THE DAY OF PENTECOST
Mary Holmen

 

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

One of my great loves is ballet. I started dance lessons when I was five years old and continued for ten years. Like many little girls, I dreamed of becoming a ballerina. Eventually I grew too tall, and I had to let go of that little girl dream. But I still love to attend performances of the ballet. The other day I was watching a documentary I had recorded from the TV about the American Ballet Theatre, one of the foremost dance companies in the United States. One dancer was reflecting about her experience of performing onstage. She said, “It’s hard for me to go out there. I have to make myself leave the dressing room and go out onto the stage. And then the wind blows through you, and it’s all right.”

Well, that caught my attention as I thought about today’s celebration. Isn’t that a neat image of a performer’s life? There is fear, hesitation, wondering - can I do this? Will I be good enough? And then – inspiration – the wind blows through you and you take off and soar. There are all kinds of resonances with both the Ezekiel and Acts readings, and with the Psalm: “You send forth your Spirit and they are created.” The wind blows through the hesitant dancer and a creature of light and air and movement is born; graceful, fragile and yet incredibly strong. The very word “inspire” means to breathe in. God’s breath blows upon us; we let it fill us and we are renewed and strengthened for the work we have to do. We used to refer to “the Holy Ghost, the Comforter”. “Comforter” isn’t like the quilt on your bed that makes you feel warm and cozy. The Comforter is the Strengthener – or as Jesus says, the Advocate. It’s no surprise that, along with images of wind and fire, the Scriptures also talk of the Spirit in terms of cool, refreshing springs of water that restore us and strengthen us for the work we have to do.

I think it was very similar for the disciples of Jesus. I don’t think they greeted the news of the empty tomb on Easter Day with alleluias and shouts of joy. I think they felt fear, grief, guilt, and a profound sense of anxiety and dislocation. Everything they thought they knew had been overturned. They were full of doubts and questions, even when Jesus appeared to them. What happens to them over the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost is a process of separation and maturation. The Ascension, which we observed last week, and Pentecost which we observe today, are about letting go and growing up. Separation is a necessary part of maturation. If we don’t separate we cannot grow up.

Every separation is a little bereavement. We were separated from our mother when the umbilical cord was cut, and we cried. Does the newborn infant feel grief? Probably not as we would name it, but that newborn likes to be swaddled, because she feels secure and contained, just as she was held securely in the womb. The business – the agenda – of adolescence is to separate and differentiate yourself from your parents. It has to happen if the young person is to become a mature adult. We go through life, and things change. We move; friends move away; relationships end; we lose jobs; we lose loved ones – and we grieve. Even what we might call the “good” separations have an element of loss. My mother used to tell me that on my first day of kindergarten, back in the days when you sent your five-year-old out the door to school, I ran down the sidewalk without looking back to wave good-bye, and she cried. Our daughter Catherine went off to camp by herself for the first time at the age of ten with hardly a backward glance as she hopped on the bus, leaving me to say, “Um, do I get a hug?” We send our children and young people out into the world and we fear for them in the midst of our pride and love. We worry about them. We take a promotion or we land our dream job, or we retire, and amid the celebration we miss our co-workers and the relationships we had with them. Separation goes hand in hand with a mix of sadness and joy.

That’s how it was for the disciples. In the gospel reading for today, Jesus recognizes their fear and sadness. “I am going to the one who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” Well, maybe the disciples weren’t asking, but I bet they were feeling it. You can hear the anxiety behind those words. “Don’t leave us! What will we do? Where will we go? What will become of us?” Jesus goes on, “Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.” I get it, says Jesus. I understand. I wonder if Jesus also felt sad and afraid at the impending departure that was to be his death. He sounds remarkably serene here. John’s gospel doesn’t have a scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, but before John embarks on the Passion narrative, Jesus voices his anxiety: “Now my heart is troubled, and what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it was for this reason that I have come to this hour.” Jesus seeks the same comfort – the same reassurance and strength – that he now offers to his followers.

Luke tells us that after Jesus withdrew from the disciples into heaven, they “returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God”. It is a time of both loss and celebration, of challenge and promise. The challenge is to take responsibility, to grow up into Christ, as Paul puts it. It is time to stop drinking milk like infants and move on to the solid meat of the gospel. They are no longer disciples, meaning students or followers. They are to become apostles – people who are sent. That’s the challenge. And the promise is the presence of Jesus, who will come to them and will go with them in the person of the Holy Spirit. As long as Jesus is physically present, there is no need and no room for the Advocate. Jesus says, “If I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you.” He has to leave if the Spirit is to come. But he will not leave us orphaned. He will not leave us to our own devices.

This is much more uncertain and precarious than following in the footsteps of a flesh and blood person. The disciples – we – need to let go of the security of the physical presence of Jesus. We have to make decisions. We have to take risks. We have to step into the unknown. We have to put one foot in front of the other even when there are no obvious answers. We need to grow up, to stop being passive observers and absorbers, and become active participants in God’s work. We need to discern where God is calling us to go, and sometimes we will get it wrong. This is scary stuff! But we don’t do it on our own. The Spirit is there to guide, to remind, and to lead us into truth. The Spirit is sent by Jesus, present in power and love.

Jesus tells the disciples to wait in the city until they are clothed with power from on high. Since Easter, they have been schooled in letting go. The risen Jesus can be touched, but not clung to. He can be recognized, but in that instant he vanishes. Just as Advent is a time of waiting and hoping, something new and different is now coming to birth – the Body of Christ gestating and growing in the waiting time of the days and weeks between Easter and Pentecost. In all our imperfections and limitations and brokenness, we discover that we have to stop clinging to Jesus so we can become his Body – a strange and fallible Body that is to grow and spread until all creation is filled with the fullness of God.

The followers of Jesus go out from Jerusalem to carry on Jesus’ work – which is God’s work – of healing, reconciling, and making the world new. The fire of Pentecost has been passed from the apostles to us. The work of the Spirit is to bring new life. The reading from Ezekiel is about a living people rising out of a dead nation. The reading from Acts tells of divided peoples made into one new humanity. Although there are many languages, there is one message and one hearing. The gift of the Spirit is not just for the enjoyment and consolation of those who receive it. It is for the healing of a broken world.

And now that time is here. We have arrived at Pentecost. The Body of Christ on earth has come to birth. None of it happens on the mountain top, where Jesus left his disciples. It happens back down in the city – in the downtown core, in the north end, in River Heights and St. James and Charleswood and St. Vital – wherever we live and work – in the midst of the world that is being drawn into God and filled with God’s fullness. And it will happen in this gathering and at this table, where we ourselves are nourished and shaped by the same Spirit into a people alive with the breath of God blown into us. Amen.