Pentecostal Fire

We all know the story of Pentecost: the disciples assembled in prayer, as the Lord Christ had commanded; the mighty blast of wind, bursting the closed doors and shuttered windows open to the world; the heaven-sent flames, setting afire the hearts and minds of those over whose heads they danced; and the miracle of “tongues.” Everyone who heard the first Whitsunday sermon heard it in their own language. Those tongues were the first, but not the greatest miracle of Pentecost. That day the uncertain disciples were transformed into bold Apostles—men who were “sent” (apostle in Greek means “someone sent”). After that Pentecost they would never be the same. From that day, the world has never been the same.

So much of who we are traces to that day, but we’re often uncomprehending. Pentecost, commonly called Whitsunday, is, we commonly say, the “birthday of the Church.” It’s the day the Holy Ghost came with power (dunamis in Greek, the word we get “dynamite” from) to the Church, but we seem to have forgotten. We keep the feast, but extinguish its dynamite.

So some Christians, well-meaning but untutored in the Faith, try to recapture the Pentecostal fire by re-kindling some of the fireworks. They “speak in tongues,” declare hopeful prophecies and end up following strange doctrines. They do it because at many times and in many places, the One Church has not lived the Pentecostal promise.

We are timid tenders of the Pentecostal flame. I speak as one of the most timid. I look to my own failings first and with most certainty.

Pentecost isn’t about waving hands in the air or knowing I’m “saved”; it’s not about a smug assurance that my spiritual insights are better than yours. The Pentecostal fire kindles humility and charity. It teaches me that my knowledge and understanding and spiritual experience is relevant to my salvation only as much as it the knowledge and understanding and spiritual experience of the One Church on which the Fire first came. The Pentecostal Fire teaches me that salvation—my personal salvation—isn’t about me.

Pentecost calls us to say, “it’s no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.” The Holy Ghost moves us to put ourselves in His hands—or better—to throw ourselves into His burning flame—a Fire that burns but does not consume. The Twelve Apostles sent by the Holy Ghost, twelve men of modest means and talents, carried the Pentecostal torch and set the world on fire with it. Twelve turned the Roman Empire upside down, and took the Gospel to places which had never heard the name of Rome. They threw themselves into the Pentecostal flames and paid for it with their lives. The fire they passed on still burns today.

They passed it on to us. It burns in the Church, though we often don’t know what to do with it.

The Church—One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic—is the keeper of the Pentecostal fire, but we sometimes become caretakers rather than fire-bringers. Nothing wrong with caretakers, but the Fire wasn’t given us merely to tend.

We are meant to be fire-bringers. Men and women who've been given the Light to spread it. To bring the flaming torch of the Spirit into places where darkness reigns: into lives where faith is gone, to men who are too timid to live, to women who’ve lost their high calling, to a whole world that thinks it’s an end in itself.

The Fire of Pentecost enables us to see beyond ourselves: first, to God Whom we must worship; second, to those around us whom we must love. It’s not easy, it’s not meant to be. You were not created, redeemed and sanctified just for your personal salvation and satisfaction. What a squinty view of the Fire that cleanses and renews the cosmos! We were created to be—each of us—living torches of the Holy Ghost, fire-bringers to a world content to live in darkness and call the darkness light.—Fr Gregory Wilcox