For historical buffs, these two out-pourings beg the question of which timeline is more accurate historically? For us spiritually and theologically, it is more important to note that Christ imparts His Spirit at a time when it is most appropriate.
In the Upper Room, bruised by what had happened, the cowed and confused Disciples gathered. Imagine a Peter who must have been weighed down by the burden of betrayal. Judas took the easier path—he killed himself whereas Peter remained paralysed by his guilt and fear. Christ came into their midst and instead of berating them for their failure, He imparted His peace and breathed on them His Spirit. He transmitted to them the power to forgive and reconcile. Now at Pentecost, the same mission of reconciliation was renewed and made universal.
The Church was born to proclaim forgiveness and to bring reconciliation to allcreation. What was evident at the Church’s inception was a reversal of Babel. The Tower is a metaphor for human pride and arrogance. Man’s pride, in trying to be like God, without God, resulted in the division which has racked humanity ever since. The ultimate truth of Babel showed us that without God, Man’s ambition for heaven will always be doomed to fail.
In the Acts of the Apostles, as the window was thrown open, the Spirit began the work of reconciliation as each person who gathered to hear Peter speak, heard the Kerygma in his or her own language. Through the Holy Spirit, confusion gives way to communion. Christ poured the Holy Spirit upon creation to heal the wound caused by disunity.
In our present experience, given how groups or factions in Church are pulled apart by claims or counter-claims of being backed by the Spirit, how do we navigate the different inspirations? In the context of Christ’s salvific mission, it is good to remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit is less a spirit of licence or spontaneity and more a spirit of consistency and self-restraint. We tend to associate the wind blowing where it wills as the licence to do what we want. When in actual reality, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth guides us to align ourselves with a conscience which is informed by the consistency of beauty and goodness. As the sequence goes. “If thou take thy grace away, nothing pure in man will stay; all his good is turned to ill’. To be free, we are led by the Spirit to “bend the stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill and guide the steps that go astray”.
We are invited to be humbly led by the Spirit to be Christ’s presence in the world and to present the teaching of Jesus to the world in a consistent manner. As the active agent in our living Tradition, the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that the Gospel handed on by the Apostles is not altered but is deeply understood and accepted throughout history. What was new at Pentecost was that languages, rather than divide as at Babel, has now united all who heard it in the same appreciation of the Gospel message. Instead of drawing attention to themselves and to building self-monuments, the message about God who savedus, led all to the praise and worship of God. Babel symbolised self-worship whereas Pentecost expressed the deepest human desire to worship God.
And yet, the world was not unanimous in accepting the Gospel. There is a world that is resistant to the Good News of Salvation. But hold on a minute. Was it not the case at the beginning too? When the Disciples met Jesus at the appointed mountain, some knelt and worshipped Him. Some hesitated. The Acts recorded 3000 conversions and baptisms but we also heard that there were some who resisted the Good News. They laughed and remarked upon hearing Peter and the Apostles, “They had too much wine to drink”.
The message of Christ even though beautiful and true is not always readily acceptable. Paul struggled with the Athenians who felt that their philosophy was superior to the message of a humble carpenter. Even though Pentecost reverse the confusion of Babel, we are in fact living in an era of new Babel. That is, we may be speaking the same language but still the understanding can be diversely different. A good example is our understanding of freedom. To appreciate what freedom is, we look at its etymology. In English “freedom” can be translated from the Latin words for “libertas” or “licentia”. Libertas or liberty is an ordered and lawful freedom. Whereas licentia or licence borders on licentiousness and lawlessness. True freedom, promised by the Holy Spirit, is never a licence to do whatever we want. For some, the word freedom closely resembles licentiousness. But there is a profound chasm between liberty and licence. While both are words related to the notion of freedom, liberty raises our freedom to excellence and nobility.
With this in mind, how do we bridge two opposing views of freedom? How do we bridge the gap between in a way that celebrates excellence as an expression of freedom but not condemn licentiousness as a caricature of freedom. Within a mindset that feels one is always right, to be told that one is wrong is not easy to accept and in many cases defensiveness becomes the only position one has in terms of self-protection. The test of true freedom or libertas is in the fruits we offer to God and on the way there, there is always purification. To be free there is always a letting go of what traps and spiritual freedom which is authentic should manifests itself in the "fruits of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22): love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
As the Spirit descended on the Apostles and the flame consumed them, we should ask the Spirit to burn away our sins, our bondages and to purify us and give us the courage to cooperate in the work of grace and redemption. If burnt sacrifices symbolise an offering to God, then the Spirit consuming us in His redeeming fire represents our entire offering to God so that our minds and our wills can cooperate to bring about the renewal of the world. On our own, we cannot go far. To baptise all nations and to teach them the commandments of Jesus, we need the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray. Come Holy Spirit come, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love. Pour forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created and Thou shall renew the face of the earth.
