PENTECOST – WHAT DID GOD START?

God’s perfection in human sinfulness

Pentecost draws our minds to the work of the Holy Spirit. He came down upon the disciples who, although they had lived with Jesus for a few years, proved incredibly slow to learn. Each of them had some gifts that Jesus perceived, but they most certainly were damaged goods.

On the day of Pentecost, notwithstanding their obvious defects, they were given such blinding insight into the things of God that they rushed out and gleefully sang and danced about it on the streets. People came from miles around because of the hubbub, and the Spirit came upon them too so that 3000 were baptised. What a day!

After that, the Spirit kept coming, and he joined these very fallible men into a unity which gathered more and more people into the unity of the Church. But they were still sinners - even the apostles. What are we to make of this God-directed mix of perfection and brokenness?

Wrong answers

One wrong answer is to stress the perfection so much that everyone has to hide their sinfulness and pretend to be upright, and to project perfection as the true image of the Church to the world in which we live. That was very common not so long ago. It led to the hiding of all sorts of vices and built a mentality of exclusiveness as though the Church is reserved of those who are successful in projecting the perfect image, and there was no lack of harsh exclusion of the weak. Sounds like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time doesn’t it?

Another wrong answer to the mixture of God-inspired goodness and human sinfulness is to deny that there is goodness in the first place. There is a lot of that in the mind-set of many people today. They point to the sins of Christians and scoff at any claim to holiness. Result? A pretty dismal view of humanity and a thorough misunderstanding of our loving God.

God knows our sinfulness.

He doesn’t expect perfection in an instant from individuals or his Church. He made us to be gradual developers, and his whole plan of salvation is one of gradually building up the holiness of the human race through the Church. The Holy Spirit through the Church gradually forms humanity into the perfect Mystical Body of Christ. When all this process is complete, then heaven and earth will be united in the new heaven and the new earth. We call this the Parousia (the coming of Christ, his sudden and overpowering presence).

Let’s not get tied down by conjecturing how that will be accomplished. All we know is that there will be a moment when all will be changed. The details are a mystery hidden in the wisdom of God. What we do know is that in the course of time, God is developing us towards the completion.

Individual Christians

The development is on the individual level for each person. As we come closer to Jesus through the Spirit, we find that the fruits of the Spirit grow in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. We still have a tendency to act badly, but that is overcome as we find our home more and more in the love of the Father and the Son. We develop.

Our evil tendencies are in fact good characterises that are broken and twisted which we reinforce when we sin. But as the love of God calms our wayward spirits, our brokenness is gradually healed, even though the scars remain and can still trouble us.

At the same time we find building within us wisdom and understanding, as we witness the works of our Lord in and around us. This is not all sweetness and light. Wisdom and understanding need to be worked on as we battle with the darkness that is always trying to trap us. This battle is not only in our minds, but in our hearts where we lovingly encounter Jesus and the Father in prayer. As things become righted within us, we increasingly know what is right.

The Church in through history

It is the same with the Church. As humanity progresses under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, wrong practices in humanity are spotlighted, and are being gradually altered. These are such things as slavery, widespread disrespect for people’s rights - even for human life itself, and abuse of women and children. In the 2000 years that the Church has been operating, much has been achieved, but much still remains to be achieved. The struggle continues.

There have been prominent Christians who have carried out these wrongs, and many who are only gradually realising their unconscious defective attitudes and actions, but the Spirit is continually raising up prophets to challenge us and he is inspiring genuine Christians to imitate them until the balance in society is tipped in favour of what is right. It is a venomous prejudice which only publicises the failures without accepting the great story of human progress inspired by Jesus and his people.

There can be no denying that human development through universal education, medical exploration, human rights and scientific progress have originated in parts of the world which are greatly influenced by Christians. That is no coincidence, but cause and effect. Is it finished? No. Is it ongoing? Certainly. Does gradual progress requiring each generation to join in the work? Yes.

It is so important to celebrate the feasts of the saints. Throughout the year, the Church places before us day by day the great models of Christian holy persons who have altered the world for the better. History is chock full of them.

If we have no notion of the great movements initiated by the saints and people of God, we are likely to fall prey to the forces of the enemy who wants to distract us from what God is doing. Unless we gain a clear vision of God’s gradual and inexorable development of humanity, we are likely to lose hope, that great motivational strength which God gifts to his people.