The Driving Wind ~ A Reflection on Pentecost 2012

Pentecost

Acts 2:1-11

Ps 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34

Gal 5:16-26

Jn 15:26-27; 16:12-15

The driving wind brought change to the lives of the Apostles and those others gathered in the upper room.  It was the first sign that no longer would they live in fear of the future.  As tongues like fire rested on each of them, the Holy Spirit filled them with the zeal and desire to spread the word of Jesus' Resurrection and the Kingdom of God to all the world.

 How wonderful it must have been for the disciples to realize that their words could be understood by all the peoples gathered in Jerusalem that day.  There was no need for a translator...  The Lord was making it possible for everyone to hear and understand the Word.  These Words were for everyone... for the multitudes to hear and believe.  Many must have received those Words with joy that day.  It was a beginning.

The importance of the arrival of the Holy Spirit cannot be underestimated.  In John's Gospel, Jesus recognized that the apostles could not bear to hear all that he wanted to tell them.  Probably they were still overwhelmed that Jesus could appear to them as a real person and not as a ghost.  And then, of a sudden, Jesus ascends to his Father and leaves behind frightened disciples who could not yet understand what they must do.

We thank you, Jesus, for your promise to send "the Spirit of truth" who would guide the disciples and declare to them all that comes from the Father and the Son.  Paul tells the Christians of Galatia that they are to "live by the Spirit" ... To be guided by the Spirit and to put away the things of the flesh because the Spirit and the flesh are not compatible.  To live in the Spirit allows one to cultivate the fruits of the Spirit:  that is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  These are the signs of a Christian life...  and this is how we also are to live.

Christianity has spread to the ends of the earth, just as Jesus promised and it began with the example of those foreigners in Jerusalem who heard what the Apostles spoke and marveled that they could understand them in their own tongues.

We respond today with the words of Psalm 104:  "Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth."    



 ~ Pentecost (Detail) by El Greco, 1610 at Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain