To read the texts click on the texts: Acts2:1-11; 1Cor 12:3-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23
A
story is told of a man, who, when a very young boy, was taken to nursery school
by his mother. Attentive to his anxiety about being abandoned, the boy’s mother
leaned down, kissed her son, and said, “Good bye, my love. No one is leaving.”
Each day, his mother would bid him farewell with those same words. The boy was
too young to recognize the paradox, and embraced his new existence and quickly
adjusted to new and frightening surroundings. Day after day, and week after
week, his mother bid the same farewell: “Good bye, my love. No one is leaving.”
The
boy grew into adulthood, and was during this time confronted with the reality
of having to place his mother in a nursing home. She -- now elderly and frail,
with advanced Alzheimer’s disease -- barely recognized him, often forgot to
eat, and simply could no longer care for herself. As he departed from her,
leaving her in her new and frightening surroundings, he remembered her words.
He leaned down, kissed his mother, and said, “Good bye, my love. No one is
leaving” -- words his mother recognized even though she no longer recognized
him. A tear appeared in her eye, as she clasped his hand and repeated, “Good
bye, my love. No one is leaving.”
This
is Jesus’ message on his departure to the Father: “Good bye, my love. No one is
leaving”.
The
annual celebration of the paschal mystery, which began on Ash Wednesday,
culminates at Pentecost. In a narrative evocative of major Old Testament
themes, Acts recounts the overwhelming gift of the Spirit. Such a fresh
outpouring of the Spirit was to accompany the messianic age. Also the
first-century Jewish feast of Pentecost, which occurred 50 days after Passover,
memorialized the covenant at Sinai. Having celebrated the liberating Passover
sacrifice of Jesus, the disciples are formed into a covenant community that is
to continue the work of Christ through history. As we celebrate the traditional
birthday of the church, the readings present the genetic code of the living
church.
Jesus
is departing from us, out of our sight. We find ourselves in the new and
frightening surroundings of this life, in a place where we are uncomfortable
and often feel ill-equipped to carry on. And yet, Jesus continues to assure us
of his continued presence through his gift of the Holy Spirit. This is why
though he says Good bye, he is not leaving. This is shown in the Gospel text of
today when he comes to the frightened disciples after his Resurrection on
Easter evening, with a twofold greeting of peace. These disciples, who fled in
fear at Jesus’ arrest, are now themselves forgiven and told to continue his
mission from the Father. Though they abandoned Jesus, he will not abandon them;
though they failed him, God’s love will not fail them. Then, reminiscent of
God’s action at creation, Jesus breathes on them, and gifts them the gift of
the Spirit and with it the gift of new life. They have become a new creation. Along
with the gift of the Spirit is also a commission which is to forgive and retain
sin.” Retaining sin” has sometimes been equated with a juridical act, but two
indicators caution us that it should not be so. The first is that it is not
just the eleven but the “disciples” who are gathered in the room. John uses the
term “disciples’ for a much larger group than the twelve or eleven. This group
could also have included women and so the commission has to do with something
that is more than juridical. The second is that the Greek “kratein” can also
mean “restrain or hold in check.” This thus means that through the gift of the
Spirit, who is also the Spirit of truth, the disciples are given power to take
away sin the sin of the world and unmask and control the power of evil as Jesus
himself did. They are not to act as arbiters of right and wrong, but through
their just and loving actions in imitation of the Lord, they are to communicate
the unconditional love of the Father.
At
Pentecost, as the Acts of the Apostles narrates, the Spirit of God comes down
upon the disciples, resting on each of them and thereby bringing them—and
us—together once again. The disciples
get a crash course in the language of God.
After Pentecost the days of Babel and confusion are over. The great differences among us, in
communication and dialogue, culture and background, wealth and poverty, are
scattered in “the rush of a violent wind.” They are burned away by tongues of
fire. It does not matter now whether we
are Parthians, Medes or Elamites of old, or Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis of
today. Each one hears the same message in his/her native tongue simply because
the language of love is one. Our world, however, is still tongue-tied. What can be misunderstood will be
misunderstood. But Babel, the parable
of our first clash of cultures and failure to communicate, is more than a
mythic explanation of the differences among nations and languages. It is an apt description of the human
condition itself. We often do not
understand one another even when we speak the same language. We all remain stymied by our fundamental
inability to accept the differences among us in how we live and what we
believe.
But
the unity which love brings is summarized by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians.
The Spirit, though one, is never bottled or canned. It is at work in each of us, always fresh and
always new, waiting to be translated into the language of our own lives, into
the language of love. It is only to the
extent that we make an effort to accept the other, no matter how different or
foreign, that we come to understand the language of God. Only then is Babel turned to Pentecost.
As
the Spirit used the discourse of the disciples on Pentecost to reshape and
redirect the lives of those who listened to their words, so the Spirit on this
Pentecost will reshape and mould us if we but listen. After all, God speaks to us in the one abiding
word that ends fear and brings lasting peace and love—the Word- Made-Flesh,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
