The Season of Pentecost: ‘Ordinary’ Beginnings or Celebration of a Coronation?
Posted September 6th, 2011
Central Florida Episcopalian:
Bishop's View
What is Pentecost? For most of my life, if you had asked me that question, I would have had a ready answer: Pentecost is the Birthday of the Church. Pentecost was the moment when a rag-tag band of fishermen and tax collectors were given new life from God, who sent the Holy Spirit to make them the first members of the Body of Christ. St. Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Everything is new because the person is new. (The season after Pentecost also is called Ordinary Time, when the Church celebrates the mystery of Christ not tied to one event or seasonal feast, but in the fullness of his glory.) In answer to the question, I would have said, “Pentecost was the giving of the Holy Spirit to make men and women new creatures in Christ.”
But over the years I have become less and less happy with that answer. For one thing, I’m not sure we can date the beginning of the Church’s life so late in the game. Doesn’t the beginning of our relationship to God go back at least as far as our consciousness of his call to us? Clearly, the men and women who followed Jesus had been called by him a number of years earlier.
When Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (John 3:3), he didn’t add, “But, of course, you must wait three years until the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit will make that possible.” He said (in effect), “Do it now; the Spirit is now blowing wherever he wills; let him blow into your life, Nicodemus.”
Jesus invited men and women who followed him to know God as their Father, and to address him as such, and himself as their Elder Brother. He invited them (and us) to see themselves/ourselves as members of God’s family. None of that is possible unless a spiritual rebirth has already taken place.
And if there were any question of the first disciples having received the Holy Spirit prior to the Day of Pentecost, just remember what St. John tells us took place on Easter evening: “When it was evening on that day…Jesus came and stood among them…. He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:19-23)
So, what then is Pentecost? I want to suggest that the model for the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian is to be found in the account of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christ.
I am fascinated that for the first 30 years of his life, though he was the Son of God, Jesus performed no miracles, healed no sick people, cast out no evil spirits, opened no blind eyes or deaf ears, straightened no twisted limbs, multiplied no loaves and fishes, changed no water into wine, and raised no one from the dead.
I suspect he was the best carpenter in Nazareth, but – apart from his miraculous conception – there was nothing “supernatural” about him.
But at age 30, Jesus sought out his cousin, John, who was baptizing people in the Jordan River; a baptism “for repentance.” John said, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11)
When John saw Jesus, he exclaimed, “That’s the one I’ve been talking about!” And to John’s astonishment, Jesus asked to be baptized. “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you….’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.’” (Matthew 3:14, 15)
Jesus insisted on being baptized, not because he needed to repent for sins of his own, but to identify himself with us, and, in effect, to put himself in our place.
Recall what happened as he emerged from the water of baptism: “The heavens were opened…and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16, 17)
John’s fiery message to the people was, “God is angry at you for your sins.” But God himself said, “I am not angry at this one. This one is my Beloved Son, and I take delight in him.” He whose ministry was to be that of baptizing others with the Holy Spirit, began that ministry by himself being baptized with the Holy Spirit. He was anointed, empowered, and invested with authority – and he never returned to the carpenter’s bench.
When Jesus was baptized by the Holy Spirit it was not his birthday, it was his Coronation Day.
Let me put it another way. Jesus was always the Son of God. But he was not always the Christ. The word “Christ” means “the anointed one.” He was anointed when the Holy Spirit descended upon him following his baptism in the Jordan.
If I use the phrase, “The Man Born to be King,” I wonder what comes to your mind. If you are old enough, you may remember a series of plays written for broadcast on the BBC a generation ago by Dorothy Sayers; plays about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But interestingly enough, the very same title was given to a television documentary about the life of Prince Charles of England some years ago.
What is true of Charles is true of Jesus, as well. Charles doesn’t need to be reborn; he needs to be invested with authority. Jesus didn’t need to be reborn. If ever there was anyone who was “born of the Spirit” it was Jesus!
Jesus didn’t need to be forgiven for his sins; he didn’t have any sins to be forgiven. Jesus didn’t need to become a member of God’s family; he was and ever has been the eternal Son of God from before all worlds. Jesus didn’t need to be made regenerate – that is, given new life – he was, and is, the Author of life. Jesus didn’t need to be incorporated into the Body of Christ; he was the Body of Christ!
But Jesus needed to be invested with authority, and anointed and empowered for ministry. And until that happened, he didn’t even attempt to begin that ministry.
(If he needed it, how much more do you and I?)
So, I suggest that to see Pentecost merely as the “Birthday” of the Church is to seriously miss the point. The apostles already knew Christ as their Savior. They already knew God as their Father. They had already experienced the forgiveness of their sins.. They had already tasted new life in the Spirit; at least since Easter evening.
And yet, Jesus told them to “Wait.” “Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) In essence, Jesus was saying to them, “Don’t try to begin the ministry I have called you to until you have been anointed and empowered for it, just as I was at the beginning of my ministry.”
That’s what Pentecost is all about: the saturation of the common clay of our humanity with the empowerment of the very Spirit of God. It is the coronation and anointing of Kings and Queens in the Kingdom of God.
Don’t settle for less! Jesus said, “If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father five the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13)
Why settle for a birthday when you can have a Coronation Day?
Love to you in our Lord,
+ John W. Howe
This is an updated version of a column that originally ran in the Central Florida Episcopalian in 2006.
