-- Pentecost icon by Ivanka Demchuk
The new language
Thousands of years ago, toward the beginning of human history, things were different: “Now the whole earth had one language and few words” (Genesis 11.1).
Humanity consisted of one, single society, and they were congregated in the flat geography of Shinar.
In their pride, they decided to build a “tower to the heavens,” which would be an idol to their own arrogant attempt at making themselves like God.
In order to save humanity from sealing their fate to be like the devil’s own self-destruction, the Lord confused their language, dividing the one society into many ethnicities and languages, with now too many words instead of just a few.
They thus scattered north, east, south, and west “abroad over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11.9).
This was the story of the Tower of Babel.
But at the Feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ, the scattered of Babel was utterly reversed. Instead of confusing the languages of human arrogance, God sent down the Holy Spirit to unify all the nations into one humanity, and one language.
At nine o’clock in the morning on Pentecost, the Apostles, the Theotokos, and others (totaling about 120 people) who had been gathered in the Upper Room, came out into the streets of Jerusalem, speaking that supernatural language of unity.
It was the language of the New Jerusalem. It was not ecstatic glossolalia. They were describing the “mighty words of God” (Acts 2.11), speaking in that transcendent, heavenly language – and in that transcendent speech, everyone who heard could understand – no matter where they come from or what native language they spoke.
When St Luke listed, in the second chapter of Acts, all the nations – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, residents of Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, and Rome itself – he was showing that the dispersion and division at the Tower of Babel were now being reversed.
The language of Pentecost was a Sign of the Comforter, making real in this life, and in this world, the Body of Christ, and the new culture of the New Jerusalem.
Pentecost is the reason
Pentecost is the reason why everything in the Gospel happened. In fact, you could say that Pentecost is the goal of the entire Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New. And you can go even further: Pentecost is the destiny for all Creation, all time and space – reality itself.
Pentecost is more than “the birthday of the Church.” It is the beginning of the transfiguration of humanity and all Creation, which will finally be fulfilled when “God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15.20).
“The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory … raised Him from the dead and made Him sit at His Right Hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and He has put all things under His feet and has made Him the head over all things for the Church, which is His Body, the fulness of Him Who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1.17, 20-22).
At Pentecost, we celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit in power, as the dawning of a new age of God’s work in the world. This Descent, at the Third Hour in the Upper Room and then spreading out into the streets of Jerusalem and from there to the whole world, depended utterly upon our Jesus accomplishing the Will of the Father.
This is the remarkable theme of Jesus’ talk with His disciples right after He washed their feet, just as a servant would do. In that talk, He let them in on the reality of what God the Father was doing – there was no deeper truth than what Jesus was telling them in that moment.
That is why we reverently listen, in silent awe, to the long first reading of the Twelve Gospels appointed for Holy Friday Matins (which is usually done in the evening of Holy Thursday). In John 13:31-18:1, Jesus mentions Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, four times.
In the fourth mention, Jesus makes clear that Pentecost was His Gospel Purpose: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16.7).
So Jesus did, in fact, “go away.” He did so at the Ascension, when “He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight” (Acts 1.9). There are ten mysterious days of silence between Ascension and Pentecost. The disciples remained in the Upper Room in constant prayer, just as Jesus told them to.
The prayer of the Ascended King
Meanwhile, Jesus has ascended to the Right Hand of God the Father. It is at this moment that “He entered into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but His own Blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9.12). “For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, which is a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9.24).
The Lord completely achieved the Father’s Will and utterly offered Himself as a sacrifice without reserve. He poured out His Life in the entire Incarnation (Philippians 2.7) and most climactically at Gethsemane and Golgotha.
So Christ united Himself with the world, in a union that cannot be broken. That is why John 19.34 (which the priest quotes at the piercing of the Lamb in the proskomedia) is so very, very important: “One of the soldiers pierced His Side with a lance, and there came forth blood and water.” At that critical moment, the earth became the Holy Grail, touched forever, prepared for eventual and total transfiguration at the Last Day.
And because of that union, Jesus was then able to ask for and to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples and to the world. “I will pray the Father,” the Lord had promised in the Upper Room, “and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever” (John 14.16).
And that is exactly what He did in those ten days between Ascension and Pentecost.
The Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was the answer to that prayer. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that is good happens outside of prayer. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1.17).
