PENTECOST: WHITSUNDAY

May 28, 2023

Christ Episcopal Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

 

Historians use several different methods to investigate the meaning and significance of past events. One technique is to try to reconstruct how people who lived through a particular event—say, for example, the American Revolution—experienced it as reflected in their speeches, books, journals, letters, and so forth. How did those involved understand, think, talk, write, and feel about what was going on around them in the times they were living through?

 

A very different method, which really doesn’t contradict the first one, is to look at the before and after, and to ask what difference the event made. So, to understand the significance of the American Revolution, we might compare life in the Thirteen Colonies in 1760 with life in the newly formed United States in 1800. What changed and what stayed the same—politically, economically, socially, and culturally? –And, at the most basic level, in the ways people saw themselves and the world they lived in? 

 

It’s a tricky question because some of the changes might have happened anyway. But once our investigations bring us to the point of being able to say with any degree of confidence that these are the differences the event in question made, then we’ve come a long way towards understanding the inner meaning and significance of the event itself.

 

“When the Day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” So often sermons and meditations take the first approach and try to describe what it must have felt like: the rushing wind, the tongues of fire, the ecstasy of praise, and the miracle of mutual comprehension among peoples of different languages. But such an exercise in imaginative reconstruction can take us only so far. In the end all we have is Saint Luke’s brief account in the Acts of the Apostles, and beyond that we cannot really know what the participants themselves actually experienced. 

 

I say this with all due respect to Charismatic Christians who claim that they regularly undergo for themselves the Pentecost experience in their worship. While I do esteem their tradition, the truth remains that participants in ecstatic forms of worship cannot know for sure whether their sensations, emotions, and feelings are really anything like those of the original disciples. Some experiences of people in the past are simply irretrievable.

 

So, a more fruitful avenue of exploration is to compare the before and after. And here we’ve got a bit more to go on, because Saint Luke tells us a lot about what happened pre- and post-Pentecost. The Jewish festival of Pentecost or Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, comes fifty days after Passover, For the disciples, it’s been fifty days since the Lord’s death and Resurrection, and ten days since his Ascension into heaven.

 

And what have they been doing? According to the biblical accounts, they’ve been meeting behind closed doors and praying. Despite having been privy to the amazing events of the Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, they haven’t yet begun to proclaim these events publicly. Instead, they’ve obeyed the Lord’s instructions to wait in Jerusalem until they’re clothed with power from on high.

 

The contrast of before and after couldn’t be sharper. Immediately, on the Day of Pentecost, the Church becomes a missionary movement going out into the world, preaching the Gospel, baptizing new converts, and growing by leaps and bounds. What makes the difference is clearly the Holy Spirit who has descended upon the disciples in the Upper Room.

 

This transformation is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the person of Saint Peter. All through our Lord’s earthly ministry, the apostles were slow on the uptake, not always understanding his teachings. Peter in particular could be somewhat obtuse—to the point where he confidently predicted that he would never abandon Jesus only to deny him three times the very same night.

 

But now, on the Day of Pentecost, all that changes. In the passage immediately following today’s reading from Acts, Peter stands up and preaches the Gospel boldly, confidently, and authoritatively, explaining to the crowds how the miraculous events they’re witnessing fulfill the scriptural prophecies. It’s the first of many sermons in Acts by which thousands of people are converted and baptized. Clearly, for the disciples, Pentecost is one of those pivotal moments after which nothing is ever the same again.

 

Many of us here today can probably testify that God has spoken and acted in very real ways in our lives. One of the privileges of being a priest is that people occasionally feel safe telling me of spiritual experiences that they normally don’t tell just anyone. These experiences may take such vivid forms as visions of heavenly beings, messages from angels, or even something as simple as resting in an overwhelming sense of peace in God’s presence. Very few of these individuals strike me as crazy or psychotic; and my first inclination is always to take these reports very seriously.

 

But somewhere in the conversation, I always try to ask: “Okay, how has this experience changed you?” For that question really is the key diagnostic in discerning the meaning. Not so much, “What did it subjectively feel like at the time?” as “What objective difference has it made in your life? In your sense of identity, purpose, mission, and calling? In your attitudes and behavior? And if a ready answer to that question isn’t forthcoming, then I usually take the opportunity to challenge the person gently to reflect on what God might be asking them to do as the result of this experience. For when the Holy Spirit moves in our lives, the effects are palpable and real.

 

Conversely, moments when we might not have felt anything much at all—such as perhaps Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation—often turn out in retrospect to have been really life changing. The key to discerning the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity isn’t so much what we did or didn’t experience at the time, but the before and after. What were the long-term effects, and were they good?

 

Our celebration of Pentecost marks a personal milestone for me. My first Sunday here at Christ Episcopal Church was the Feast of Pentecost last year. So, today I’m marking the completion of a full liturgical cycle here with you and the beginning of a new one. 

 

I’m confident that during this past year the Holy Spirit has been working through our ministries together, possibly in ways that none of us yet fully understand. God has been preparing this parish for its future—and maybe also preparing me for future ministries that I may be called to undertake elsewhere. And my hope is that maybe in three years’ time, or five years’ time, we’ll be able to look back and say, “Oh yes, now we understand, that’s what God was doing here at Christ Church during that Interim period when that Alexander fellow was with us. It wasn’t so clear then but it’s clear now.” For that’s so often how the Holy Spirit works in the life of the Church, and the world.