Pentecost – A Gift of God
(Note: The following is a modified version of a homily delivered at St. Stephen on June 3, 2012. As you would suspect, it was much longer and required much editing from the transcribed text. However, we offer this in hope that it will be a source of edification and blessing for you as you celebrate this special day.)
Acts 2:1-11, John 7:37-52, 8:12
On the Sunday of Pentecost each year (50 days after Pascha/Easter), we celebrate with rejoicing that God has indeed sent the Holy Spirit upon His Church and its people. and that all people may come to know Christ …. may come to know the gospel and eternal life.
Yes, it’s a great day of rejoicing for that first Pentecost in about 30 A.D. in Jerusalem (Acts 2), but I want to take just a moment to go back. I’m sure that almost all of us are aware of this but, just as a refresher and a reminder …. that the history of Pentecost goes back much, much farther then 30 A.D. and that incident in Jerusalem that day. The Jews had celebrated Pentecost a long, long time before that; in fact, for about 1450 years before Christ. You will remember that God had graciously and powerfully delivered the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt. They had been there for about 450 years; their life had been miserable; they were in slavery to the Pharaoh and to the people of Egypt. Generation after generation after generation of Israelites were born into a culture that was not their own, that was foreign to what God had meant for them. They were terribly mistreated, they were belittled, they were severely oppressed in all areas of their lives. They were not allowed to be themselves, they were not allowed to be creative, they were not allowed take initiative, they were not allowed to make decisions for themselves. It was just a miserable, miserable existence for the Jews in Egypt for those ten or so generations.
In the depths of their despair, they turned again and again to their God, seeking mercy and relief (several Psalms reflect these prayers). Then God heard their cries, …you remember? As we read in the book of Exodus (exodus means “the way out”), He raised Moses and prepared him to lead His people out. You recall, then, all those miracles that He performed through Moses to convince or to compel Pharaoh to let them go. Then, there was that dramatic scene at the Red Sea when God opened the waters for them to leave. They came through the Red Sea and out into the wilderness – on their way to what should have been about an eleven-day journey back to their homeland; but it turned out, as you recall, to be forty years for various and sundry reasons.
About two months after their crossing the Red Sea, they camped near the base of Mount Sinai down in the very southern part of the Arabian Desert. There, God did something that we must all remember as Christians. He gathered them there at the foot of that mountain (where later the Monastery of Saint Catherine was built) and summoned Moses upon the mountain. Speaking very clearly over many days, the Lord gave to Moses a pattern for the new life of His people. That life that was going to be completely different from the life in Egypt. He gave him first the Law – directives and instructions and guidance as to how a normal person made in the image of God should live. He very specifically lined out what they should eat, how they should behave, how they should relate to each other and on and on. Some people think that was too oppressive, but we have to remember that these people had made no decisions; they had no training and no help and no reasoning, as we would say, in all their lives. They were adults, but, in some sense, were just like little children. So, God said, “here is the way you should live”. You and I teach our children; we don’t just let them go and do what they feel like. We give them direction and instruction; teaching them in every little thing, “this is the way you do it”. That’s what God did with the Law (beginning with the Ten Commandments) when he gave it to Moses. He graciously gave them the new way to live. Also, while Moses was on the mountain, God gave him the plans for the tabernacle (or the temple). He gave them a way to worship. All they had known for generations after generation had been idols, idolatry, gods that didn’t even exist, gods that were oppressive, gods that just absolutely insulted and debased the people, gods that were idols. Now, the Lord gave them a way to approach the real living God who created them and who loved them. He gave them again detail after detail…build this, do it this way, and I will meet you there in the holy place.
There at Mount Sinai, 1450 years before Christ, God gave those people of Israel a new life, a new way to live. For the next 1450 years the people of Israel celebrated that giving of the law year after year after year. The longer they lived the more they realized, “He saved our lives. He saved our existence; He gave us something to live for. He made it wonderfully new for us. We were no longer slaves but free; free to be human beings, free to relate to the God who made us”, so they celebrated year after year. Within that Law, God ordained certain special feasts/ celebrations for the people to keep. One of those was the feast of Pentecost, known also as the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of the First Fruits. It was celebrated at the end of the harvest each summer (Exodus 23:16; 34:22-34). When the harvest had come in and they were thanking God for the bounties of the fields, they had the ingathering and then they celebrated the God who had allowed them to have this abundance of blessings. Generally, this celebration of the harvest and the giving of the Law lasted an entire week. Year after year, the thankful remembrance of God’s delivering them from slavery and abundantly blessing them with new life and sustenance was a very special time.
