Pentecost

In the account of Pentecost as recorded in scripture, we’re told the fire of the Holy Spirit fell upon Our Lady and the apostles in the Upper Room, were they were not consumed nor harmed by the flame. Once we hear such a thing, we’re immediately led back to Moses before the burning bush at Mount Sinai. The bush was on fire, but was not consumed. The bush wasn’t consumed because the fire was expressing the presence of God. It led Moses to greater reverence. It was a sign of his purification and of his call to go and proclaim freedom from slavery and an exodus back to the Promised Land of his forefathers.

Forty-nine days after the 10th plague of the Passover and the liberation of God’s people from Egypt, Moses brought God’s people to Mount Sinai. On the 50th day, the Pentecost — which is a Greek word meaning “the 50th” — God came to his people and ratified the covenant he made with them at the Passover. The Pentecost sealed the deal of the Passover. The God of fire is the God who does not destroy. The God who liberates is also the God who desires a covenant with us.

Moving into the New Covenant, after the Lord ascended, he told his apostles to wait for the coming of the Advocate. As they waited, they went to a place they knew, a place that was familiar — even intimate — to them. They returned to the Upper Room, the very place where the Lord had celebrated the Last Supper and where he appeared to them after his Resurrection. There, the apostolic community was joined by Mary, Mother of the Church, as they prayed and waited for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

This time of apostolic prayer concluded on the 50th day after the Lord’s Resurrection. The fulfilled Pentecost follows the fulfilled Passover. The new Pentecost occurs in the midst of the very celebration of the Old Testament Pentecost. The old is giving way to the new. As Moses went to meet God amid thunder and fire, so the apostles and Mary would encounter the living God through fire. On the new Pentecost, God came to Mary and the apostles as tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit filled them with his power. He ratified the liberation and the covenant that was begun in that same Upper Room more than seven weeks earlier. The covenant of the new Passover is sealed by the fire of the new Pentecost. It is a fire that burns but does not destroy.

The fiery action of God was the launch of the Church. It was the reboot of everything God had previously done for his people. Now, the work is fulfilled. Now, salvation is at hand. The Church, as the universal People of God, is born. Conceived in the Upper Room, brought forth through the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, the Church is now fully alive and ready to cry out to the nations, with tongues of fire, the saving presence of God in Jesus Christ — a fiery presence that burns, but does not consume.

This is the new Pentecost. It is the celebration of God’s presence. This is why the fire fell, but the apostles and Our Lady were not consumed. This is the descent of the Holy Spirit, whom we have also received. It is the ratification of the new Passover and the New and Everlasting Covenant given to us by the Lord Jesus. It is a fire that comes to us. It leads us to a reverence for God’s presence, purges us, heals us, convicts us, transforms us, makes us holy, and then compels us to go and announce the Good News of Jesus Christ to the whole world.