Feast of Pentecost, May 23, 2021 – Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3B-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23

So I asked you to pay very close attention to the very first line of the first reading, where Luke gives us a time signature. “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled.” The word, Pentecost, simply means fifty. So why didn’t he just say, “After fifty days?” Because this is redundant. “When the time for the fifty days was fulfilled,” doesn’t seem to make much sense. But St. Luke wanted us to be clear about what Jewish feast was being celebrated at that very moment. Jesus came to Jerusalem, probably with a large entourage. St. Luke tells us that, among his disciples were at least seventy, in addition to the so-called twelve. Those seventy were almost certainly all men. So in the entourage would’ve been the wives of the majority of them. Certainly the women whose names are mentioned as watching the crucifixion from a distance. Almost certainly his mother would’ve come to Jerusalem for the Passover. And probably the women whose names are mentioned as going to the empty tomb. All in that group as they came, and they had to find lodging for the feast. It would’ve been like going to Daytona during the car races. The place is mobbed. Some of them perhaps had encampments outside the walls of the city.

And so after the devastating events of Good Friday, they would still be in the city for the feast of Passover, which began to be celebrated on the night they buried Jesus. And, after the stunning experience of the Resurrection, most of them probably would’ve stayed on. St. Luke is the only one who tells us that Jesus continued to appear over the course of forty days - an artificial number. It means to suggest that Jesus was preparing His people for something. In John’s gospel we are never told when Jesus ascended into Heaven. In Luke’s gospel, we’re told He ascended on the very night of the Resurrection. Now here, Luke is telling us the exact opposite story. That Jesus hung around for forty more days. So, if Jesus ascended into Heaven after forty days, then something else happened on the fiftieth day. Ten days later.

It was the Jewish feast of Shavuot. Shavuot was originally the celebration of a successful harvest. But, because they saw a successful harvest as a sign of God’s generosity and kindness toward his people, it eventually became the feast of the law, of the Torah. Why? Because God gave the law, on Mt. Sinai, to weld together a fighting unit, a people committed to one another, as a tightly wrapped community, governed by a set of principles that God would propose.

So, notice how the feasts work. Passover is the feast of salvation. Under the cover of a plague, God rescues his people, under the command of Moses, and they escape from a centuries-long imprisonment as slaves. And then, after a certain amount of travel, they arrive at the base of Mt. Sinai. Moses is called up the mountain amid wind and fire, and God dictates to Moses the terms of the covenant, which makes them community. They go from being saved, to being commissioned.

It’s the same thing that happens between the gospel of Luke and Luke’s Book of Acts. At the end of the gospel, Jesus simply disappears. In the book of Acts, He is seen, now and then, teaching His people. He ascends into Heaven, and all those people who were staying in the Jerusalem area, are gathered in prayer. They couldn’t all be in one house. But certainly, in the upper room, there are the original eleven disciples, and Mary, and some others, when the Holy Spirit descends. Jesus had said to his disciples, just before he ascended into Heaven, “Remain in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes, and then you will be My witnesses.”

The event of the death and resurrection was the salvation of the whole world - Jesus surrendering himself for our sake. The coming of the Holy Spirit was the beginning of mission. “You’ll be my witnesses.”
We find the same thing in this morning’s gospel from St. John. Here, Jesus appears in the upper room on the night of Resurrection, and what does He do? The first thing he does is breathe on them. Why? Because, the very first line of the second chapter of the story of creation, when God creates man the second time in Genesis, he creates him by breathing into a lifeless body. Breathing into a lifeless body. Last night we had the strange story of the dry bones. And God says to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the bones. Call the spirit from the four corners of the earth.” The great winds come and lift up these dead bodies. They become, once more, a welded fighting unit, a community, given a commission, once again, by God.” It’s the same story John is telling. He says, “Here I am. Peace be with you. I have died for your peace. I have died for your salvation. Now I commission you. Receive the Holy Spirit. And if you forgive men’s their sins, they are forgiven.”

During the ministry of Jesus, in John’s gospel, when Jesus spoke about the future coming of the Spirit, He called it, “The spirit of truth that will lead you to all truth. And then you’ll witness to truth.” So the commission is a double commission. You are to witness to truth, and you are to bring forgiveness to others. That’s the meaning of calling this Pentecost. It is the feast of commissioning.

You know, we live in an age where, across the board, not choosing sides, there’s so much untruth. As a matter of fact, there is a great deal of adoration of untruth. And there is so much anger and unwillingness to forgive, all across the board. That’s what we are called to deal with. To witness to truth, and to bring forgiveness.

One of Pete Seeger’s [sic] most famous folk songs is “Blowin’ in the Wind.” It was made a big hit by Peter, Paul and Mary. Pete Seeger, for a large part of his young adulthood, was an active member of the Communist party, but he was revolted by the Bolsheviks’ terrorism. He withdrew from active membership, but he continued to fight for, what we now call, liberal causes. They are, ironically, the same causes that took up the life of the venerable Dorothy Day. And, when he wrote “Blowin’ in the Wind, unlike his usual screeves, he was very gentle about the issues. Instead of talking about them, he simply asked questions. One question, over and over again. “How long?” “How many times?” “How many years?” It echoes a line from the psalms, “How long, O Lord. How long?” Those words were written in 1938 [sic] when our country was still reeling from the Great Depression and trying to claw its way back up to some sort of harmony and economic security. And, at the same time, the war clouds were gathering over Europe, and we knew, deep in our hearts, that no matter how isolationist we wanted to be, we’d eventually be sucked into another great conflict. And, during that time, the same issues that bedevil us today, were bedeviling the American society. And Pete [sic] just gradually mentions them, and then he answers his own question, by saying the answer is blowing in the wind.

Interestingly, in the Hebrew language, the word for wind, the word for breath, and the word for spirit, are the same word. St. Luke tells us that a mighty wind blew through the house before the tongues of flame appeared over the heads of the disciples. A mighty wind, the wind of the Spirit. The Feast of Pentecost tells us that, having been saved by the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we are the ones blowing in the wind.

N.B. “Blowin’ in the Wind” was actually written and recorded by Bob Dylan in 1962.