Pentecost Sunday Homily Help
PENTECOST SUNDAY: DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Reading: Acts 2:1-21
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his own native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” They were all astounded and bewildered, and said to one another, “What does this mean?” But others said, scoffing, “They have had too much new wine.” Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and proclaimed to them, “You who are Jews, indeed all of you staying in Jerusalem. Let this be known to you, and listen to my words. These people are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘It will come to pass in the last days,’ God says, ‘that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. Indeed, upon my servants and my handmaids I will pour out a portion of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. And I will work wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below: blood, fire, and a cloud of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and splendid day of the Lord, and it shall be that everyone shall be saved who calls on the name of the Lord.’
I. Biblical Exegesis
[2:1–41] Luke’s pentecostal narrative consists of an introduction (Acts 2:1–13), a speech ascribed to Peter declaring the resurrection of Jesus and its messianic significance (Acts 2:14–36), and a favorable response from the audience (Acts 2:37–41). It is likely that the narrative telescopes events that took place over a period of time and on a less dramatic scale. The Twelve were not originally in a position to proclaim publicly the messianic office of Jesus without incurring immediate reprisal from those religious authorities in Jerusalem who had brought about Jesus’ death precisely to stem the rising tide in his favor.
[2:2] There came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind: wind and spirit are associated in Jn 3:8. The sound of a great rush of wind would herald a new action of God in the history of salvation.
[2:3] Tongues as of fire: see Ex 19:18 where fire symbolizes the presence of God to initiate the covenant on Sinai. Here the holy Spirit acts upon the apostles, preparing them to proclaim the new covenant with its unique gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38).
[2:4] To speak in different tongues: ecstatic prayer in praise of God, interpreted in Acts 2:6, 11 as speaking in foreign languages, symbolizing the worldwide mission of the church.
[2:14–36] The first of six discourses in Acts (along with Acts 3:12–26; 4:8–12; 5:29–32; 10:34–43; 13:16–41) dealing with the resurrection of Jesus and its messianic import. Five of these are attributed to Peter, the final one to Paul. Modern scholars term these discourses in Acts the “kerygma,” the Greek word for proclamation (cf. 1 Cor 15:11).
Gospel: John 14:15-20
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.
I. Biblical Exegesis
[14:16] Another Advocate: Jesus is the first advocate (paraclete); where Jesus is an advocate in the sense of intercessor in heaven. The Greek term derives from legal terminology for an advocate or defense attorney, and can mean spokesman, mediator, intercessor, comforter, consoler, although no one of these terms encompasses the meaning in John. The Paraclete in John is a teacher, a witness to Jesus, and a prosecutor of the world, who represents the continued presence on earth of the Jesus who has returned to the Father.
[14:17] The Spirit of truth: this term is also used at Qumran, where it is a moral force put into a person by God, as opposed to the spirit of perversity. It is more personal in John; it will teach the realities of the new order (Jn 14:26), and testify to the truth (Jn 14:6). While it has been customary to use masculine personal pronouns in English for the Advocate, the Greek word for “spirit” is neuter, and the Greek text and manuscript variants fluctuate between masculine and neuter pronouns.
[14:18] I will come to you: indwelling, not parousia.
II. Vocabulary
The gender of the Holy Spirit has been the object of some discussion in recent years, questioning whether the Holy Spirit should be referred to as “he”, “she” or “it”. To some extent this derives from the gender of the noun used in different languages. Spiritus in Latin, is a masculine noun; while pneuma, in Greek, is a neuter noun.
While scholars generally agree that grammatical gender is not necessarily correlative to personal gender, if by “gender” is meant grammatical gender, then the gender of the Holy Spirit varies according to the language used. Thus the grammatical gender of the word “spirit” is generally feminine in the Semitic languages such as Hebrew (רוּחַ, rūaḥ), in the Old Testament, and neuter (πνεῦμα, pneûma, pneuma) in Greek, in which the the New Testament was written. However, the word for “spirit” is masculine in other languages unrelated to the original writing of the Bible, such as Latin (spiritus) and in Latin-derived languages, as also, for instance, in German (Geist).
