PENTECOST SUNDAY

PENTECOST SUNDAY

 

THE SPIRIT: FANCY TO POWER

 

Introduction

Natural phenomena are what most impress the imagination of humans—fire, lightning, hurricanes, earthquakes, thunder (Ex 19:16-19)—and these are used in the Bible to describing the manifestations of God.

The sacred authors also used images from nature to represent the outpouring of the Lord’s Spirit. They speak of the Spirit as the breath of life (Gen 2:7), as the rain that irrigates the land and transforms the desert into a garden (Is 32:15; 44:3), as a force that restores life (Ex 37:1-14), as a rumble from the sky, wind that blows strongly, thunder, and tongues of fire (Acts 2:1-3). All are dynamic images suggesting the presence of uncontrollable bursts of energy!

Where the Spirit descends, radical upheavals and transformation always follow: barriers fall, doors are opened wide; all towers erected by human hands and designed by “the wisdom of this world” shake; fear, passivity and quietism vanish; initiatives develop and courageous decisions are made.

Those who are disturbed by the status quo and aspire to the renewal of the world and of humanity can count on the Spirit: nothing can resist its power. One day a very disheartened Jeremiah asked himself: “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard his spots? And can you do good, you who are accustomed to do evil?”(Jer 13:23). Yes, is the truthful answer: every prodigy is possible where the Spirit of God irrupts.

 

To internalize the message, we repeat:

“The Spirit of the Lord fills the earth and renews the face of the earth.”

 

First Reading: Acts 2:1-11

Jesus promised the disciples he would not leave them alone and that he would send the Spirit (Jn 14:16,26). Today we celebrate the feast of this gift of the Risen One.

Reading the passage from the Acts we are amazed by the numerous “prodigies” taking place on the day of Pentecost: thunder and strong wind, flames of fire descending from heaven, and the apostles speaking languages foreign to them.

But, we wonder why God has waited fifty days before sending his Spirit upon the disciples.

To understand this page of theology (not a simple news report) we need to delve a little into the symbolic language used by the author.

Luke places the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. Yet, in today’s Gospel, John tells us that Jesus imparted the Spirit on the day of the Resurrection (Jn 20:22). How can we reconcile this lack of agreement on the date?

We must say at the outset: the paschal mystery is unique. Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and the gift of the Spirit took place at the same moment, in the moment of Jesus’ death. Recounting what happened on Calvary on that Good Friday, John says: “he bowed his head and Jesus gave up the Spirit” (Jn 19:30).

Why then did Luke present this unique, sublime, ineffable mystery of Easter as if it had happened in three successive moments? He did it to help us understand its many aspects.

John has placed the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Easter to show that the Spirit is the gift of the Risen One. Now we investigate why Luke situates it in the context of the feast of Pentecost.

Pentecost was a very ancient Jewish holiday, celebrated fifty days after Easter. It commemorated the arrival of the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. We all remember what happened in that place: Moses climbed the mountain; he encountered God and received the Law which was to be transmitted to his people.

The Israelites were immensely proud of this gift. They said that before them, God had offered the Law to other peoples. They had refused it, preferring to continue with their vices and excesses. To thank God for this predilection, the Israelites had initiated a feast: Pentecost. By saying that the Spirit descended upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, Luke is teaching that the Holy Spirit has replaced the old law and it has become the new law for all Christians.

To explain what he means we adopt an analogy used by Jesus: One day Jesus said: “Do you ever pick grapes from thornbushes; or figs from thistles?” (Mt 7:16). It would be foolish to imagine that surrounding the bramble with attention, pruning it, creating around it a milder climate would ever make it produce grapes. However, if—with the marvel of genetic engineering—one could possibly turn it into a vine, then any external intervention would not be necessary. The bramble would spontaneously produce grapes.

Before receiving the outpouring of the Spirit, the world was like one big bramble. God had given clear directions—a set of rules, precepts, many recommendations. He expected fruits, the work of justice and love (Mt 21:18-19), but these had not arrived because the tree was bad: “No healthy tree bears bad fruit … and the evil person draws evil things from the evil stored in his heart” (Lk 6:43,45).

What did God do then? He decided to change the hearts of people. With a new heart—he thought—they would no longer have any need of external law. They would do good by following the impulses coming from within them.

