A homily on Pentecost from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church, Lewisburg, PA, Sunday June 10, 7532 [June 23, 2024 on the civil calendar]

Pentecost, in old English nomenclature Whitsun, marks the descent of the Holy Ghost, to also use older pre-Schism English terminology. It is what some call the “birthday” of the Orthodox Church, which however is also the continuation and full realization of ancient Israel of the Old Testament. Pentecost can be termed both the Eighth Sunday of Pascha (counting Pascha Sunday and those beyond, although technically it lies beyond the leave-taking of Pascha), and the seventh Sunday after Pascha. In that conjunction, the number eight of the Resurrection, the eighth day, for the Eighth Sunday of Pascha, our Passover to Paradise, comes together with the symbolism of the Seventh Sunday after Pascha, symbolizing the Creation and the day we rest in the bright comforting embrace of the Holy Spirit pulsating around and through us here on earth (personified in the Cosmos figure at the bottom of the Pentecost icon). The fifty days from Pascha to Pentecost also are, as commentators have noted, seven squared plus one.

In any case, the Synaxarion passage read at Matins for Pentecost notes: “…among the Hebrews there were three [pilgrimage] feasts: Passover [the Christian Pascha], Pentecost, and … the Feast of Tabernacles (the building of tents or booths) [the latter becoming the Christian Feast of Transfiguration].” This is why so many Jews from many lands and proselytes were in Jerusalem as pilgrims for the feast of Pentecost, a celebration also of the first harvest and of the giving of the law to the Holy Prophet Moses. As the Synaxarion notes: “They celebrated Pentecost in remembrance of their great suffering in the wilderness, and how through many afflictions they were led into the Promised Land; for then they delighted in the fruits of wheat and wine. And this feast manifested our deliverance from faithlessness, and our entry into the Church; for then also we partake of the Master’s Body and Blood…. “But the veneration among the Hebrews for the number seven pertaineth not only to days, but also in reckoning years, from which year among them they make a Jubilee, known as ‘Leaving.’ For every seventh year by this reckoning, this happeneth, when also they leave the earth unsown, and the animals they give release, and they order the hired servants set free.”

St. John Chrysostom continues: “What is this Pentecost? The time when the sickle was to be put to the harvest, and the in-gathering was made. See now the reality, when the time had come to put in the sickle of the word: for here, as the sickle, keen-edged, came the Spirit down. For hear the words of Christ: ‘Lift up your eyes,’ He said, ‘and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.’ And again, ‘The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few.’ But as the first-fruits of this harvest, He himself took [our nature], and bore it up on high. He Himself first put in the sickle. Therefore, also He calls the Word the Seed….  For it was essential that the present events likewise should take place during the feast, that those who had witnessed the crucifixion of Christ, might also behold these. ‘And suddenly there came a sound from heaven.’. … Observe how it is always, like as; and rightly: that you may have no gross sensible notions of the Spirit. Also, as it were of a blast: therefore, it was not a wind. Like as of fire. For when the Spirit was to be made known to [the Forerunner] John, then it came upon the head of Christ as in the form of a dove: but now, when a whole multitude was to be converted, it is like as of fire. And it sat upon each of them. This means, that it remained and rested upon them. For the sitting is significant of settledness and continuance. [emphases added]

“…. Such a fire as this is able to kindle infinite fuel. Also, it is well said, Cloven, for they were from one root; that you may learn, that it was an operation sent from the Comforter. …each one received a fountain of the Spirit ; as indeed He Himself had foretold, that those who believe in Him, should have a well of water springing up into everlasting life. …  As it were a rushing mighty wind; making it manifest by this, that nothing shall be able to withstand them, but they shall blow away all adversaries like a heap of dust. And it filled all the house. The house also was a symbol of the world. And it sat upon each of them, [etc.] and the multitude came together, and were confounded….

“But Peter, standing up with the eleven [to address the large crowd that had gathered following the descent of the Holy Spirit], lifted up his voice …. here you see his manly courage. For if they were astonished and amazed, was it not as wonderful that he should be able in the midst of such a multitude to find language, he, an unlettered and ignorant man? If a man is troubled when he speaks among friends, much more might he be troubled among enemies and bloodthirsty men. That they are not drunken, he shows immediately by his very voice, that they are not beside themselves, as the soothsayers: and this too, that they were not constrained by some compulsory force. What is meant by [him holding forth] with the eleven? They expressed themselves through one common voice, and he was the mouth of all. The eleven stood by as witnesses to what he said. He lifted up his voice, it is said. That is, he spoke with great confidence, that they might perceive the grace of the Spirit. He who had not endured the questioning of a poor girl [when denying Jesus Christ], now in the midst of the people, all breathing murder, discourses with such confidence, that this very thing becomes an unquestionable proof of the Resurrection: in the midst of men who could deride and make a joke of such things as these! What effrontery, think you, must go to that! What impiety, what shamelessness! For wherever the Holy Spirit is present, He makes men of gold out of men of clay. Look, I pray you, at Peter now: examine well that timid one, and devoid of understanding; as Christ said, Are ye also yet without understanding? The man, who after [his] marvelous confession [of Christ] was called Satan [by Him]. Consider also the unanimity of the Apostles. They themselves ceded to him the office of speaking; for it was not necessary that all should speak. And he lifted up his voice, and spoke out to them with great boldness. Such a thing it is to be a spiritual man! Only let us also bring ourselves into a state meet for the grace from above, and all becomes easy.

