Flames of Freedom

Acts 2.1-21; I Cor 12.3b-13; John 20.19-23



The readings for Pentecost offer two different portraits of the one conviction: that the Spirit’s work of Creation, Covenant and Liberation sets today’s agenda for the Church just as surely as at any time in the past. St Luke’s version in the Book of Acts has naturally stimulated more art than St John’s gospel account: Luke’s story is as vivid as art itself, and we should remind ourselves that Luke provides no actual detail of the Spirit’s arrival: he talks of the after-effects, but the event itself is expressed through two simple similes, made powerful through their saturation in much older biblical imagery. Thus, the sound the apostles heard was only like the wind; the wind that blows where it will; and that swept over the waters of chaos at Creation. And whatever the apostles saw hovering on each other’s heads was only like tongues – or maybe languages – of fire, bright like the flame that shone above the carved-up sacrifice as God drew Abram into Covenant. Or the fire from which God speaks on Sinai, or from the unburnt burning bush, calling Moses to guide the Hebrew slaves to liberty, travelling a road itself made visible by a shining pillar of Paschal fire.



So if, as tradition holds, the Church is born at Pentecost, we are to be engaged in some way in this life of covenant and work of liberation; and if we are not universally and coherently proclaiming the gospel of such a God as our God, then our fire may be said to have gone out, and our coals to be in need of rekindling, perhaps by praying through those words of Joel, once used famously by Martin Luther King, and repeated here for us all by the apostle Peter. We too are those (whether old or young, male or female, slave or free) who must dare to have a dream, to speak prophetic truth, to present Christ’s eternal vision for a new heaven and a new earth, in this world so out of step and out of tune with God.



But how? St John will be our guide, and learning forgiveness will be our method. John’s Pentecost account is modest, a short speech squeezed in (as it were) between Evensong and bedtime on the first Easter day. Its main image, Christ breathing on the apostles, is (yes) a lovely dab of Johannine thrift, a recycling of the image of God breathing life into the nostrils of dusty Adam at his creation. But much more, it’s also a description of our permanent spiritual state; for, without the renewal of the Spirit’s breath, we sinners – we humans – are a lifeless clatter of dry bones, as empty as a Virgin’s womb. But, when the Holy Ghost shall come upon us, sliding under the locked doors of our fears, to breathe new life into us; then our dry bones shall start to live; then is brought to birth within us the Christ-life; as we learn to forgive and be forgiven, the costly business which closes this gospel-scene, and opens the true gospel-life.



Such forgiveness is not the glib undoing of a fault, Microsoft’s quickie absolution of half a Hail Mary and press ‘Control Z’. Forgiveness can be a real uphill push, on a hot day with a heavy load and a hostile crowd . Forgiveness reads the bitter past, its pains and breaches of promise. It weeps and smarts, and may be long withheld. But though it tarry, wait for it. It will rewrite the future, in bolder ink than once looked possible. A soul set free sets others free. We may even be freed ourselves, one day. It’s what our faith is for: to share with the world the liberating peace of Christ, through the power of God and the perpetual wifi connection of the Holy Spirit.



Before Covid, I confess I hadn’t much bothered with the Spirit, who had always been a bit of an unused part in my life, abandoned in the IKEA packaging, inexplicable, apparently not needed for the smooth operation of my religious furniture. The sacramental and devotional life of the Church provided all I needed to access the divine. But in those strange days of interdict, sans bread, sans wine, sans everything, we were thrown into the merciful arms of the Spirit, as the simplest, deepest presence of God. It is an acquaintance we can do a lot worse than pray to be renewed in us today as, inspired and inspirited, we hear God’s call in the language of the flames, and continue along our path with the strong wind breathing behind, before, within us.