1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, all of them were together in one place. The Lord Jesus promised his disciples that he would send the Parachlete to abide the Church. We read in the Acts of the Apostles (Chapter 2) that the promise was fulfilled on Pentecost Sunday. The Apostles and the Holy Women were gathered together to pray. The Holy Spirit fills the room with the sound of a great wind, reminiscent of the ruah of God that moved over the waters in Genesis 1.2. The Holy Spirit appears in the form of fire, descending upon the people in that room as tongues of fire. The hearts of the weak are strengthened and they begin to speak about the wonders which they have experienced in the time when they have known Jesus. They begin to proclaim the Mirabili Dei, the mighty deeds of God. When you consider how vitally important the event of Pentecost proves to be in the life of the Christian Church, it is all the more remarkable that the account in the second chapter of Acts of the Apostles is so short and lacking in detail. We are not told where the Christians had gathered, the sound is compared to wind, it is stated that the Christians themselves are the ones who see the fire, not the onlookers. “The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13) has exercised such powerful influence over the Christian imagination that it is somewhat startling to realize just how slender and spare an account it is. The description of the event itself takes only four verses (2:1-4), and is extraordinarily circumspect; the major part of the passage concerns the response of observers (2:5-13). In terms of empirical phenomena, there is just the noise that fills the house, and the speaking of the community in diverse tongues. The sound is compared to a strong wind blowing, and the tongues that "appear to them" (the disciples, not the crowd) are again compared to fire.” Johnson 45 Pentecost as the new creation The Church is a new creation. Its life comes from the infusion of the ruah of God. This new creation is founded in the middle of great confusion. Out of all this confusion comes order and greatness. The author of Acts of the Apostles is, I believe, attempting to remind his first listeners that the Pentecost is the creation by God of a new world, based on a new and eternal covenant. What is the meaning of Pentecost? 1. 50 days of harvest 2. A week of weeks 3. The giving of the Law Luke Timothy Johnson doubts if the feast had that significance at the time of Christ. The connection between the giving of torah and the fiftieth day after Passover appears to be of a later origin. Even if this is true, though, the images of fire and wind have significance in speaking about God’s law in Talmudic sources. The gift of tongues Let us read from a sermon of the fifth century African bishop Augustine of Hippo on the events of that Pentecost Sunday. I mean, just as after the flood the ungodly pride of men built a high tower against the Lord, and the human race was deservedly divided by languages, so that each nation would speak its own language and thus not be understood by the others; so in a similar way the devout humility of the faithful has brought to the unity of the Church the variety of their different languages; so that what discord had dissipated charity might gather together, and the scattered members of the human race, as of one body, might be attached to their one head, Christ. What is the significance of the tongues of Fire The importance of unity in God’s plan does not refer only to the Church. The entire plan of Creation stands as a testimony to God’s wish that there should be unity in all things possible. It seems that Augustine believes that God simply created one of each species, one horse, one bird and one fish. Then the Lord commanded that the earth bring forward all the others. The Unity that is dear to God’s heart is represented in this way of creating. “Let the earth bring forth the living soul of all the cattle and the wild beasts.” (Genesis 1:11, 20, 24) The same thing applies to the creation of the human race. God created one human, Adam. Even Eve was brought forth from the side of Adam. God’s concern was to give us an example that unity in all things is his will. He was not even willing to make two separately, a male and a female, but just one man, and from the one man one woman. ‘Why so’? Why is the human race begun from one person, if not because the importance of unity is being impressed upon the human race. Sermon 268, 3 New wine and new wineskins Interestingly, the ecstatic response of Christians to the coming of the Holy Spirit has often been spoken of as inebriation. Augustine speaks of the power of the Scriptures; “Verbum Dei inebriet me.” “The Word of God inebriates me.” New wine needs new wineskins. The old covenant was contained in its old wineskin – the Law. But the new covenant cannot be containing in the Law given to Moses. The depth and wealth of the new relationship between God and man needs new wineskins. These new wineskins are the gifts of the Holy Spirit; the primary skin is love. I would also remind you that wine is usually associated with a wedding or betrothal. Is it possible that this mention of wine and drunkenness is intended to reminded us of the marriage that is now celebrated between the spirit and humanity? Perhaps the mention of wine is to remind us that anew marriage covenant is sealed that day. There is a new Law, a new Pentecost, a new covenant.
by Father Kelly
The Holy Spirit fills them
2. Suddenly there was a sound from heaven like that of a strong wind blowing. It filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3. Individual tongues as of fire appeared to them and sat upon each one of them.
