The feast of Pentecost may not be as popular as Christmas or Easter but it commemorates a watershed event in the life of the Church. In fact, Pentecost is the birthday of the catholic Church. Churches that designate themselves as Pentecostal try to claim sole possession of the Spirit, emphasizing baptism of the Holy Spirit—by which they mean—speaking in tongues as their trademark. We do not want to appropriate the Spirit as ours only: after all, Jesus said that “the Spirit breathes wherever He wills” (John 3:8). We cannot bottle the Spirit or compel Him to join camps in the scandalous divisions among the followers of Christ. What I mean by saying that Pentecost is the birthday of the catholic Church is: it was on this day, AD 33, that the following of Christ became a “catholic” event (From the Greek katholikos, meaning “universal,” or as Walter Ong SJ, translates it, “throughout-the-whole”). Prior to this day, Christians were a few “timid” Jews gripped by fear, which caused them to lock themselves up in a room. After the Pentecost event, they felt released and went out into the open to pronounce boldly the same cause about which they had feared to speak. What happened? How was this possible?
To put it in precise anatomical terms, the days after Jesus’ Resurrection to His Ascension were the days that the Church was conceived and matured in the womb of the Holy Spirit. On the morning of the resurrection, Jesus imparted the Holy Spirit on the apostles. But it appeared that the Spirit was not immediately manifest, for they were still incredulous about Jesus’ appearances and the mission to which He sends them, saying: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...” (Matthew 28:19). Nothing explains their incredulity better than the question they put to Him on the day He ascended into heaven: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). Jesus answered by repeating the commission to witness to Him throughout Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. The apostles were still shortsighted, desiring a restoration of an earthly Israelite kingdom whereas Jesus was speaking about the kingdom of God that is much more expansive—Judea, Samaria and ‘the ends of the earth.’
No doubt, they went back to their hiding place utterly disappointed. But the birth pangs had begun. The nine days from Ascension to Pentecost saw the Spirit growing and maturing them. Their water broke the moment the strong wind tore into the room in which they were hiding. The fire of tongues which rested on each of them burned out their fears and unsealed their clogged lips, so they could speak in tongues. None of them, I suppose, understood what tongues or glossolalia meant at that time. They were not jerking and uttering nonsensical words as happens in many Pentecostal bazars. They found a new freedom from fear and went out to speak to people. They all spoke Aramaic. But the people gathered heard them in their own individual native languages. The Iranians of that time who spoke Parthian heard Aramaic in their language; the Egyptians in the crowd heard Aramaic in Egyptian; and Romans heard Aramaic in Latin, etc. The Holy Spirit was the sole translator and interpreter.
Recall that it was the same God’s Spirit who at Babel caused the confusion in languages when humans turned prideful. Pentecost, therefore, is God’s Spirit undoing the confusion of Babel, so that all might hear and understand the mighty works of God. The word Pentecost which means “fiftieth” was a Jewish harvest feast (Exodus 23:16) commemorating their deliverance from slavery and the giving of the law to Moses. In the new order, this Passover is effected through the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, by which a new people called by God would be delivered from real slavery—slavery to sin—and rescued by God’s love. In place of a law written on tablets, the Spirit of God gives us the new law of love. This law will apply to and guide all peoples from different nations who form the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo