LECTIONARY READINGS
irst reading: Acts 2:1-11
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 103(104):1, 24, 29-31, 34
Second reading: Romans 8:8-17
Gospel: John 14:15-16, 23-26.
Link to readings
The scriptural readings for today’s great feast are basically the ones we would expect. Each brings out a key feature of the early Church’s sense of being a community created, enlivened and equipped for ministry by the Spirit of God.
It is Luke, of course, who has most memorably depicted the imparting of the Spirit upon the Church and located it on the Jewish feast of Pentecost. This feast, as its name in Greek indicates, took place fifty days (seven weeks) after Passover and involved a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to give thanks for the completion of the grain harvest and to celebrate the gift of the land.
UNIVERSAL MISSION
This theme of gathering is taken up in the First Reading, Acts 2:1-11, which lists at the end people from many regions who hear the testimony of the Spirit-filled apostles each in their own language. The reference is primarily to pilgrims from the Jewish diaspora but, almost certainly, Luke means us to find here a foretaste of the universal mission of the Church. The renewed “Israel” is now being empowered and equipped for its mission to be a “light for the revelation of the nations” (Luke 2:32), overcoming the dispersal and disunity of humankind as symbolised by the episode of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9). The Church will speak in many languages but communicate through each the same essential message: “the marvels of God”.
There is a play in the account upon the several senses of the word “tongue” (Greek glossa). While in Greek, as in English, it also means “language”, it has here the metaphorical sense of “tongues of flame”. There are biblical (OT) precedents for the sense of God’s presence and power being communicated by manifestations of fire – notably when Israel stood before God at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exod 19:18; 24:17). Here the appearance of fire seems to come from some central source, from which distinct “tongues” separate off and come to rest upon individuals. The empowering Spirit, which rested solely upon Jesus during his own life (Luke 4:14, 17-19), has now, in accordance with his promise (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8a), been distributed among those chosen to carry on his mission – to Israel in first instance and ultimately “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8b).
UNSELFISH LOVE OF CHRIST
The Second Reading, Romans 8:8-17, speaks of Christian experience of the Spirit in a more inward, personal way. Paul’s language of “flesh” and “spirit” needs careful handling. Living “according to the flesh” does not have primarily a sensual, let alone sexual, connotation; nor should the phrase be taken in a way that suggests that life in the body is the problem.
To live “according to the flesh” means to live selfishly – to place self and the concerns of self at the centre of existence. To live “according to the Spirit” is to allow the utterly unselfish love of Christ – who “gave himself up for us” (Gal 1:4) – to take over one’s life and set it on the path to sharing God’s eternal life. For Paul the Spirit is nothing other than the continuing influence in human lives of the transforming power of the risen Lord.
Second, the Spirit communicates to believers a sense of the intimacy with God that is theirs as sons and daughters in union with Christ. In a way for which as yet no strict parallel has been found in the Judaism of his time, Jesus seems to have addressed God as “Abba” – the informal address to the male parent in Aramaic (= “Dad”). This made such an impression upon the early disciples that even when they moved into Greek-speaking milieus, they retained the original Aramaic. More striking still, they found that the Spirit was impelling them to address God in the same familiar terms (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6) – a sure testimony that they now shared the intimacy and closeness of Jesus’ relationship to God. The upshot is the banishment of fear and the hope of sharing Christ’s risen life. The introduction to the Our Father in our Eucharistic liturgy retains the wonder of this: “We dare to say (Latin: audemus dicere) ‘Our Father’”.
MISSION OF RECONCILIATION
The Gospel – from John 20:19-23 – in accord with what seems to have been the earlier Christian tradition (see 1 Cor 15:45), locates the imparting of the Spirit more immediately with the resurrection and exaltation of the Lord. So, it is on the evening of “the first day of the week” (ie, Easter Sunday) that Jesus appears to the disciples, makes clear his identity, and imparts to them the “Peace” that overcomes their fear.
Then he imparts the Spirit to empower them to take up the mission that he himself has received from the Father. Essentially, it is a mission of reconciliation. He has died as the “Lamb who takes away the sins of the Lord” (1:29, 36; 19:36). From now on that capacity to reconcile in God’s name is in their hands.