Sermon for the Day of Pentecost
“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit”
Pentecost is a fascinating spectacle, perhaps even more fascinating than the fashion ‘fascinators’ of yesterday’s beautiful and moving royal wedding, a scene at once of pomp and circumstance and of piety and devotion, of joy and love. There is more to it than simply what meets the eye. Even more so with Pentecost.
It begins with the titles: “The Day of Pentecost Being the Fiftieth Day After Easter commonly called Whitsunday,” which at once recalls an ancient Jewish festival celebrating the first-fruits of the harvest of grain fifty days after the Passover and the Christian festival of Christ’s Resurrection, Christ being “the first-fruits of them that slept”. Pentecost has very much to do with the life of Christ in us, it seems, but that life is one that draws us into the very life of God as Trinity, the point which the Gospel makes clear. Through the coming down of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, Jesus says, “we,” meaning God, “will come unto him,” meaning those who “love [Jesus]” and “keep [his] words.” Only so will we find our abiding in the love of God.
The liturgical colour for this day in the tradition of the Church is red and yet Pentecost is commonly called Whitsunday, literally, ‘White Sunday’. That seems confusing and paradoxical. Why Whitsunday? Because this day, too, like Easter is about new life and new birth, a day in which baptisms and confirmations also took place, a day when souls were joined to the great spiritual company of the Church Universal “having washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” recalling Christ’s sacrifice and our participation in the work of human redemption. The colour red also refers to the tongues of fire which came down upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem. And so it becomes the symbolic colour for the Apostles, meaning those who are sent having learned the things of God.
And if that is not confusing enough, we have the whole fascinating spectacle of Pentecost as “a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind” and “cloven tongues, like as of fire,” “rest[ing] upon each of them.” Wind and fire are strange and evocative images, elusive and yet significant, that speak profoundly to the spiritual mystery of God. There is more to Pentecost than what meets the eye. More than appearance there is the reality of Pentecost and its meaning for us in our lives, our lives in the spirit, our lives as spiritual beings. The Holy Spirit is often symbolised as a dove, the dove of heavenly peace. The presence of the Holy Spirit with us and in us is symbolised as wind and fire; not to be sure, the winds of war and destruction nor the fires of technological progress which equally enchant and destroy us. No. It is the wind and fire of God that transform us. These are all images that teach and act as metaphors and similes for the reality of the Spirit.
