By Leon Bent –
Ezekiel wrote: “A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances” (Ezek. 36:24-28)
The Lord would not simply give to Israel his Law, but, in the New Exodus, his Spirit, which would enable them to keep the Law (cf. Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:26-28, 37:14).
As we shall see, the opening passage from Ezekiel is crucial to understand what is happening in Acts 2.
A Divine Phenomenon: Pentecost
On the day of Pentecost, according to Acts 2:1-13, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the assembled believers, accompanied by several supernatural signs, including the sound of a violent wind, tongues of fire, and speaking in tongues. Scripture Scholar, Scott Hahn declares, “These three experiences seemed like natural phenomena (wind, fire, and speech); yet they were supernatural, both, in origin and character. The noise was not wind, but sounded like it; the sight was not fire but resembled it; and the speech was in languages which were not ordinary but in some mysterious way, ‘other.’”
Charles W. Carter & Ralph Earle’s, The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, suggests that, the tongues of fire symbolize purity, because fire is a purifying agent. The infilling of the Spirit symbolizes possession, because those filled with the Spirit had given themselves over to God. And, the speaking in unknown languages symbolizes proclamation, because the disciples would use the languages to proclaim the Good News about Jesus.
The fiftieth day after Passover, also known as the “Feast of Weeks” or Shavuot, was one of the Jewish Harvest Pilgrimage Festivals, for which all Jews travelled to Jerusalem from far and wide; fifty days after Passover Jesus’ disciples too, probably travelled from Galilee, where they had returned to their fishing nets. The author of Acts uses this feast as the occasion for the renewal of the people of Israel and their Covenant.
The Renewal of the Covenant
The episode that followed as described by the author is very reminiscent of the Sinai experience. Noise is almost unbearable, and tongues of fire symbolized something divine was happening – in this case, the outpouring of the Spirit upon them, the gift promised by their dear Lord before His death.
The renewal of the covenant through the power of the Holy Spirit had to be an uproarious, boisterous and a visual business, as was the giving of the covenant on Mt. Sinai (Raymond Brown, A Once-and-Coming Spirit at Pentecost).
“You shall know that I am in your midst” prefaces the verse “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams; your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28; Acts 2. 17). Just as the Lord poured out rain to rejuvenate the land, now My Spirit will be poured out upon all, irrespective of gender, slave or free person, young or old. It is not only human beings but the whole cosmos that will see the signs in “fire and billows of smoke” reminiscent of Sinai. However, “the sun will be turned to darkness and blood” that conjures Calvary. But from that darkness resurrected a new creation, new life, as seen on this day of Pentecost (The New Pentecost: Dr. Scott Hahn). The quoted text ended with precise salvific words from Joel 2:32; Rom.10:13: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved…”
The Apostles and Disciples were Powered on by the Spirit
Jerusalem is, of course, filled with pilgrims at festival time and the Twelve with Mary, the women, and other disciples numbering 120 – all gathered to pray in the large upper room of one of Jesus’ followers. The Day of Pentecost fulfilled the Lord’s promise to His disciples of being filled with the power of the Holy Spirit for soul-winning, just before the Lord ascended. Peter, alive in the Spirit, was kerygmatic (apostolic proclamation of the Gospel message), and used the parresia to perfect effect, and 3,000 people gladly believed what they heard and were immediately saved (Acts 2: 41-42; 1 Pet.4:6). “Let us ask the Lord for this ‘parresia,'” said Pope Francis, “this apostolic fervor that impels us to move forward, as sisters and brothers, all of us forward, bringing the name of Jesus in the bosom of Holy Mother, the Church, and, as St. Ignatius said, ‘hierarchical and Catholic.’ So be it!” The Greek word parresia is used 31 times in the New Testament. Boldness, confidence, courage, and fearlessness are words found in the Bible that relate to the concept of parresia.
What does Pentecost Celebration?
Pentecost is the Church’s celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit. It comes from the realization that God’s very life, breath and energy lives in, with, and among us. Those who are Christians experience this life through Jesus because they see the Spirit so fully manifest in him. John’s Gospel 20:19-23 tells of a visit of the Risen Christ to the disciples huddled in fear. “Peace be with you,” Jesus says. “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” After saying this, Jesus breathed on them and added, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The breath, the very life, of Jesus himself! We are God-breathed! Pentecost celebrates that reality!
The coming of the Spirit into human hearts and minds on that Day of Pentecost in the early 30s (A.D.), was God’s sign that in Christ he was creating a new people — a new Israel — an Israel of the Spirit (Galatians 6:16) that included Jews and Gentiles, alike.
The Church, which had just been born in this way, on the day of Pentecost, by the work of the Holy Spirit, was immediately revealed to the world. It is not a closed community, but an open one – it could be called a community thrown wide open–to all the nations “even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Those who enter this community through Baptism become, by virtue of the Holy Spirit of truth, witnesses of the Good News, and are ready to pass it on to others. It is, therefore, a dynamic, apostolic community, the Church “in a state of mission” (cf. Christ in the Gospels in the Liturgical Year, Raymond Brown).
And, this gold nugget: The Church – the “ekklessia,” the “gathered,” the “called together” – was empowered by the Holy Spirit to live differently, in the midst of a world awaiting the fullness of redemption, to live as a new people to lead the world back to the Father, in and through His Son. Through their experience of the Holy Spirit, the early Christians continued to fellowship, pray and share their possessions with the needy brethren, in communion with Jesus and in Jesus, with the Father; in Jesus with one another; and in Jesus for the world. So it must be, for you and me, in this bloody and fiery hour of urgent need and turmoil!
Now, this final flourish: Can we live a Pentecostal experience that reveals the beauty of the Church, to a world that is still desperately in need of redemption? Surely we can and we must! Come, Holy Spirit, Come! That’s breathing the Spirit of God!
Leon Bent is an ex-Seminarian and studied the Liberal Arts and Humanities, and Philosophy, from St. Pius X College, Mumbai. He holds Masters Degree in English Literature and Aesthetics. He has published three Books and have 20 on the anvil. He has two extensively “Researched” Volumes to his name: Hail Full of Grace and Matrimony: The Thousand Faces of Love. He won The Examiner, Silver Pen Award, 2000 for writing on Social Issues, the clincher being a Researched Article on Gypsies in India, published in an issue of the (worldwide circulation) Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, New Delhi. On April, 28, 2018, Leon received the Cardinal Ivan Dias Award for a research paper in Mariology.