The Apostles were drunk! Pentecost is about the celebration of unconditional love. Have we ever loved anyone unconditionally? Have we ever experienced being loved unconditionally? If we have, then we can begin to understand/experience what God’s love for us is all about. Let our prayer be a reflection on the truth of our own experience.
The poor disciples had been left with a promise ten days before that some sort of Spirit would come upon them. I’m sure they felt abandoned even with this expectation. God keeps making promises, . . . which God always keeps!
Suddenly this promised Spirit “descends” as of “tongues of fire,” which appear and spread out over all those gathered. One commentator observes that the tongues first came upon Mary and spread out from her. This was that Holy Spirit, the life-giving soul, the heart of love, the essence of God… the W.O.W. of God.
The Lord had not left them orphans. He came back in a W.O.W. (“WithOut Words”) moment. All gathered were enflamed – they felt the heat! – by God’s unconditional love. If we know that feeling, we know we cannot/will not let go. We become immersed in the Lover. God is immersed in us. Our love is of God. Once we experience it, we are impelled to keep Christ’s command to love. When we love unconditionally, we live a W.O.W. moment. We see, “as in a glass darkly” as St. Paul says, a glimpse of God’s indescribable love. The Spirit, the heart of God, drives us to love. We cannot do otherwise. We won’t let go of the beloved. God won’t let go of us and never will. We can’t be truly free unless truly loved by someone and we are free.
On Pentecost the promised Spirit fills us up with God’s unconditional love. The disciples then did the only thing a loved one can do and that was to generate that love outward; they spread it and lived it. Are we called to do less? The spiritual writer Ronald Rolheiser defines spirituality as “what we do with the fire.”
The Spirit spreads over each one present. In that room, the Apostles represented only ten percent of those assembled. The Spirit came upon all of them: the Apostles, the elders, and the “brothers” [and sisters]. They heard God approach as in “a strong, driving wind” before they saw the fire (Acts 2:1-4). We are called to be attentive to the many ways God speaks to us. The Spirit does not discriminate; the Spirit is not the possession of an elite few. But, if we think it’s hard to love unconditionally that way, it’s also hard for some to accept that kind of love. Some will run from it, deny or reject it, claim to be unworthy of it, or be afraid or overwhelmed by it. Jesus told his disciples they would be rejected for witnessing to Him and his message of love. “Rejection stings with fire to the same extent that it burns in the lover!”
For Pentecost St. John says it best: “If God so loved us, we also must love one another…. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit…. We have come to know and believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4:11-16). Of course, the Apostles were drunk. They were. . . drunk with the Spirit.
In Judaism (YHWH) and Islam (Allah) God has a name with meaning. In Christianity we use the word “God” (English translation), which is simply a designation. Reflect on how indiscriminately we often use that word “God.” It seems to have come to mean whatever people want it to mean. God! But whose God? Which God? In “religious” fervor, some have fostered the great idolatry of the name of God – God becomes our creation, we worship it, but the God we create is incapable of saving us.
But the Christian God does have a name, which at the same time is God’s reality: God IS LOVE. Every time we’re tempted to use the word “God,” substitute God’s name. Is that the Father of Jesus the Christ we’re speaking of?
Come, Holy Spirit and fill us with the fire of your love! Fill us with the God who IS LOVE.