2. The First Christian Pentecost

 

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together.” Chapter 2 of the Acts of the Apostles which we began to read together, presents the solemn account of the first Christian Pentecost. I say this because Pentecost was a Jewish feast and had already been celebrated many times over the years and in previous centuries. Still, on that occasion, the Pentecost after Easter of the death and resurrection of Jesus, something extraordinary happened that marked the beginning of the Church’s mission. The day of Pentecost is the fiftieth.

Pentecost is a Greek term used by the Hellenistic Jews, who spoke the Greek language. It is the 50th day since Easter. It is counted seven weeks after Easter, so 7 x 7 = 49, and the closing day of the seven weeks, a symbol of perfection, is the fiftieth day. The feast in Hebrew was called ‘of the oaths’ or ‘of the harvest.’ It is the harvest festival, is the feast of the Covenant. It is the remembrance of the stipulation of the Covenant between God and the people of Israel at Sinai, after the departure from Egypt. Pentecost was the feast of the Covenant, and for the Jews of today, it remains the memory of the gift of the law, a quiet feast to be lived in memory and study of the law. The Rabbis said: What better way do we have to celebrate the law than by studying it? Therefore, let us spend the day of Pentecost studying the law.’

On the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, ten days after Jesus’ ascension to heaven, the entire community was in a meeting; they were together. That ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό- = epí to autó, as the Greek says, means not only that they were in the same place, but it also has a symbolic value of a union, of cohesion; they were united in the same purpose, were oriented towards the same end; and in that moment of ecclesial encounter, a theophanic phenomenon occurs. Luke uses a symbolic language, typical of the theophanies, that is, those events in which God manifests Himself, and the phenomena mentioned are those that characterize the appearance of God at Sinai.

“Suddenly, there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.” Notice that twice the narrator says ‘as’ – there is no wind, no fire, but there is a noise like wind, and there appeared tongues as of fire. Therefore, it is a symbolic reference to the impetuous wind and the fire that comes from heaven, a flash of lightning… a thunder… a strong wind.

It is a phenomenon of an earth tremor, but it is described in a domestic key. It’s like a sudden noise that opens the windows and brings in a violent gust of wind, and species of flames appear that land on the head of each one of those present. It is a symbolic descent that must be explained. All were filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God, which is called ‘holy’ because it belongs to God who alone is holy, is the Spirit, that is, life, is the creative force of God, it is divine love, and it manifests itself with this irruption.

The Spirit takes the form of a tongue of fire. The term ‘tongue,’ in this case, has a symbolic meaning. We can also talk about a ‘tongue of land’ on some promontory or call it the ‘tongue of shoes.’ The term ‘tongue’ is used in different senses, but it is chosen precisely because it is linked to the word. The tongue is not simply the organ in the mouth, but it is also the vehicle for language like English in our case, or Greek or Hebrew for the disciples of the first community. With the tongue, we communicate, and we talk.

Therefore, the tongue of fire is an image to indicate a divine capacity given to the apostles, to the whole ecclesial community gathered together. It is the holy fire; fire is an important symbol; it is the symbol of a time that passes; it is the image that heats, illuminates, consumes, transforms, and destroys. Fire has a positive value: it is light, is heat, gives the possibility to cook food, but also a negative meaning, destructive, the fire burns; if you put your hand inside the fire, it burns, leaving a negative sign. Remember that Moses’ vocation was linked precisely to this symbol. Moses is attracted by a burning bush that is not consumed. God speaks to Moses through a particular fire, which has positive rather than negative characteristics.

Thus, the tongue of fire that appears and lands on each of them is the sign of a gift of grace that is made to them to allow them to speak with the fire of God; it is the Holy Spirit compared to fire, that is, light, energy, heat, passion; love is often related to fire, to the color red, to flame. It is difficult to imagine cold love; heat is intimately linked to fire; it is a typical characteristic of love. The Spirit of God is manifested as divine heat, as light, as energy that makes the apostles capable of speaking to all humankind.

This immediate effect surprises the apostles and their listeners; they speak in other languages as the Spirit gives them the power to express themselves. Not that they automatically learn languages like English, German, French; they know the human language with which they can communicate with all kinds of people; they can transmit that important message of Jesus reaching the heart of each one. And this scene from the first Christian Pentecost is a symbolic figure of universal openness for Luke.

The apostles were inside. After the powerful manifestation of the Spirit, they come out, open the doors. They were afraid of the Jews, so they were locked up at home for fear of losing everything. Nothing has changed; the external problem remains; only now do the apostles have the courage to face the difficulties. They come out and start talking. The first listeners are all Jews, but, as is still the case today, Jews lived in Jerusalem from all over the world because for centuries the Jews were in the Diaspora, that is, scattered in various regions, and it often happened that Jews born in Mesopotamia or Gaul, or Cyrene decided to move and buy a house in Jerusalem; or go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Therefore, since it was a pilgrimage feast, there were observant Jews in Jerusalem from many different regions. The Jews of Rome speak Italian or Romanesque. Russian Jews speak Russian, American Jews speak English; if they are in Jerusalem, they are all Jews but from different languages. Therefore, the initial opening is not for all peoples, for all cultures, for other religions, but this openness is symbolized through the languages; the listeners are all Jews, but they come from many different nations.

