Pentecost 2014

What does it mean to receive the Holy Spirit? The quiet, private scene in John 20:19-23 is so different from the public excitement and clamor of the famous Pentecost events in Acts that the two accounts almost seem to be contradicting each other. But do they really?

At the beginning of the scene John is relating, the disciples are hiding in a locked room for fear of potential enemies. But Jesus appears among them, offers them God’s peace, and breathes on them– conferring the Spirit silently, with a gesture that recalls the way God breathed life into Adam in Genesis. Although John does not emphasize the miraculous aspect of this scene, it changes the disciples forever– transforming them into apostles, empowered by the Spirit to leave that safe little room and go forth to make known the good news of God’s love and forgiveness for all humankind.

The Pentecost narrative in Acts also testifies to the Spirit’s miraculous ability to heal human divisions, overcoming all the fears and differences that tend to keep us apart (language, ethnicity, race, immigration status, religious and political beliefs, etc.) With the guidance of the Spirit, we can grow to see each other as God sees us: as a single human family, all loved and redeemed by the work of Christ. And we too can be transformed, as the first disciples were, into instruments of God’s peace and love.