When Jesus came, He delivered mankind from the enslavement of sin and death. Jesus became, in a sense, a new Moses. God knew that man needed more than just a place to live, food to eat and outward material living. He needed something down inside, he needed to be free from the wiles of the devil and from all the temptations and all of the passions that provoke him day by day by day. His people needed a new way of living.
On Pentecost in 30 A.D., God gave a new life – a new way to live, not just outwardly, but inwardly as well. Jesus, during those weeks before his crucifixion, burial and resurrection, began to teach the disciples very intently. “I’m going to go away, I’m going to be killed, and I’m going to leave you. But I’m going to send you someone else. I’m going to send you another Comforter; One who will not just be with you but be in you. He will be there to help you; he’ll be there to guide you. He’ll be there to convict you of sin and righteousness and judgment. He will be there to pray for you and to intercede within you. He will be there to comfort you when you are down and depressed and when you’re hurt. He will be there to change your life day by day”. Saint Paul said, “… to transform us, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18). “The Holy Spirit will be there to assist you, to encourage you, to teach you the right ways. All in all, your life now will be living with and by and in the Holy Spirit.” So, when Jesus left, they were left with that promise. “Stay in Jerusalem until you receive that power from on high” (Luke 24:49). They did, and they waited for ten days after his ascension; they prayed. No one knows exactly what they prayed but St. Luke (Acts 1:12ff) tells us that they gathered together in that upper room where they had the Last Supper and they waited. They prayed – for what, they did not exactly know. Some things they did know however; they knew that their lives were confused, but they knew that Jesus had risen. They knew that Jesus had gone back to be with the Father. They also knew that there were adversaries outside that room. They knew their lives were in danger. They knew that they themselves still had a degree of doubt and fear. They were in there locked up because they were afraid for their lives. But, they prayed, “O Lord, send that promise”.
They also knew that life was not going to be easy. Jesus had told them that, “They hated Me; they are going to hate you. If they persecuted Me, they are going to persecute you.” (John 15:18-20). “It’s not going to be easy from now on. I want you to go into all the world and I want you to preach the gospel. I want you to change the world. He always said to them, you are going to suffer. You are going to suffer. It’s going to be hard and some of you will die. Therefore, they prayed that God would come and give them something. Give them something that would help and strengthen them to live their lives in such a way that when the end came, they would truly inherit the kingdom of heaven. They knew they needed help; they knew that.
On the day of Pentecost, fifty days after His resurrection, the promise was fulfilled; God gave them the answer to their prayer. The Holy Spirit came to them; there was a sound as of a rushing, mighty wind. There appeared tongues of fire resting on each one of them. The fire that came may be likened to the fire that came and consumed the sacrifice of Elijah many years ago. A fire like the fire that led them through the wilderness. A fire that was truly understood to be the presence of God; He was there. He was there with them, and that fire stood upon each one of their heads. The fathers of the Church remind us that Pentecost is not just the birthday of the Church corporate, which it is, but Pentecost is also a time of personal cleansing – of sanctification, of personal repentance, of personal renewal, of personally being in touch with God. The Lord told them to wait for ten days. I suppose that we certainly could say that in those ten days, each one of those 120 people who were in that room, no doubt reflected in their hearts – thinking of what they needed and where they were. They recognized their own sinfulness and their own weakness and their own shortcomings. They also recognized the challenge their Lord had set before them. Likewise, that is how we should approach Pentecost.
As we come to this day, we should come with a vivid awareness of our own faults and our own sins ….. not what everybody else is doing, but what I’m doing or not doing. Looking at where I stand with God. Looking at where my life is. Am I also enslaved, as it were, in Egypt, to my own passions and to the world around me? Have I been living abnormally, not being able to function as a God-blessed individual, one made in the image of God? Have I found myself turning more away from God than to God? Have I found myself giving my time and energies and affections to those things that will pass away? You see that’s where they were before Sinai; that’s where they were before Pentecost.
But God gave them, and will give us, a new way of living. You may recall that while they were going through the wilderness, there were several times when some of them came to Moses and wanted to turn back. It was too hard, it was too difficult, and they didn’t know what lay ahead. As they travelled through the wilderness they began thinking; “even though we were back there in slavery we had something to eat and place to live, etc.”. As ironic as it sounds, many of them said, “we don’t want to keep going; we want to go back”. We, too, may get drawn back into this world, back into those things that everyone else is doing, back into the way that seems to be the norm in our society. We may find ourselves “rendering unto Pharoah” but yearning for God.
It is then that we remember Pentecost …. and the new life in the Holy Spirit. It is the life of love – “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). It is the life of joy – “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). It is the life of peace – “Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you …… He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit”” (John 20:21,22).
May you all have a blessed Pentecost!!
Fr. Andrew
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