Pentecost (Whitsunday)

Acts 2:1-11
John 14:15-31

Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Isaiah 66:8

We could say rightly that Zion's labor was brief, for, after only ten days of prayer, the Church came forth as a nation born in a day. Christ, as touching his human body as Jesus of Nazareth, had stepped behind the veil when a cloud took him out of their sight. Then, on the Day of Pentecost, the infant Church was born in what we might rightly call the second chapter of the Incarnation. God the Word (λόγος) came into the world on the Day of the Annunciation, and showed himself in his Nativity when he was born in Bethlehem. He walked the earth as a man, and "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." (Acts 10:38) On the Day of Pentecost, the Church that waited so short a time in the womb, as they were together in prayer, was born to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ. He still goes about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, this time through the Church which is his Body. Make no mistake about it; when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, the Church was born just as truly as Christ was born in Bethlehem. Our ministry as the Church is his ministry, as he extends his Incarnation through us, and goes about doing good not only as far as one man may travel, but into every place on earth, preaching the Gospel in all the world as a testimony to all nations, gathering out of all nations those who are his disciples. The Church, his bride and his Body, believes and does works greater in number, just as the disciple Elisha did twice the miracles of Elijah the prophet, when a double portion of the same Spirit rested on him. (II Kings 2:9f, John 14:12)

Among the many people in Jerusalem, who had come for the feast, were pilgrims from various nations, that is the God-fearers and proselytes who were born as Gentiles, and either had begun to convert to Judaism, or had fully converted. Also, there many Jews of the Diaspora who lived most of the time in foreign countries. Although just about everyone in the Roman Empire spoke enough Greek to get by, as it was the international language, these pilgrims heard the disciples speaking in the languages of their own distant homelands. Anyone with genuine experience of such things knows fully well that this was not something uncontrollable, not the result of a trance or ecstasy, and certainly not emotionalism; the speaking was subject fully to the self-control of each one who spoke in these other tongues; but the words themselves were known only to those foreigners who heard the word of God each in his own native tongue.

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilæans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, where in we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome. Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

What were these tongues (γλῶσσα, glōssa) that we read about? How did they serve as a sign for unbelievers? Why did God choose a thing that seemed so weak and foolish that onlookers were filled with derision expressed in mocking words: "Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine." The Scripture goes on to say, "But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day." (Acts 2: 13-15) The many disciples spoke mysteries to God (I Cor. 14:2), understood by none of the local men. But to those who heard the truth spoken in their own tongues, by men who never learned to speak them, but were simply given utterance of praise and thanksgiving for "the wonderful works of God," this was not a thing to be treated with contempt, but with fear. It was a sign. The division of mankind into different nations through the confusion of tongues at Babel, was a curse that is undone within the Church. In Christ we are one Body, gathered by one Spirit from the four corners of the earth.

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. (Rev.5:9,10)

Peter had no trouble identifying what had happened, and doing so from Scripture:

But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:16-18 quoting Joel 2:28)

Peter had changed. He had been a natural man (ψυχικός psychikos-soulish) unable earlier in his life to understand why the Christ, the Son of the Living God, was ready and willing to take up the cross; later he was afraid and denied the Lord three times. But, now he stands on his feet boldly, not afraid of death, having his mind focused on the truth, able to understand and know from Scripture everything that had unfolded and was unfolding. He had been a disciple for more than three years, but now was closer to Christ than at any time when he beheld him with the eyes; for he was now part of the Body of which Christ is the Head. Many a time Peter had stumbled and tripped over his own tongue, and had failed to speak the right words on the night in which his Lord was betrayed. But, now he spoke with more clarity, more power and more authority than any prophet of the Old Covenant. He delivered the first Christian sermon, as he was now the fisher of men Christ had foreseen; his dragnet of words brought in about three thousand souls. The young Church, born in a day thrived with healthy vital signs.

None of this was man-made. The best efforts of organization could not have produced it; the most detailed planning could not have pulled it off. No human effort could have brought it forth in a day, because the nation born on the Day of Pentecost was chapter two of the Word made flesh. The Body of Christ now came into the world.

What is the life of the Church? It is the Holy Spirit present within us. What is the strength of the Church? It is the power (δύναμις) of God by his Holy Spirit, present within us. Who is it that takes fallible and failed human beings, lifts them up from the ground and sets them on their feet? It is the Holy Spirit present within us. Who is is that puts his word of eloquence and power on their once unclean lips? It is the Holy Spirit present within us. Who is it that fulfills his own purpose and will with flawed human instruments? It is the Holy Spirit present within us. Who makes Christ known among all nations of the earth to people of every race and tongue? It is the Holy Spirit present within us. Who has unlimited power, and works most effectively through us after we have come to the end of our own strength, and can go no further? It is the Holy Spirit present within us.