Here is the law of the Spirit: it is the new heart; it is God’s life. When it enters a person, it transforms him and from bramble, he becomes a fruitful tree spontaneously producing the works of God.

When a person is filled with the Spirit, an unheard-of transformation happens: He now lives with the love of God himself. From that moment “he does not need someone to teach him” (1 Jn 2:27); he will not require another law. John even says that the man animated by the Spirit becomes incapable of sinning: “Those born of God do not sin, for the seed of God remains in them; they cannot sin because they are born of God” (1 Jn 3:9).

And what about the thunder, the wind, the fire? It is clear from what we see in the book of Exodus in the phenomena that accompanied the gift of the Old Law: “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning and a dense cloud over the mountain … All the people in the camp trembled” (Ex 19:16). “All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning and heard the blast of the trumpet and saw the mountain smoking”(Ex 20:18).

The rabbis said that at Sinai, on the day of Pentecost when God gave the Law, his words took the form of seventy tongues of fire, indicating that the Torah was destined for all peoples (thought to be exactly seventy at that time).

If the Old Law was given amid thunder, lightning, flames … how could Luke present the gift of the Spirit—the new law in a less spectacular way? If he wanted to be understood, he had to use the same images.

And what of the many languages spoken by the apostles?

Most likely, Luke is referring to a phenomenon common in the early Church. After receiving the Spirit, the believers began to praise God in a state of exaltation. As if in ecstasy, they uttered strange words in other languages.

Luke has used this phenomenon in a symbolic sense to teach about the universality of the Church. The Spirit is a gift meant for all persons and all peoples. Faced with this gift of God, all barriers of language, race, and tribe collapse. On the day of Pentecost, the opposite of what happened at Babel occurred (Gen 11:1-9).

At Babel, people began to misunderstand and separate from each other. Here the Spirit enacts the reverse, bringing together those who are scattered.

Whoever lets himself be guided by the Word of the Gospel, and thus by the Spirit, speaks a language everyone understands, and everyone joins in: the language of love. It is the Spirit who transforms humankind into one family where all understand and love each other.

 

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7,12-13

What causes divisions within a community? Envy, reciprocal jealousy! Those who have good qualities (intelligence, strength, good health, education…) instead of humbly putting their talents at the service of the brothers and sisters, begin to expect honorary titles. They demand more respect and believe they are entitled to privileges. They want to occupy the first places, and thus the ministries – service – of the community, change from opportunities to serve and become opportunities to establish themselves, assert their power, and seek prestige.

In the community of Corinth, Christians were no better than those of today. They were committing the same sins; they had the same defects. Specifically, they were divided because of the different charisms (that is, various gifts) that each had received from God.

Paul writes to these Christians to remind them that the many gifts and qualities that each has are not given to create divisions but to promote unity. Paul says: “The Spirit reveals his presence in each one with a gift that is also a service” (v. 7). And this is so because the source of all gifts is one: the Spirit. Paul says: “There is the diversity of gifts, but the Spirit is the same” (v. 4).

To clarify this idea of unity and mutual service, Paul uses the analogy of the body. Christians form one body made up of many members. Each part must perform its function for the good of the whole organism. So it is with the different gifts with which every member of the community is enriched: they are given so that everyone can show his love through humble service.

 

Gospel: John 20:19-23

For the first Christians, the first day of the week was important because it was the day of the Lord (Rev 1:10), the day on which the community reunited to break the Eucharistic bread (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2).

In today’s Gospel, it is evening. The temporal indication with which the gospel passage starts is precious. Perhaps it is the late hour at which the early Christians normally used to gather for their celebration.

The doors are locked in fear of the Jews (v. 19). Jesus certainly did not announce triumphs or an easy life to his disciples. “You will have trouble in the world,” he said (Jn 16:33). However, the main reason for insisting on closed doors (Jn 20:26) is theological. John wants to make it clear that the Risen One is the same Jesus that the apostles have seen, known, heard, touched, but he is now encountered in a different condition. He is not back in his previous life (as was Lazarus’ experience). He enters in a completely new existence; Jesus’ body is no longer made of material atoms, and it is imperceptible to the verification of the senses.

