I wonder if you’d do something. Sometime in the next couple of days, take a few moments to read about the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. I’ll make it easy. Just click here.
Now, ask yourself, what does it mean that the Spirit of God met all these people in all their differences—different cultures, experiences, backgrounds, and languages—and spoke to them in a vernacular each one could understand?
Eric Barreto, a New Testament professor at Princeton, argues against a common idea in our culture and churches that life would be easier if we were all the same. “Too often,” he says, “Christians have hoped for a time when our differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided.”
Pentecost, which we celebrate this Sunday, helps us think differently about differences. The Spirit of the eternal, invisible God takes on visible human flesh in Jesus. At Pentecost, the same divine Spirit that filled Jesus is poured out on all people to make the invisible God visible through humanity’s diverse cultures, nations, ethnicities, experiences, and languages.
Pentecost connects us to God, the One who meets each of us where we are, no matter where we are. The miracle is not that everyone learns one language or that one language brings everyone together. It’s that all people hear the good news of Christ in a way that makes sense to them. Diversity is one of God’s greatest gifts to the world. “God does not erase our differences,” Baretto says, “but embraces the fact that God has made us all so wonderfully different.”
It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? A magnificent thing when we are filled and moved by the same Spirit that filled and moved Jesus.
So, let me offer you a Pentecost blessing from writer Steve Garnaas-Holmes, and maybe over the next few days, you could meditate this.
May the mystery of the Holy Spirit dwell in you,
that you may hear the voice of grace
even in strange places and foreign tongues.
May the wind of the Holy Spirit move you
to cross boundaries and defy divisions
to love those who are different from you.
May the breath of the Holy Spirit breathe in you
to forgo all comfort and familiarity
to meet others where they are.
May the fountain of the Holy Spirit flow in you
with courage and humility to learn anew,
to be awkward and foolish for the sake of love.
May the fire of the Holy Spirit burn brightly in you,
that in all you do, others may see in you
the warm light of the steady love of God.
Much love,
Pastor Gregg