Even in the same language, a difference may arise relating to what word is chosen to describe the Holy Spirit. In Greek the word pneuma is grammatically neuter and so, in that language, the pronoun referring to the Holy Spirit under that name is also grammatically neuter. However, when the Holy Spirit is referred to by the grammatically masculine word Parakletos (Counsellor, Comforter), the pronoun is masculine, as in John 16:7-8.
Some argue that in John’s gospel, when Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as Comforter (masculine in Greek), the grammatically necessary masculine form of the Greek pronoun autos is used, but when Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as Spirit, grammatically neuter in Greek,[ the masculine form of the demonstrative pronoun ekeinos (“that masculine one”) is used. This breaking of the grammatical agreement expected by native language readers is an indication of the author’s intention to convey the personhood of the Holy Spirit, and also the Spirit’s masculinity.[ Others, however, dispute the claim that ekeinos is connected with pneuma in John 14:26 and 16:13-14, asserting instead that it belongs to parakletos. They conclude that “it is difficult to find any text in which πνευμα is grammatically referred to with the masculine gender”.
The majority of English Bible translations generally use the masculine pronoun for the Spirit, as in John 16:13.
In the Hebrew Scriptures: The Hebrew language phrase ruach ha-kodesh (Hebrew: רוח הקודש, “holy spirit” also transliterated ruacḥ ha-qodesh) is a term used in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and Jewish writings to refer to the spirit of YHWH (רוח יהוה). It literally means “spirit of the holiness” or “spirit of the holy place”.
In the Greek of the New Testament: Άγιο πνεύμα: Holy Spirit
III. Homily:
The Season of Pentecost in the Syriac-Maronite Traditon is a time to reflect upon the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in the Church, and in the world. In nature it corresponds to the months of planting, growing, long sunny days, warm evenings, and often vacation travels. During these latter days of spring and the months of summer, we are called by the Church, to unite our prayers with the Holy Spirit that “groans within us” (Romans 8:26), the Holy Spirit who pleads for us in our weaknesses before the Father.
In the Johannine Corpus of writings in the New Testament, the term (Paraklētos) “Paraclete” is used five times, and can be translated from the original Greek as Counselor, Advocate, or Helper. The word was taken from its use in the courtroom, refering to the lawyer for the defense, or advocate for the accused. John uses “Paraclete” in reference to both Jesus and the Holy Spirit, thus echoing the words of St. Irenaeus of Lyon (born 130 AD in Smyrna – died 202 AD in Lugdunum {Lyon} in Roman Gaul), that the Father is never present without his two hands, the Son and the Spirit (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies).
We read for example in the First Letter of John that Christ is our advocate; “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2).
In John’s Gospel we see too that the Holy Spirit is also an advocate for the strength of the disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” (John 14:16); to give instruction in the truth, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26); and defend against error and evil, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned” (John 16:7-11).
In the Old Testament the Jewish Feast of Pentecost happend fifty days after the celebration of Passover. Its significance was the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In Christainity, Jesus Christ is our Passover, by his Cross and Resurrection he has lead us on our “exodus” from sin and death, to the Kingdom of His Father. In like manner the Holy Spirit is for Christians the celebration of Pentecost, the New Law, not written on tablets but written on our hearts, premeating our soul. Luke records in the Acts of the Apostles, “When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed as resting upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…(Acts 2:1-4).
It is fitting that Pentecost is a Season and not just one day in the liturgical calendar because it realizes the New Day that never sets, the New Law that will never be abrogated, it is the apocalyptic moment, the ushering in of the end-times, ““I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). This power from “on high” is the Holy Spirit, the Truth of God that has transformed time, so that we can truly say the Kingdom of God is in our midst.
In The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith (the Nicene Creed) it says that the Holy Spirit (ἐκπορευόμενον) “ekporeuomenon” from the Father, which we usually render in English as “proceeds”. Yet, the this Greek word is a dynamic discription of the Father’s gift of the Holy Spirit. “Ekporeuomenon” means to burst forth, to spirate, to go forth in such a way that a connection is made between the Giver and the one to whom it is given. In the Creed it is understood that in the Holy Spirit, the will of the Father that was accomplished by the Son, becomes for us the Day that never sets and our human history becomes salvation history, by our Advocate and Counselor – the Holy Spirit.