Pentecost
John 14: 23-31
Jesus replied, “He who truly
loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will love him and we will come to him
and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. He
who does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word
that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.
I have said this to you while I am still with you.
But he who is called down, the health-bringing Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you everything and will awaken within you all
that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do
not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do
not be afraid [have no fear].
You have heard how I said to you, ‘I am going away,
and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would rejoice because I am
going to the Father[ly Ground of the World], for the Father is mightier than I
am.
I have told you now, before it happens, so that
when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for
soon the prince of this world is coming. Yet over me he has no power.
But the world shall see in this how I love the
Father [Ground of the World] and how I act in accordance with the Father’s
purpose, as it was entrusted to me. Arise, let us go on from here. [let us be
on our way.]
May
13, 2008
Whittuesday
 |
| He Qi |
John 14: 23-31
Our tongue is a unique
muscle. All our other muscles are attached to bones at each end. Therefore they
can only move along one channel. But the tongue rises out of the floor of the
mouth; its other end is free to move wherever it needs to, in order to form
speech.
In the account of the
Pentecost event, the word ‘tongues’ appears several times. First, from the
great single fire of the Holy Spirit, there separate out tongues of flame that descend upon the heads of the apostles,
filling them each with the healing spirit.[1]
The result is that they begin
to speak ‘in other tongues’ out of
the spirit.[2]
They speak in a new way. They speak out of freedom. They do not use the old
form of glossolalia, the babbling that was connected with the sibyls and
oracles of nature. But rather they speak out of the fire of their hearts, out
of the universally human core of their being. They speak out of minds awakened and
inspired by the great synthesis, the universal spirit whose being is love. They
speak from the heart about their own experiences with this being.
Because they speak from the
heart, even those gathered in Jerusalem
What it means is that speech
is becoming free and universal again. It means that the separation of men into
different language groups is being lifted. In the story in Genesis, men built a
tower to the heavens for their own self-aggrandizement. The Lord had said to
the angels, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do
this, nothing they plan will be impossible for them. Let us go down and confuse
their language so that they will not understand each other.”[4]
Differing languages limits our abilities, and teaches us humility. Thus was
mankind as a whole prevented from planning their own destruction.
Now, at Pentecost, God’s
Spirit descends again. He descends to lift the curse of languages that separate.
Now the Spirit that unites can speak through us again. Now we can begin to work
on building the great spiritual city
of peace, the New Jerusalem.
This is how this universal,
healing, freeing fire of the Spirit works in us:
·
It
enlightens the head’s understanding with truth’s overview.
·
It
warms the heart so that it connects with others in empathy for their point of
view.
·
It
frees the speech, the tongue and the body’s will, to deeds inspired by the
spirit of love.
Through the fire of the
Spirit’s universal tongue, through unifying speech, we can work on becoming one
humanity again.