We know from the end of the Gospel of Luke that the disciples were forbidden to take this work on themselves prematurely, as if it depended simply on human power and wisdom.

Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. (Luke 24:45-49)

Frankly, in light of the foolishness of sinful men, it is very obvious that God's power and grace have never depended on anyone less than God himself. Never think that we, as the Church, have succeeded in anything simply by our own human cleverness, or our best laid plans, or our own strength. We have an organized structure, but the permanent shape of that structure was revealed and enacted by the Holy Spirit. The whole life of the Church is charismatic (χάρισμα); from the receiving of Scripture to the Sacraments, from the Apostolic Succession to the faithful service of each member.

Indeed, St. Paul, speaking in the context of spiritual gifts, even goes as far as to call the Church by the name of Christ himself: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ...Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (I Cor, 12:12, 27) So, I have not spoken carelessly in saying that the Church is part two of the Incarnation. The Jesus who goes about now doing good and healing is none other than the Body of Christ and members in particular. He does his work through you, through his Body the Church, by the Holy Spirit, the other Comforter who is with us and in us.

The day of Pentecost was a feast in the Law of Moses when the first sheaf of the harvest was waved before the Lord. It was also the same day that the Lord had descended on Mount Sinai, when the whole nation of Israel heard the voice of God as he spoke his ten commandments. Therefore, it is quite fitting that the Lord Jesus foretold the outpouring of the Spirit in terms of his commandments. "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth." Therefore, if we remain faithful to him, we continue to take part in his Incarnation as the Church, the Body of Christ. For his Spirit not only comes upon us, but abides within us always.

The Collect - Whitsunday

The Prayer

O God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Commentary

The Collect for Pentecost appeared in the first Book of Common Prayer (1549) and prior to that in the Sarum missal and in the Gregorian sacramentary.

The 1979 ECUSA prayer book substitutes “through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord” for the traditional words: “through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior” (p. 227). Marion Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book does not give an explanation. It may be that Hatchett didn’t consider the change significant, but given ECUSA’s decades-long slide in apostasy, the change suggests that the traditional words posed a problem for the Standing Liturgical Commission. One wonders how it is possible to call Jesus Christ “Lord” without first acclaiming Him “Savior”?

Note that the traditional Collect is addressed to the Father who sends the Spirit to teach and illumine the hearts of the faithful. It petitions the Father that, through the same Spirit, we might have right judgment and rejoice in his holy comfort. The fundamental teachings of the Church are all here: The Father sends the Spirit. The Spirit teaches, illumines, comforts and makes right judgment possible. All is accomplished through the merits of our Savior Jesus Christ, who is one with the Father and the Spirit forever. The Collect focuses less on the signs and wonders of Pentecost than on the nature of the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity. This prayer, like so many in the Book of Common Prayer, has the quality of catechesis.

Now compare the Collect to this contemporary Church of England Collect, which is addressed to the Holy Spirit:

Holy Spirit, sent by the Father,
ignite in us your holy fire;
strengthen your children with the gift of faith,
revive your Church with the breath of love,
and renew the face of the earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the Church of England, those who favor traditional language continue to use the 1549 Collect, but it largely has been supplanted by this contemporary option which stresses signs of the Spirit with these verbs: ignite, strengthen, revive and renew. There is nothing theologically amiss with this contemporary Collect. It simply lacks depth. It fails to take up to the greater Trinitarian mystery concerning the will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The Meditation

There is great wisdom in the old prayers. Here is yet another example of the superiority of the old to the new. The Church is founded on the reality that God has sent both the Incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit. There can be no separation of the two because They form a single divine mystery which is akin to the mystery of creation, but much greater.

The working of the Spirit after Pentecost is distinct from the work of the Spirit before Pentecost because the Spirit now works in a new reality, the Church. This great Collect reminds us that the Holy Spirit is sent to the Church, not the world, because just as the world received Him not, neither does the world receive the Spirit, the Giver of Life. But those who receive Him, receive the Spirit, and to such are given the power to become the sons of God.

Alice Linsley

Whitsunday

This picture is from Monasatry Icons

I am still in the process of moving. I wrote this and preached it at Saint Andrew's in Easton Maryland, in (if I recall the year correctly) 2003. Soon I will be back there.