“… Did they (the Apostles) not fight against poverty and hunger: against ignominy and infamy  (for they were accounted deceivers): did they not fight against ridicule and wrath and mockery?— for in their case the contraries met: some laughed at them, others punished them — were they not made a mark for the wrathful passions, and for the merriment, of whole cities? Exposed to factions and conspiracies: to fire, and sword, and wild beasts? Did not war beset them from every quarter, in ten thousand forms? And were they any more affected in their minds by all these things, than they would have been at seeing them in a dream or in a picture? With bare body they took the field against all the armed, though against them all men had arbitrary power [against them, were]: terrors of rulers, force of arms, in cities and strong walls: without experience, without skill of the tongue, and in the condition of quite ordinary men, matched against juggling conjurors, against impostors, against the whole throng of sophists, of rhetoricians, of philosophers grown moldy in the Academy and the walks of the Peripatetics, against all these they fought the battle out. And the man whose occupation had been about lakes, so mastered them, as if it cost him not so much ado as even a contest with dumb fishes…”

Brothers and sisters, as St John the Golden Mouth noted, such a fire is able to kindle infinite fuel. Indeed, the same uncreated energy from the Holy Spirit had left the bush unconsumed on Sinai. But now as he notes this was sitting on those 120 gathered in the house, and was also as if the water of the baptism by the Holy Spirit, and then attracted thousands more! We know of the Holy Fire at Jerusalem on Holy Saturday in which the crowd is immersed, yet which also lights the Pascha candles. We know of the uncreated light that St. Seraphim of Sarov showed to Nicholas Motovilov at their interview, and which has been seen so many times in the history of the Orthodox Church around holy saints. The Holy Spirit also spake to the Prophets of the Old Testament, as the Creed indicates. We let our light shine as Jesus commanded us by partaking of this light of Pentecost, which now sits upon His Church, whenever we lose ourselves in Him, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, and partake in the embrace of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, our Counselor and Adviser. This can be on any day of the Church calendar. Icons of Pentecost indicate this by showing the Apostle Paul with the Twelve, although he was not there on the historical Day of Pentecost. That is the infinite fuel that is the uncreated energy of our dear Orthodox Church, and of our Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and of our Diocese, and of our modest little mission as we complete the construction of our new temple with God’s help.

The logoi are in Greek the words of God, the words of the Word, which shape the living poetry or music of Creation, and our lives. For logoi also can be translated as harmonies. They provide form for the uncreated energies of God settled on us in the Church at Pentecost. The logoi are the God-given stories and harmonies and purposes and reasons of our lives. The logoi are connectors and thus love, the words of Christ to keep, the love that Jesus commanded us to have in His new commandment: To love others more than ourselves. Thus, we become, like Peter, brave spiritual missionaries, as men and women, disregarding all enemies as if dreams, filled with the Holy Spirit, and able to hear the Gospel in our own language, in our own heart, and thus then to share it heart to heart with others, losing ourselves in Jesus Christ, not asserting ourselves, members of His body in His mystical Holy Church that is nonetheless also right with us here on earth. Like Peter addressing the crowds who assembled after Pentecost, we go forth to step into the fullness of our own stories in God’s Gospel, in Old English translatable as good word. Yet the words of God are also the harmonies of God, expressing his energy, the uncreated infinite fuel experienced at Pentecost and always with us in the Church. So the Apostles healed in the name of Jesus Christ, a reminder too of the power of the Jesus Prayer in Orthodox practice: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”

Brothers and sisters, let us begin today in our mission work, with the grace of the Holy Spirit the Heavenly King, saving ourselves, the lives of our relatives, neighbors, friends, co-workers, and those in need in our communities. Let us build the Body of Christ, our Church, in the infinitely energized light of the Holy Spirit with us today, in early English terms, on Whitsun with the Holy Ghost dwelling in the Gospel, the good Word, Jesus Christ, and each day, which the Lord hath made.

Glory to God for all things!