Homily of Archbishop Benjamin on Pentecost

Delivered at Holy Trinity Cathedral, San Francisco on Pentecost Sunday 2012.

We celebrate our parish feast this morning, the Feast of the Trinity, of Pentecost, when the Most-Holy Spirit of God descended upon the disciples of Christ “who were all of one accord and in one place,” as is recorded in the Book of Acts. 

This feast is not a purely Christian feast. It is also a feast celebrated by the Jews, Shavuot, which commemorated the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai and was linked to Passover in that it happened 50 days later. The Hellenistic Jews of the Diaspora gave it the name pentekosti or the fiftieth day. The feast was also connected with the harvest. Farmers brought the first fruits of wheat, barley, figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates, and dates in gold and silver baskets to be offered to the Lord in the Second Temple. It was said in the Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures that when the Lord gave the Law to Israel Mount Sinai it became covered in flowers and greenery. And so, it has been the custom among observant Jews to decorate their synagogues and homes with greenery on Pentecost. Curiously, Christians have also retained this custom of decorating their churches with greenery and flowers on Pentecost.

We heard this morning in the reading of the Gospel of St. John, that Christ Himself, the One Who gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, on this day of Pentecost stood up and proclaimed: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” And we understand this Christian Pentecost to be the fulfillment of the Jewish feast, the Law of Moses, its meaning and purpose, is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. A relationship with God that centered around keeping the letter of the Law, through the descent of the Holy Spirit, is transformed into one of grace and sonship. The Law was a teacher. It pointed men and women to a righteous life, a way of living that was pleasing to God. But the Law could not give life. It could only point out or give definition to what was deadly, what offended God. And, until the coming of the Only Begotten Son of God, wrapped up in Adam’s flesh, no son of Adam could keep every tenant of the Law. And, to fail in the observance of even one of the commandments made a man guilty of the entire Law. The penalty remained the same – death and alienation from the Source of Life, God.

And so today, Christians around the world celebrate a new relationship with God, one, not based upon rules and observances, but one that is based upon grace and sonship. We are no longer mere laborers or hirelings, but sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. We observe God’s commandments, not because we are afraid he will destroy or punish us, but because we love him and desire to please him. We therefore see and experience something deeper because of Christ, the source and fountain of living water.

There are a couple of points I would like to stress with regard to the experience of the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them. First of all, this experience was one they experienced together, not as isolated individuals. There is a curious experience that is called “Pentecostal” and that is very American, having grown out of the Azusa Movement that traces its origins to what was called the Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California beginning about 1906. The characteristics of this movement are in many ways very different from those the Apostles experienced on Pentecost. A tremendous emphasis in this movement is placed upon one’s personal (here meaning individual or private) experience. And, again, what is called “speaking in tongues” is more akin to babble than to speaking in actual foreign languages as was the case on that first Christian Pentecost in Jerusalem. And while I would not like to in anyway limit the work of the Holy Spirit, one is rather hard pressed to find a tradition of this sort of “experience” that goes back to Apostolic times. Instead of being something ancient, it seems to be something rather novel.

In more traditional Orthodox Christianity we do, in fact, practice a sacramental anointing of the Holy Spirit in Chrismation. But the anointing we practice is very ancient and has roots that lead back to the time Moses received the Law on Sinai, which, as I have said, constitutes the Jewish celebration of Pentecost. Moses was commanded by the Lord to make chrism or consecrated oil by which the high priests of the tabernacle and later the temple were anointed. This precious oil was made only one time at God’s command and kept in the Ark of the Covenant. When the Ark disappeared from Jerusalem about the time of the Babylonian conquest, the chrism disappeared with it. And it was said that one of the things the Messiah would do when he came was to restore the holy chrism and, thereby, restore the legitimacy of the priesthood. We know that the word christos means Anointed One. Christ is the Anointed One. And for Orthodox Christians, He is the only High Priest who both offers and is Himself offered to God the Father at every Divine Liturgy. And we, His followers, when we enter the Christian fold, enter by means of washing AND anointing, we become little “Christs,” little anointed ones, Christians. We are baptized and anointed with the most holy chrism.  This act of anointing refers back to the anointing of the High Priest of the Temple who was anointed and consecrated to God with the holy chrism on his eyelids in the form of a cross. We do that to this very day in our Orthodox sacrament of Chrismation. The symbolism here was quite clear, the High Priest through anointing on the lids of his eyes was given the gift of seeing things that were otherwise hidden and unknowable. He was ritually reborn as one of the angelic host, a son of God, against the day when the Only Begotten Son of God would come in person, in Adam’s flesh to renew and restore His beloved creation. And so for us, this personal Pentecost of anointing with the Holy Chrism is not something we possess in isolation, but as an expression of the oneness of the first Pentecost when all were “of one accord and in one place.” It is an expression of unity, rather than singularity.

And so on this wonderful morning, we celebrate the birth of the Church, the wedding of the Lamb of God. We celebrate our own priestly calling as anointed ones. And we celebrate the fulfilling of the Law and the descent of grace in the form of tongues of fire.