The Power of Pentecost, 1

St Peter the Apostle on Pentecost morning, preaching the first sermon.

Just before the prophecy delivered by St John the Baptist about the One who would "baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Mt 3:11), this 'last Old Testament prophet' warned his hearers to not

...presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father"; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham!

Most people, it seems to me, think that the Forerunner is slighting the smug, self-satisfied religious folks' ancestral purity when, in fact, he was highlighting God's power to produce offspring to Abraham apart from pedigree.  This was St Paul's exact point in several of his letters:

And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:29).

For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants...  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise (Rom 8:7-10).

This "promise," of course, refers to the Promise of Worldwide Blessing which God gave to Abraham in Genesis 22:15-18.  The question, then, becomes:  How does one become heirs to this "promise"?  How can an ethnic non-Abrahamite become his offspring and, more importantly, his heir?

The answer begins in Acts 10, when St Peter the Apostle receives two prophetic words:  First, the vision of a diversity of non-kosher, "unclean" animals to eat and, second, the request to visit the house of Cornelius, where he comes to understand the meaning of the vision.  Cornelius was a member of the Italian cohort (Acts 10:1) and a Gentile who invited Peter to visit with him, his family, and close acquaintances. It is there that Peter begins to understand the vision, that "What God has cleansed, you must not call common" (Acts 10:15; cf vv. 28-29).

Then "Peter opened his mouth" and preached

Good News of peace by Jesus Christ--He is Lord of all--the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached:  How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power... (Acts 10:36f)

The final piece of the puzzle was yet to come:  "While Peter was still saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word...

And the believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  For they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God.  Then Peter declared, "Can any one forbid water for baptising these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"  And he commanded them to be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:44--48).

 And--BOOM--the "power" to raise up children to Abraham was precisely that "power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8; cf Lk 24:49).  It is the same power which St John the Apostle and Evangelist wrote in his Prologue--

But to all who received Him, who believed in His Name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God (Jn 1:13).

This is precisely the overarching narrative of the post-Pentecost Christian community:  The indwelling Holy Spirit--not Abrahamic ancestral pedigree--makes us his heirs.  The 'Jerusalem Conference' in Acts 15:1-35 met to discuss the very question of whether the Gentiles could also become Christians because it was only since Cornelius' baptism in the Holy Spirit that non-Jews could became members of Christ's Body:

And God who knows the heart bore witness to them [= the Gentiles], giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; and he made no distinction between us [= Jews] and them [= Gentiles], but cleansed their hearts by faith...  But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will (Acts 15:8-9, 11).

This was St Paul's 'sticking point'--that the indwelling Holy Spirit is precisely what gives us the "pedigree" to be counted as Abraham's offspring.  In fact, Paul plays with the idea of the Gentiles being a wild olive branch grafted onto the domesticated olive tree of Israel, implying the olive oil in the fruit olive which is suggestive of the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Rom 11:17f).  He makes a similar point in his epistle to the Galatian churches--

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise... (Gal 3:29-29).

In the very next paragraph, Paul bats a home-run:

I mean that an heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave...  But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a Woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons [and daughters].  And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!  Father!" (Gal 4:1, 4-6).

It is the Holy Spirit who indwells us who is the great gatherer of the Gentiles to form the one Body of Christ (Rom 12:4; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:26-29).

But why am I belaboring what ought to be Biblically obvious?  Because the indwelling Holy Spirit is the only solution to the sin of racism.  Sin, by definition is divisive; that is why Adam and Eve hid from both each other and from God (Gen 3:7, 8).  Paul tells us that division, party spirit, and the like are "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19-20).  It is only in the power of Pentecost that there can be true "unity in diversity."

This is the Gospel that is left unannounced by many leaders in the Christian community.  As the Body of Christ, our solution to the problem of racism is not the world's; our solution is a supernatural one; it is to the enlarge the Body of Christ by inviting all peoples to receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of love between the Father and Son, the Spirit whom Jesus promised in John 17:20-26  who would be the source of unity.

For Christians to adopt worldlings' "solution" to the problem of racism instead of the Gospel's is like trying to light up a room with a battery-operated flashlight instead of turning on the light-switch.  Why would Christians opt for a powerless solution to the brokenness and fragmentation of the human race resulting from preternatural sin when the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit is given to us precisely to unite us all?  As St Peter said on the morning of that first Pentecost, "For the promise is for you"--remember the vast assembly of races assembled at Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks--"and for your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him" (Acts 2:39).

The Lord Jesus explicitly connected the Outpouring with Mission:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

When we stand before the Judgment-Seat of Christ, what answer will we give to Him, while bragging about our anti-racism, when He asks us, "But why did you refuse the power of Pentecost?  Why did you not invite Blacks, First Nations, Arabs, and Amazonians to experience baptism in the Holy Spirit and to become members of My Body?  That, and that alone, was My appointed ending to the confusion of Babel."

     Almighty and ever-living God,
     who willed the Paschal Mystery
     to be encompassed as a sign of fifty days,
     grant that from out of the scattered nations
     that the confusion of tongues
     may be gathered by heavenly grace
     into the one great confession of Your Name.
     Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
     who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
     one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

          --Solemn Vigil of Pentecost, Collect before the Epistle