The Feast of Pentecost

This day is the day in which the Church was born, in which a small band of disciples became the Body of Christ. This is the day in which that small band grew very suddenly from five hundred to thirty five hundred only to continue growing. Men who, just a few weeks earlier, had argued over who would be the greatest, who had hidden in fear, who briefly had doubted Christ’s resurrection until seeing Him face to face, stood tall and unafraid as leaders and as fishers of men. St. Peter, who only a few weeks before had denied the Lord for fear of his life, now rose up as fearless as any hero that ever inspired the writing of songs. Through these men the very same miracles that Christ had wrought, and greater in number than He had done, gave proof of His Gospel; the lame walked, the blind saw, the dead were restored to life, demons were driven out of the afflicted and possessed. What gave such power and courage to these same men who, in the four Gospels, never had come across as being impressive?

The answer is simple, but it is so hidden to the eyes of those who cannot believe that it may as well be very complicated. The simple answer is, they were filled with the Holy Ghost.

The very first thing that becomes evident is the sound of them preaching the truth of Christ in foreign languages that they had not learned. We would expect them to speak Aramaic, and to speak and read Hebrew. We would expect that they could address these same people in the Lingua Franca, or the "English" of their day, that international language, Greek. But, they spoke directly to men’s hearts in the local languages of their various homelands, the apparent mastery of the tongues themselves serving as a sign, a miraculous sign that the Logos, the Word who had been made flesh, is the Master, as in the Lord, of all communication. His word is for all people, for every kindred and tongue, people and nation. As man, in his sinfulness, was divided by the sentence of God at Babel, so the scattered peoples of the earth are gathered as one in Christ, who speaks to all in their own tongues.

When we look at the reading from the Gospel of John, we learn that the Church never was designed to function without the Holy Ghost. He is the Comforter, which is Paraclete in Greek; that is He comes to our side, pleads for us and gives us aid. “Comfort,” in the mind of the readers of the King James Bible when it was translated, did not speak of a cushion that helps us to relax and go to sleep. The meaning of the word is found, really, in the second syllable, in fort, as in fortify- to strengthen. We see that fortification in St. Peter, who, knowing the sentence of death that only weeks earlier had been passed on Christ, nonetheless had the courage to rise to his feet, to preach and to take his role of leadership as the shepherd of Christ’s flock. We hear, in his spontaneous sermon, wisdom from God, as he opened and explained the meaning of the Scriptures, unraveling the mysteries of the ancient prophecies with ease and conviction. This simple fisherman had the power to persuade men’s hearts as if it were a learned and mastered skill; just as he had, years before, thrown out his dragnet and hauled in large catches of fish, so now he is a fisher of men, converting three thousand people with a single short homily. In St. Peter’s sermon we see, as in every other utterance of the Holy Ghost through the apostles, the clear and straightforward doctrine of Christ exactly as we know it to this day, as we say it in our creeds, as we pray it in the whole of our liturgy, as it is found on every page of scripture, and as it is especially clear in the New Testament. This, that we believe today, is the same Gospel that was preached on that day.

And, beginning that very day, the Church began to live in a way that had order and understanding. It was there from the very first. It had, as the rest of the chapter tells us, organization as if everything had been planned. This is because it was ordered and organized, not by twelve men who somehow could keep up with over thirty five hundred people growing in number daily, but because the Lord was among them, ordering and organizing His body, doing so in the Person of the Holy Ghost. They followed the teaching of the apostles, and set about worshipping God, and spreading their new Christ centered life to their neighbors. But, this was not because the twelve had any ability or time to micro-manage the Church. It is because the Church was alive, and it quickly heeded and absorbed their teaching, allowing them to be Christ’s representatives to the world, and to a city whose rulers were hostile.

The only plan God ever gave to the Church was for it to be ordered and organized in this way until Christ returns. As I said, it is not designed to function without the Holy Ghost. This brings us to another title by which Christ calls the Holy Ghost in the Gospel reading. He calls Him the Spirit of Truth. He is said to be the One who teaches the Church. A very simple principle for Christians is that no authority is higher than the truth. The Truth is Christ, and without Him nothing can be known that saves us and leads us to God. Without Him God is unknown and unknowable. But, the scriptures warn of another christ and a different spirit; St. Paul in his second Epistle to the Corinthian church warned of false teachers who preach another christ, another gospel, and who have a different spirit. St. Peter warned that these false teachers will be believed by many because they scratch itching ears. What they say feels good to hear; that is, it feels good and provides comfort, the wrong kind, the cushion kind of comfort, to that sinful fallen man within each of us.

But, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth comes to us to speak to us of Christ. In so doing the Holy Ghost is the Lord within the Church; He is God among us and within us. He guides into all truth; He cannot contradict Himself; He cannot change His mind. He guides the Church into all truth never by introducing new ideas, and never by keeping up with the spirit of the age. The world around us, that same world that did not know Christ, that received Him not, does not know the Holy Ghost, and receives Him not. But, a different spirit is easily received, either through flattering the mind of man by fashioning a god agreeable to him, or through enticing all of his lusts by proclaiming another gospel that urges no repentance, no resistance to sin.

St. Paul also told the Corinthian Christians that the Lord within the Church is the Holy Ghost, and that through Him we know God “whose service is perfect freedom (to quote the Prayer Book).” He said to them “Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (II Cor. 4: 17).” The different spirits, the spirit of the age who tempts us to “keep in step with the times” and accept ourselves as we are at our sinful worst; the spirit of heresy that cannot humbly accept the truth about God’s transcendence and our own limitation as creatures who will never fully comprehend Him, and many other different spirits with their different doctrines, do all they can to insist that their way is the way of liberty. But, only the Holy Ghost leads into the way of liberty, for liberty can come only through self-denial and obedience to the commandments of God, by which we escape the corruption of worldly lusts, and become partakers of the Divine nature. Without immortality, which comes only by the risen Christ, freedom is an illusion; but the different spirits, the many different spirits, promote only sin and death.


We must learn to depend upon the Holy Ghost for all of our strength; He gives us power. Not the power that the world gives, but the power to do the will of God. The same power that does, in fact, work miracles- for as catholic people we know better than to believe any strange doctrines that God has ceased to work miracles. He never changes; He is still the Creator, bringing light out of darkness, and life from death. We must depend on the same power by which Christ rose from the dead; He made Himself helpless and gave Himself over to death for our sins. The power that He trusted in, to make of His dead body a new immortal body that would make Him the first born from the dead, was no earthly power. That is the power we trust for our own eternal life; but also this is the same power by which we may do the will of God here and now in this life. For everything we are called to do is impossible by any lesser power. The Church cannot be the Church without the Lord of the Church, the Holy Ghost. It can be a club, it can be an organization, it can be respectable- indeed very respectable by the standards of the spirit of the age. But, to be the body of Christ, with the words of knowledge and words of wisdom, with diversities of administration but one Lord, with miracles and healing, with prophecy and the interpretations of tongues, which has martyrs and saints, and which can do and does every other impossible thing that man cannot do, the Church needs the Lord, the Holy Ghost alive and powerful in the midst of it

We have seen what a faithless group of men, a branch broken off of the church, can do. It can lose the sacraments by rejecting the God who makes sacraments. It can throw away the truth by rejecting the Spirit of Truth, and by forgetting everything He has taught since the beginning. It can use His name, and blame all of its sinful innovations on the Holy Spirit, giving Him credit (or blame) for doctrines He has never taught, which He abominates and of which He has expressly warned us through the prophets and apostles. It can, as a result, become an anti-Church with an anti-Christ.

We need the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God to be the Lord in the midst of us, mighty and who will save, who gives rest in His love, and joys over us with singing (Zeph. 3:17); we need Him to raise the standard against the enemy of our souls, to do what cannot be done by might or by power, to come down as the former and the latter rain, to bring forth within us the fruits of good character with faith, hope and charity, to make His sacraments by his power as Creator, to overcome death itself. Therefore, we must be faithful to all that He taught our fathers in the ages past. He has been guiding the Church, as Christ promised, into all truth. Among the gifts we are given, the gifts among you and in you by the sacrament of Confirmation, is the unction or anointing by which we know all things. The reason why you recoil from false teaching, from ideas that are foreign to the Tradition of the Catholic Faith, is because the Spirit of Truth is teaching you. The ones who have taught themselves not to heed His voice, and who have joined the ranks of the world that neither sees Him nor knows Him, just as they do not receive Christ, may congratulate themselves and suppose that they have liberated themselves. And they may press on with a sense of religious mission, never considering that they now have become the servants of a different spirit and another christ.

But, to have the Holy one of Israel in the midst of us, to have Christ’s Spirit living within us, we must embrace and contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), knowing certainly that the same Spirit of Truth that has been speaking to the Church from the beginning never changes His mind. He is a far better friend, and more powerful ally, than the spirit of the age, or any of the different spirits that are called, falsely, by His Name.


And now unto God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power, glory and dominion, now and forever. Amen.