Pentecost: The Beginning of a New Life

Next Sunday (June 5, 2022), in most of our Churches, if not all, we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. Celebrating Pentecost is keeping the birthday of Christianity. It is a day on which we have the realization of a new life given to us by the Holy Spirit. Two visible symbols that manifested the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost are the strong wind and the flames of fire.

“And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were” (Acts 2:2).

God’s presence is revealed in a very visible way now that the disciples can capture it through their sense organs. The strong driving wind touches their skin. In other words, God becomes very tangible at Pentecost. From the world of imaginations, God now makes an entry into the real world of sensations, perceptions, and experiences. In the gospel it is said that Jesus breathed on the disciples saying, “Receive the holy spirit” (John 20:22). What does that mean? From now, God is so very close to us that we can even sense God’s breathing.

Sometimes we think that God is present in the stillness and the quiet of our hearts. Some of us may be even very skeptical about praising God loudly. For others spontaneous intercessory prayers may be allergic. But who can categorize God and God experience? Each of us may find our God experiences at varied settings of being quiet or noisy. Jesus says to Nicodemus, ‘the Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to’ (John 3:8). That means, the modus operandi of the wind (the Spirt) is not within the parameters of our intelligence or cognition.

Further, it is for us to realize that quite often many of us are at a standstill. Theoretically, we may be moving. But often there is no life in those movements that we make. Once a Guru (Spiritual master) took his disciple to a heavily crowded city and asked him ‘what do you see?’ And the disciple answered, ‘I see many dead people moving; dead people climbing stairs, dead people rushing to work places, dead people getting into shopping malls, dead people eating popcorn, and all dead people moving up and down.’ Yes, perhaps that is what we see today in our world. Less and less of flow of life is happening in and around the movements of humans. Today, when two friends shake their hands, there is less of feeling of life passing through those hands. Less of love is shared when spouses do embrace. Less of affection is shown by the parents to their growing children. The awareness of Divine power does not move people today although they actually claim to believe in it. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes into the midst of such people to make more creative and passionate movements. Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38). That is what begins to happen at Pentecost. In short, the storm that happens at Pentecost, is a powerful symbol of Divine intervention in the lives of us who believe, and it initiates a dynamic flow of life in us.

Secondly, “Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them” (Acts 2:3).

One of the legitimate doubts is whether these flames of fire are those that descend from heavens or are they inside our hearts that are now making themselves manifest outwardly. The fact is that there is fire in everyone of us. May be over a period of time, a heap of ashes has accumulated itself over the burning coals. If we try to blow hard, the flames will hopefully arise again. In other words, the flames of fire that have died out in our hearts and in our lives due to various reasons, are once again regaining strength and vitality more than ever before because of the intervening power of the divine storm. Thus ‘Jesus breathed on his disciples’ means that he blew away all that is covered up and brought back the flames of fire in them. Holy spirit will bring back all the good things the memories of which are perhaps fading - the love shared, the respect shown, forgiveness extended, care and concern experienced. All of us have those memories dormant in our hearts; may be in our unconscious minds. Bring them back now. Those memories are making our lives more luminous now at Pentecost. One prayer that could at least occasionally arise from our hearts is: ‘My God, make me move like the strong driving wind. Help me keep the flames of fire burning within me always’.

Rev.Dr.C.P.Varghese

St. Patrick’s Catholic Church