The Feast of Pentecost, Year B
June 8, 2003
Christ Church, Covington

“’As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (Jo. 20:21-22).

Pentecost is sometimes called the “birthday of the Church”, an attractive idea that needs to be qualified. The qualifier is this: the Church existed before Pentecost, in ancient Israel, a community created by God to be his People. That is what “Church” means: God’s congregation, his chosen, “the blessed company of all faithful people”. So the Church existed in the family of Abraham, long before Jesus’ resurrection and the gathering of the disciples at Pentecost.

Still, the notion of “birthday” is not a bad one. Birthdays are occasions for gift-giving, and at Pentecost a tremendous gift is given by God. The Holy Spirit is poured forth upon the disciples, and they are given a mission to all the peoples of the earth. It’s more like a commencement, in this regard, as the disciples move out and begin new lives. They have gathered so that they can scatter to the four corners, armed with the power and presence of God’s Spirit.

But here we have to introduce yet another qualifier. Commencements are not only beginnings, but also endings. They celebrate increasing distance and independence; that is, if all goes according to plan. If there is anything that the Feast of Pentecost is, it isn’t a celebration of distance and independence.

I remember a friend of mine telling me with great amusement the title of a Pentecost sermon his priest preached one year: “You’re on your own now”. A memorable title, perhaps, but completely wrong-headed. Please remember that this is not the message of Pentecost, that we are now given our independence and sent out to pursue our own course. Though of course this is how most of us act most of the time, as if there were no God who could help us, and as if we had only ourselves to rely on. The priest who preached that sermon had got things, as they say, precisely wrong; no half measures for him.

Instead, the Feast of Pentecost is all about the bond between Jesus and the Church, in the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives as his gift to believers. It is not about independence, as Jesus gives the Spirit to the disciples and sends them just as he himself has been sent. It’s not about distance, as he promises to be with them until the end of the age. The Church is his Body, into which we are all baptized. The image is organic and intimate; no greater closeness could be imagined. We are not “on our own”, relying solely on our own powers; instead, in the Spirit, we are united to Christ.

Through the power of the Spirit the Church continues the ministry of Jesus Christ. That’s why we are called Christians: because we claim as believers some identity with Christ. Not perfect identity, of course; but still, we are his disciples, filled with the Spirit to do the work of Christ.

This leads us to another metaphor for the Spirit: the finger of God. There’s a sense in which the Gospel story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is continuing to be written in the life of the Church, through the Holy Spirit. This idea is basic to the story that is told in the Acts of the Apostles, about the life and work of the first generation of Christians. The finger of God is still writing the story, not just then but now. Not that Jesus is not unique, but his story is still taking shape before our eyes. The eighteenth century spiritual writer Jean Pierre Caussade wrote “The Holy Spirit of God, pen in hand, the book open before him, continues the sacred story which has yet to be told. Its theme will not be exhausted until the end of time. It is none other than the record of God’s guidance and his purposes for man. It remains for us to take part in that story and to supply the sequel by obeying his commands.”

This Feast of Pentecost ought to collapse the distance that we perceive between Jesus and (perhaps) the Apostles, and our own time. We, like them, have a mission. We, like them, are called to faith, to trust in God as we carry forward his purpose. We are not about the business of maintenance, preserving a distant memory of faithfulness. The Spirit is still writing the story of faith, in a story in which we are the actors and principal characters that the Spirit is creating and using.

The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.