languages inspired by the Spirit, and a further explosion to the 3,000 people who joined the first congregation on the day of its founding! Christianity with the Holy Spirit is a progressing phenomenon, not one that isolates itself! We do not know whether James, the half-brother of Jesus, was present with those 120, but James was certainly not with the 12. Yet according to Christian tradition, James was the first spiritual overseer of the Jerusalem congregation, in modern terms, the first bishop. Moreover, Paul too was not among either the 12 or the 120 disciples; Paul had not even physically seen Jesus, he saw the Lord in a vision, yet in the power of the Holy Spirit he was sent to the Gentiles, so that the explosion of the good news might sweep over all nations. Barnabas too, who was an apostle, was not among the 12 disciples. The nearer and the more distant disciples received power when they experienced the reality of the Holy Spirit! The purpose of such simplified counting is illustrative – the Holy Spirit is not an object that can be simply defined, one among many. God in general cannot be primitively defined and placed into our notions and conceptions. To Mary Magdalene, for example, Jesus, after his resurrection, commanded that she announce the good news to the disciples before the special event at Pentecost. The Samaritan woman too, in meeting Jesus at the well, and after deep theological discussions about worship, prophecies and personal life, became the evangelist of her city. This happened even before the Spirit had “officially” come. The Holy Spirit simply cannot be subjugated and privatised; the Holy Spirit pours out beyond measure, beyond the administrative and theological territories we have staked out, if we make the decision not to quench Him and not to despise prophecies!
Aļesja Lavrinoviča, editor
photo: One of the oldest churches in the world – the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) of Thessalonica, Greece