Connecting to the Christians Before Us on Pentecost

“Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit…”

So begins a collect for the Day of Pentecost, one of the great festivals of our Church. In your own worshipping community you might observe this day with baptisms or confirmations, streamers and dove kites in your processions, or other celebratory flourishes. I know of one parish who fills their sanctuary with a truly astounding number of red, orange, and yellow balloons, surrounding the worshippers with a reminder of the Holy Fire that lit on the apostles that day. Another parish hosted a “Pentecost Sundae” bar after the children’s mass, with various ice creams, whipped cream, and toppings including strawberries, red hot cinnamon candies, and sprinkles in gold, red, and orange. No matter what festive traditions (either sacred or silly) you hold to, this is the day we celebrate as the birthday of our Church. 

My favorite representation of Pentecost comes from an illuminated altar missal at a parish I served for many years, with a full page illustration showing the Holy Spirit hovering in the form of a dove amidst an explosion of rays of light over the apostles gathered in an anonymous assembly room. At the head of them all is seated a woman, identified as either Mary Magdalene or the Virgin Mary but looking a lot like the usual depictions of Holy Wisdom. Individual flames dance above the heads of all the kneeling men before her, a literal tongue of fire igniting in them the burning need to share the Gospel throughout the world. I treasure this representation of the Day of Pentecost because of the perspective of the picture. The figures in the image open out across the field of vision, so it is as if we the viewers are among that kneeling number of faithful witnesses, our own tongue of Holy Spirit flame dancing just out of sight. 

And indeed this is the message of Pentecost, and why we keep it as one of our holiest days. After the Ascension, when the apostles thought that they were truly on their own, God’s promised gift in the Holy Spirit hovered over them, over us, breathed grace upon them, and gave them the singular message of Jesus Christ and a burning desire to to share it with the whole world. I like to think of it as a game of telephone, spread across the ages from the empty tomb to you and me right now. And despite the garbled words that we share over time, the message remains crystal clear: God created us with love, so that we can love one another in God’s name. 

This is not a passive love, but a love made of pure fire that kindles a spark inside our hearts that is in turn fed by our experiences of God every day throughout our lives, in worship and prayer and service to our neighbor. Through the living out of our faith, these flames grow so big inside us that we are wholly consumed, and we shine out into the world like stars gone supernova, reflecting out God’s blinding, healing light. 

I once saw a preacher come down from the pulpit on Pentecost, a few rolled up red crepe paper streamers in her hand. She unfurled them a bit so that she could hold onto the ends and then passed them to the people in the first few rows of pews, encouraging them to pass them in turn to their neighbors. By the end of the game the whole sanctuary was a web of red streamers, crisscrossing the aisle and touching every person in the sanctuary that day, connecting them to each other, a reminder of how God had touched their lives and brought them to this place, at this time, never alone as Christians. It seems a simple sort of party prop, but the faces of each of those people in the pews that day were broken open into  the biggest, most beautiful smiles as they reveled in the ties that bound them to each other as a community of Christ, and each of them was shining like the sun. 

This Pentecost, I pray that you feel your own connections, your own binding, to those communities in which you worship and to all those Christians who came before us, will come after us, and are here with us in this world now—many languages and cultures, but one faith.