4. All were filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in other languages just as the Spirit gave them to declaim.
5. There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven dwelling in Jerusalem.
6. When this sound occurred, a crowd gathered. They were confused because each was hearing them speak in his own language.
7. They were astonished and amazed. They said, "Look, are not all of these people who are speaking Galileans?
8. So how can each of us hear in our own native language?
9. Parthians and Medes and Elamites, as well as dwellers of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10. Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya around Cyrene; also those of us visiting from Rome,
11. both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs: in our own languages we are hearing them speaking of the great deeds of God."
12. They were astonished and confused, asking each other what this meant.
13. But others mockingly declared that they were filled with new wine. (Acts of the Apostles 2:1-13)
Luke presents us with a descent of the Holy Spirit quite unlike John’s. Christ has already left the Apostles in Luke and they have to wait ten days for the Parachlete. In John, the Apostles receive the Holy Spirit from Christ on the evening of his resurrection. He breathes on them, and fills them with the Holy Spirit. Here in Luke, we are fifty days later, and Christ has ascended to the Father. The room is filled with noise and fire. God’s spirit is breathed over them, but not by Christ himself. Just as the spirit had breathed over the darkness and chaos of the primordial world, so now, he breathes over the chaos of the primitive Church. In Genesis 1:2, it is the breath of the spirit of God that acts as an organizing principle for all the new order of things. At Pentecost in Luke, it is the Holy Spirit who fills the Church with purpose and courage to go out and proclaim the Good News.
The word Pentecost means ‘fifty days’. In Jewish tradition, this was the feast of weeks. Its name was drawn from the fact that it was the end of a seven week festival period when the barley harvest was brought in. (Leviticus 23: 15-16 and also Deuteronomy 16: 19) It is fifty days after the Passover.
In the early Church the number fifty was taken as providential. Fifty is made up of seven times seven plus one. Seven is the number of God’s completeness. Therefore seven times seven implies that on that day the total fullness of God is revealed and even more. Therefore, the descent of the Holy Spirit is to be interpreted as the full imparting of God’s grace and presence on the Church.
The Jewish feast of Pentecost also celebrated the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. The mountain is shaken with God’s thunderous presence. God came in the fire that enveloped the mountaintop. We can see that Luke may be drawing from the images of Exodus to convince his early Christians listeners that Pentecost is not only a feast in memory of God’s coming down to Moses, but that it is equally a day when God came down to the Church. Israel was visited by a fiery theophany of God long ago, but the new Israel is allowed a theophany* on Pentecost Sunday so that all will know that a new covenant is sealed in the death of Jesus. Luke timothy Johnson refers to the thunder, lightning and wind as “the pyrotechnics of theophany” Johnson 45
“And Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD had come down on it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke from a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And the sound of the ram's horn grew stronger and stronger. Moses would speak, and God would answer him with voice. And the LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the mountaintop, …” (Exodus 18: 19)
“Still, it is tempting to be distracted by the allusive symbolism used to express the event. What connection is there between Luke's description and the symbolism associated with the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Pentecost)? In other accounts dealing with the outpouring of the Spirit, after all, Luke mentions speaking in tongues (10:46; 19:6), but nowhere else does he have sound or wind or fire. The real difficulty here is determining what symbolism was available to him when he wrote.” Johnson 45, 46.
Those who are in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of the fifty days- Pentecost, can all hear the message of the Apostles in their own languages. The barriers of national languages and culture cannot block the flood of the Holy Spirit. This reminds us of the story of the Tower of Babel, where God confuses humans who attempt to build a tower to ascend into heaven. The people are full of pride and arrogance, and so God confuses their ability to understand each other so that they cannot carry out their evil plot. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowers people to understand the message of the Church whatever their place of birth or ethnic background. What was divided at Babel is reunited at Pentecost.
Traditionally, fire is a sign of God’s Holy Spirit. The fire appears as one fire firstly, and then separates into individual tongues which settled on the heads of all present. The unity of the fire represents the Oneness of God. But it also represents the unity of the One Church. The same Spirit indwells within all the Church; there is only one baptism and one Holy Spirit. Therefore, in the manner of the coming of the Holy Spirit, there is a pre-figuration of God’s desire that the Church should be united.
Acts of the Apostles tells us that there were skeptical people that day who believed that the Christians were drunk. “They have had too much new wine” No doubt, the inebriation of the Christians by the fire and fervor of the Holy Spirit looked like drunkenness to bystanders.