And no good gift is better than the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The marks of the Spirit
The Holy Spirit’s coming to us, the Spirit’s descent upon us, brings about the reality of belief and prayer and love. The Spirit in us is the actual principal of new life itself, which is our participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1.4). The Spirit folds us into the Life of Christ Himself and changes us into a New Creation (2 Corinthians 5.17), according to the image now of the Second Adam.
The Spirit transforms us into the Body of Christ. We are literally the abiding Body of Christ that persists in the world after His Ascension.
What is that New Creation like? What is a person like who has said yes to the Descent of the Holy Spirit? Who has said, like the Theotokos, “Be it unto me according to Thy Word?”
The Theotokos herself is the one who is the perfect image of a Spirit-filled Christian.
“By their fruits ye shall know them,” Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7.16). The fruits of the Spirit are not dramatic or spectacular. They are not weird or strange. They are, however, Salt and Light: “The fruit of the Spirit,” says the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5.22-23, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.”
Notice what is not on the list of the fruits of the Spirit: power, influence, wealth, fame, brashness, even speaking in tongues and miracle-working and signs and wonders are not on the list.
This should not be surprising. How could the marks of the Spirit be anything like the arrogance of the Tower of Babel? How could the Spirit of Christ – Who came as a meek servant – be at all associated with lust for power, wealth, and prestige?
The fruits of the Spirit, the real Signs of the Spirit’s presence, are like the Beatitudes: they are mysterious, quiet, almost hidden: “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth” (Matthew 6.3).
What being Spirit-filled looks like
What does a Spirit-filled Christian look like? Look no further than the Theotokos herself. And bear in mind that after Pentecost, except for a symbolic reference to her in Revelation 12.1-6), the Bible never mentions her again. Why the obscurity? Why wasn’t she at the forefront of visible history?
Because she is meek. Because she is gentle and kind. Because she is living and breathing in the fullness of love, joy, and peace Because even then she was interceding in fervent supplication for the Church and the world.
Nothing good ever happens unless it was prayed for. And because of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, an ocean of good things – many of which are never noticed – have been requested and bestowed. Many requested for you by the Theotokos herself. And by your Guardian Angel, by your patron saint. By your departed loved ones. And by your friends here in this life.
And every time you ask for mercy in Jesus’ Name, which is exactly what the Jesus Prayer is, when Jesus takes up your prayer in the Spirit and enfolds it into His own prayer from Himself to the Father.
We ought to get to the point where we pray the Jesus Prayer with every breath. And, as Fr Sergius Bulgakov (and others) pointed out, so should we pray to the Spirit, “O heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who are in all places and fill all things; Treasurer of blessings and Giver of life, come and dwell within us and cleanse us from every blemish and save our souls, O blessed One.”
And these requests are always answered, with the present and the presence of the Spirit Himself. Every time you pray for mercy, you re-visit Pentecost.
This is exactly why “God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son” (John 3.16), just so you may be “born of water and of the Spirit” and enter the Kingdom of God (John 3.5).
“The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or wither it goes: so it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3.8).
You belong in Pentecost. Pentecost is destiny and goal. It is life itself.
Celebrating Pentecost
Pentecost is the beginning of “the Last Days.” It is the beginning of the transfiguration of humanity and all Creation, leading up to the very Last Day when the Son will subject all things to the Father, and God “will be all in all.”
Pentecost is the “revolution of Eden” and its restoration. It begins the descent of the New Jerusalem and the overturning of the Fall of Man.
This descent, this revolution, this ongoing restoration is what is really meant by the words “renewal” and “revival” – two words that are over-used and in their over-familiarity have lost their meaning.
For these are utterly eschatological terms.
This is why so many of our people, in more classically Christian times and places, decorate their churches and homes with as much greenery (in tree branches and herbs) as possible.
This is why in the old days, when Pentecost was called “Whitsunday,” that young women dressed in white (which is probably where “Whitsunday” comes from), and in the following week, everyone would be on holiday from work and take long walks in the woods and the pastures.
They did this because Adam and Eve would walk with God under the boughs of the trees.
Churches would have proper festivals with picnics, dances, plays, and games. In England these festivals would be called “Whit-ales,” as the church would have brewed its own ale for the occasion.
Just think. The Church, back then, authentically led not through governmental power, but by joyful moral influence, through not only fasting but feasting.
What a surprising idea: that these common village festivals – even these “Whit-ales” – were such an immediate, vivid Sign and language of the true Pentecost, the New Jerusalem.
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