Today, by celebrating the solemn feast of Pentecost, we are commemorating the birthday of the Church. The Church was ‘officially’ inaugurated on this day. The Christian feast of Pentecost has so much connection to the Jewish feast of Shavuot. The Hebrew festival of Shavuot is the Feast of Weeks. Pentecost comes from the Greek word for “fifty” since it occurs fifty days after another great feast, Passover. Shavuot was originally a harvest festival when people took the first fruits in gratitude to God for the land and its produce. The people gratefully remembered that the land was a gift from the Lord.
The Jewish Pentecost was also the day to remember the reception of the Torah (Law of Moses) on Mount Sinai. The new Pentecost happened fifty days after Easter when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. This time the Pentecost turned out to be an unusual event! It inaugurated a new age that enabled the disciples to preach the Gospel to all nations with courage (Acts 2: 1-13). God was re-creating the events of Mount Sinai in a new way. Humanity has received a new life through the coming of the Holy Spirit. The outpouring of new life with God has no boundaries.
When Jesus ascended to heaven, he commanded his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Then the Holy Spirit powerfully descended upon Mother Mary and the Apostles in the Upper Room, who were intensely praying. This new “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” enabled the first Christian community to extinguish the fire of evil by kindling a new flame of divine love in the world. The coming of the Holy Spirit transformed not only the lives of the disciples but everyone willing to listen and accept the Gospel proclaimed by them.
The wind and fire that the Holy Spirit brings, have the power to break down all the human barriers against the Good News. In a way, it was a recreation of Moses encountering God on Mount Sinai. The new burning bush, the Holy Spirit, powerfully transforms all those who are encountering the New Law. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read: “There appeared to them tongues as of fire… and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2: 3-4). In Greek Mythology, the god Prometheus who loved human beings had to steal fire from heaven to make them civilized. But here at Pentecost, God who unconditionally loves each one of us, freely and abundantly outpours the real fire of the Holy Spirit, to make us children of God. In the Old Testament, at Babel, different languages created chaos and disharmony, but at Pentecost, language became a means to unite man when everyone understood the language spoken by the Apostles. It is the new language of love proclaimed by Jesus which unites and transforms humanity.
The original and true face of the Church is visible in Pentecost. We need to follow and imitate this Church by rekindling our lives with the flame of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles, carried this divine flame to the ends of the earth, speaking the love of God, a language everyone understood. They cooperated with God to renew the face of the earth in the Holy Spirit. This is the opposite of the fire of bombs, wars, and quarrels which we see in the present world. The fire of the Holy Spirit does not destroy humanity but rebuilds into better persons in God’s love. The Church must be willing to renew itself with a new Pentecost. The Spirit of God is always at work as there is no Church without a Pentecost. Our Christian life must be constantly filled with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray that God may breathe his life, the Holy Spirit, into our souls so that we may transform this world for God.
Rev. Dr. Mathew Charthakuzhiyil