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Mike Doser, '90
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O'Malley's Best
Pentecost
The Church has many birthdays. Christmas, of course. Easter. You could even say a milestone on the way to the Church's coming alive was the appearance of Adam and Eve, or crossing out of Egypt, or the Annunciation. But, to me, this is the day for which all other days were preparing. All of the other days said, "Yes!" But Pentecost said, "Now!"
We borrowed Pentecost from Israel and “baptized it.” Passover celebrates the Exodus from Egypt, the inauguration of the new People of God. Pentecost hallows the 50th day after the Passover/Exodus, when Moses came down from Sinai, face radiant from encountering Yahweh. That 50th-day Covenant, Pentecost, was the inauguration of the Hebrew mission as a privileged channel of communication between Yahweh and humankind.
In parallel, the New Exodus was sealed in the events of the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, when Jesus went fearlessly through the desert of death and emerged more real and alive than any human being could ever have hoped to be. It was our Passover, our call. But the moment when that Covenant was ratified--from our side, the moment we accepted our mission, was the moment when the apostles emerged from the Upper Room, ablaze with the enlivening Spirit of God. Just as that Spirit, the divine energy of God, had been embodied in Jesus for 33 years, henceforward, it would now be embodied in us.
The Spirit appeared to them in "what sounded like" a great wind and "something like" tongues of fire. Now, if you consult the meteorological statistics of Palestine in about 33 A.D. to see whether there was a tornado that Sunday and a sudden outbreak of St. Elmo's fire, you miss the whole point. The description Luke gives in Acts, has nothing to do with a literal disruption on that eruptive morning. The fire and wind are symbols of a great, enlivening, unstoppable power--which had always been offered by God, but on this morning it was accepted. By us.
It’s the same "whirlwind" that brooded over the initial waters at the creation of the world, the same "storm" out of which Yahweh spoke to Job. It’s the same "fire" that inflamed the burning bush out of which Yahweh spoke to Moses. And the fire hovered not only over Peter, the pope, nor only over those first priests. It divided itself and hovered over "each of the disciples"--empowering even the nameless with the mission of Jesus. It was the calling to all who bear the name of Christ to exercise that same cauterizing, healing power of Jesus.
The disciples–which includes each of us--were sent out to teach all nations. But few of them went a'sailing. They brought the calling to those nearest them. Here, on this first of Pentecosts, we see them standing up to be counted, the cowards of Calvary, fearlessly proclaiming Jesus is Lord, that we are freed from the fear of death, that the Kingdom is come.
Despite the fact these men knew only Aramaic and a kind of pidgin Greek, their listeners understood them, each in his own tongue. Again, if one tries to find a literal method behind this first of simultaneous translations, he or she is missing the whole point. What this event tries to communicate, inadequately as all symbols do, is that the fragmentation of Babel had begun to be healed; the message of Jesus transcends all differences of language or color or nation or economic status. From now on, there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female. There is only the one Body of Christ, with its many and diverse members.
This new People of God which has been invaded by the Spirit is united, but richly faceted. A unity of diversities. There’s a place for liberal and conservative, raucous and timid, young and old, lax and scrupulous. As long as each of us grasps and accepts the core truths, we’ll compensate for one another's shortcomings and biases. The hand will not say to the eye, "I don't need you." The eye will not say to the foot, "I am more noble than you." We need our diversity, for the ears that are closed to one voice are opened to another's.
Your voice can speak to ears which can hear no other.
Does that frighten you? I hope so.
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