The resurrection of the body is not equivalent to the resuscitation of a corpse. It is the mysterious blossoming of a new, eternal life within a finite being. Paul explains this fact through the image of the seed. He says that “the body is sown in decomposition; it will be raised never more to die. It is sown in humiliation, but it will be raised for glory. It is buried in weakness, but the resurrection shall be with power. When buried it is a natural body, but it will be raised as a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:42-44).

When Jesus shows his hands and his side, the disciples rejoice. A surprising reaction: they should have been sad upon seeing the signs of his passion and death. Instead, they rejoice, not because they find themselves in front of the Jesus whom they accompanied along the roads of Palestine, but because they see the Lord (v. 20). They realize that the Risen One, who is revealing himself to them, is the same Jesus who gave his life.

John places the manifestations of the Risen One in the context of the first day of the week. He wants to tell the Christians of his community that they too can meet the Lord. They will not encounter Jesus of Nazareth in the material body he had in this world, but the Risen One, every time they come together “in the Lord’s day.”

After having twice addressed them with the greeting “Peace be with you!” (vv. 19,21), Jesus gives His Spirit to the disciples and confers on them the power to forgive sins (vv. 21-23). The disciples are being sent to fulfill a mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (v. 21).

When he was in the world, Jesus made the face and the love of the Father present (Jn 12:45). Now, having left this world, he continues his work through the disciples on whom he confers his Spirit.

Welcoming him was to welcome the Father who had sent him, now welcoming his envoys is to welcome him (Jn 13:20).

To understand the mission entrusted to the apostles, the forgiveness of sins through the outpouring of the Spirit, we need to understand the religious concepts of the people of Israel and the words of the prophets.

At the time of Jesus, it was widely thought that the people were acting badly. They defiled themselves with their idols. They were unclean because an evil spirit moved them, and the righteous wondered when God would intervene to rescue them and instill in them a good spirit.

In the Letter to the Romans, Paul gives a dramatic description of the miserable condition of the person who is at the mercy of the evil spirit: “I cannot explain what is happening to me, because I do not do what I want, but on the contrary, the very things I hate ... I know that what is right does not abide in me, I mean in my flesh. I can want to do what is right, but I am unable to do it. In fact, I do not do the good I want, but the evil I hate”(Rom 7:15-19).

Through the mouth of the prophets God promised the gift of a new spirit, of His Spirit: “Then I shall pour pure water over you and you shall be made clean—cleansed from the defilement of all your idols. I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I shall remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I shall put my spirit within you and move you to follow my decrees and keep my laws” (Ezk 36:25-27).

This outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord would renew the world. He will flood it—said the prophet, Ezekiel—like a rushing torrent of water which, when it enters the desert, makes it fruitful and turns it into a garden. “Near the river on both banks there will be all kinds of fruit trees with foliage that will not wither and fruit that will never fail; each month they will bear a fresh crop because the water comes from the temple. The fruit will be good to eat and the leaves will be used for healing” (Ezk 47:12). They are delightful images that admirably describe the life-giving work of the Spirit.

On Easter day these prophecies are fulfilled. In a symbolic gesture—Jesus breathed on them—the Spirit is bequeathed. This breath recalls the moment of creation, when “the Lord God formed man, dust is drawn from the clay, and breathed into his nostrils a breath of life” (Gen 2:7). The breath of Jesus creates the new man. This man is no longer a victim of the forces that lead to evil but is animated by a new energy that drives him to do good.

Where the Spirit dwells, evil is defeated, sin is forgiven—canceled, destroyed—and the new man modeled on the person of Christ is born.

The mission that the Risen One entrusts to his disciples is to forgive sins, thus continuing his work as the “Lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world” (Jn 1:29).

What does it mean to forgive sins? These words have been interpreted—in the right way but limited—to the conferring on the apostles of the power to absolve sins. It is not the only way to forgive, that is, to neutralize and overcome sin. The right conferred by Jesus is much more extensive and covers all disciples who are animated by his Spirit: it is that of cleansing the world of every form of evil.

The powers are not two—to forgive or to retain—at the discretion of the confessor evaluating each case. The power is only one—that of annihilating, in all ways—sin. But what may be unforgivable is this: if the disciple, or minister, is not committed to creating the conditions so that all who desire to confess willingly open their hearts to the action of the Spirit. Here, the minister of the sacrament, not the penitent, has failed to ensure the sin would be remitted.

For this failure in his mission, the disciple is responsible.

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