With an exciting narrative artifice, Luke makes the crowd itself count where they come from. Employing a kind of geographical catalog that reviews the various peoples where the Jews had settled. It starts from the East: “We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia (now Turkey) Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Roma, both Jews, and converts to Judaism, Cretans, and Arabs.” The strange thing is that everyone hears them speak in their language and hears the great works of God.

The miracle of Pentecost, we would say, happened not in the apostles’ mouths but in the listeners’ ears. Jesus’ apostles dared to go out and announce the great works of God. It is the synthesis of apostolic preaching, the wondrous works accomplished by God in the historical intervention of Jesus. The Spirit enabled them to be courageous witnesses, able to announce. People showed up around the house where the apostolic community was gathered because they heard those strange phenomena, a gust of wind, a kind of thunder that looked like an explosion. They are spectators who come to them, and Peter offers them an explanation.

He presents the programmatic message. After the extraordinary event of the Spirit’s descent, Luke mentions the first kerygmatic discourse of St. Peter. Kerygma, in Greek, means ‘content of preaching,’ of the announcement; not the action of announcing but what is revealed. We call kerygmatic a discourse that presents the essential content of preaching. Luke certainly did not have the recording of this speech. Peter did not write the text; when Luke writes fifty years after this speech, he reconstructs it ideally and offers us an admirable example of kerygmatic synthesis; that is, it proposes the essential preached by the apostles from the beginning, from the first time they went out. They began to present the gospel of Christ.

People are amazed to hear this discourse and are amazed precisely because they perceive in their language that they feel that word applied to each one; they feel touched to the core. It is said to be nine o’clock in the morning; the time is specified precisely because some malicious person said they were all drunk, and someone else reacted by saying, ‘it’s only 9 am.’ It is not possible that they are already drunk at this hour. He is a ‘sober drunkard,’ as St. Ambrose will call him, that is, a ‘sober drunkenness’ produced by the Spirit that invaded the apostles and has allowed them to announce the great works of God.

Therefore, the kerygmatic discourse begins with a motivation: “You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem. Let this be known to you, and listen to my words. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘It will come to pass in the last days,’ God says, ‘that I will pour out a portion of my Spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”

Along with the other 11, Peter says: ‘Now is fulfilled that which was spoken by the former prophet. The apostles begin to interpret the Scriptures; the New Testament does not yet exist. They have made the experience of Jesus personally and are communicating it and explaining it in the light of the ancient prophetic writings of Israel. What they have sensed is the gift of the Spirit, as the prophet Joel had said. ‘Now the Spirit has been poured out, and we who have received it have the opportunity to communicate the message of God, to explain to them the meaning of his work.’

The second part of the speech: “You who are Israelites, hear these words.” It is a synthesis of the gospel story, a miniature gospel; with few features, the apostle speaks of Jesus of Nazareth, “a man commended to you by God with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs, which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him. But God raised him, releasing him from the throes of death because he couldn’t be held by it.” He told them about the public life of Jesus, his prodigious works, the tragic moment of death, and the glorious end of the resurrection.

“You crucified him” – the speech is made to the Jews living in Jerusalem 50 days after the events of Jesus’ death, and therefore Peter can tell them that they are irresponsible. They made the Romans condemn him, but the initiative was theirs, but God raised him from the dead. And the third part of the speech is an explanation through biblical quotes. Jesus is the one spoken of in Psalm 15: “You will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption.”

It’s not about David; it’s about Jesus. “David died and was buried, and his tomb is in our midst to this day,” actually, right next to the cenacle, but he was a prophet, and therefore, David foresaw the resurrection of Christ and spoke of it. In that psalm, he alludes to the Messiah, the son of David, legitimate heir to the throne, who will not see corruption, and Jesus has not seen corruption. They killed him, he was put in the tomb, but he did not become corrupt: ‘On the third day God raised him and appeared to us and chose us as his witnesses, and we are here to testify to you that Jesus is alive and is the Messiah and is the one who can save your lives.’

This is the perfect end: “Therefore let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Two important titles: the man Jesus was constituted Lord and Christ (Messiah). Christ alludes to the messianic quality of the king, but Lord qualifies him as Godlike because ‘Lord’ is the proper name of God. That Jesus, whom they crucified, is the Lord, and he is the Christ.

The listeners to this message feel challenged. For some, it will be a speech by a madman or a drunkard, while others take it seriously and ask, what should we do? And the training practice of Christian initiation begins. Three thousand people were baptized that day. The crowd accepts Peter’s speech and recognizes Jesus as Lord and Christ.