We Celebrate Pentecost and the Coming of the Spirit

The Lord made man in His image, in order to have him as His friend, to make him a participant in His divine life, to make him a god by grace by making His abode in Him. When through the Fall man deviated from the path to this vocation of his, the Son of God assumed the human essence and, having redeemed human sin, returned the lost possibility to him. The divine essence in Him and through Him was perfectly united with the human essence. But the work of redemption accomplished by Christ had to bear its fruit in salvation, to be actualized in a new life in which man was to participate by receiving the life-giving Holy Spirit.

After Christ’s departure from the world, in which He nevertheless constantly abides as the perfect God-Man, the Holy Spirit had to descend into the world. The descent of the Holy Spirit is directly connected with the Incarnation. One can say that this descent constitutes the goal of the Incarnation, as Christ explains to His disciples: “I go unto the Father” (Jn. 14:28), in order to send down the Holy Spirit, who will baptize the disciples with fire. Christ’s Incarnation enables us to be united with Him; it is the unshakable foundation for our participation in the divine life, but only the reception of the Holy Spirit actualizes this life in us, mysteriously and ineffably manifests in us the union and interpenetration of human life and divine life.

Inspiration in the human sense is considered to be a state in which a human being feels in himself the presence of new forces, as if emanating from his higher being; without losing himself, he feels changed, finding in himself new and untried possibilities. But this inspiration, which reveals to a human being the hidden or slumbering forces of his own spirit, is only the mode in which he receives the Spirit of God, is deified by this Spirit, and is thereby united with Christ, who lives in him. The descent of the Holy Spirit is the actualization of Christ’s work and the fulfillment of God’s plan for man, for man was created as the temple of the Holy Spirit, together with the natural world, whose head and soul he is intended to be.

The universal Pentecost which took place in the upper room on Mount Zion was anticipated and prepared from the very foundation of the world, always quickened by the Holy Spirit. At the very beginning of the creation, when earth that was without form and void was called to being, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2), and this was the first, natural Pentecost in anticipation. And the second Pentecost, a human one, occurred when God, in creating man, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7). “Every soul is quickened by the Holy Spirit,” the holy Church testifies. The original man was created as spirit-bearing, but he lost his gifts as a consequence of the Fall. However, even in sin, the grace of the Spirit of God is not fully removed from man. This grace is given to him also through his natural powers, for although the original image of God in man has been obscured, it has not disappeared. According to God’s special dispensation, in the chosen people, in the Old Testament Church, man was given the gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit in various ministries: those of priests, elders, kings, prophets, warriors, and artists. The life of the Old Testament Church is full of grace.

Nevertheless, the rupture between God and man remained unhealed until the coming of Christ; the gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit illuminated man only from outside as it were but were incapable of penetrating into his being and of making him into a temple of the Holy Spirit. However, through education by the grace of the gifts of grace and slow ascent, man was being prepared for the reception of God, and finally the time had come: a being appeared on earth who was capable of receiving the Holy Spirit and becoming a temple of Divinity: the Most Pure Virgin. And upon Her descended the Holy Spirit at the Divine Incarnation; the Pentecost of the Mother of God took place. But this Pentecost, although it gave the Virgin Mary the power to become the Mother of the Lord, nevertheless did not deprive Her of the possibility of participating in the universal Pentecost in Jerusalem.

The fullness of Pentecost was accomplished upon the human essence of the Lord Jesus Christ at His baptism, when upon Him descended the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. And this descent of the Holy Spirit upon the New Adam already contained the foundation for the future universal Pentecost. But for this it was necessary that there be accomplished not only the entire fullness of the redemptive work but also the full glorification of the human essence in the Ascension to heaven and the sitting at the right hand of the Father. Only from heaven, having fully deified and glorified the human essence, does the Son of Man send from the Heavenly Father the Holy Spirit upon all humanity, just as and because upon His human essence as well was sent the Holy Spirit, who reposes upon Him. And this was precisely the meaning of His last promise to the apostles, expressing the fullness of His work, before the Ascension: “wait for the promise of the Father. . . . ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4-5).

The descent of the Holy Spirit was an event that occurred in a particular place and at a particular time. This is how the holy Evangelist Luke describes it in the Acts of the Apostles: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as if of a rushing mighty wind. . . . And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they wer all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:2-4). The descent of the Holy Spirit occurred for all those present in a palpable and even visible manner; and just as visible and palpable was the action of this descent upon those who received the Holy Spirit, for they felt themselves to be new men and received the gift of tongues.

The division into tongues had originated, by God’s will, during the building of the Tower of Babel, which was the ultimate expression of the falling away from God, of human theomachy. But at Pentecost this division is healed. The Holy Spirit unites in the Church all tongues, for in Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew. Each of the apostles received a different tongue from the one Holy Spirit, for (as the apostle Paul explains) “there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. . . . the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal” (1 Cor. 12:4, 7).

And in the early Church the gifts of the Holy Spirit were so superabundant that there even appeared a mutual zeal concerning these gifts, as the apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 12-14. And the descent of the Holy Spirit during the laying on of the apostles’ hands was always a palpable work, as is attested by various examples (see Acts 8:15-17; 8:39; 10:44-47; 19:2-6). If, because of our sinful infirmity and because of God’s special dispensation, these gifts are not always palpable in the further life of the Church or at the present time, this does not nullify their power and effectiveness. The tongues of fire which descended at Pentecost abide in the world; and we, the Christian people, live by the active power of Pentecost, for the latter is the abiding Church of Christ.

All the sacraments, prayers, and sacramentalia of the Church are the tongues of fire of Pentecost which abide in the world. And the entire holiness of the Church, the spiritual gifts and achievements, is realized by the power of Pentecost. And at the peaks of holiness, the tongues of Pentecost are becoming palpable even among us: the visage of the Holy Spirit to Motovilov [a young landowner who visited St Seraphim of Sarov in the winter of 1831 and Seraphim explained to him that the entire goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Motovilov didn’t understand how one can be certain of being in the Holy Spirit so Seraphim told him to look at his face. Motovilov saw a great light streaming from it, brighter than the sun.]. But even now do we not see the shining visages and eyes of people when they experience the exaltation of prayer, clearly attesting to the presence upon them of the Holy Spirit? Each of us is given to participation in Pentecost, but we must nurture its gift, fully acquiring it by toil and exertion.

Continuing invisibly and visibly, Pentecost is realizing its work in the world and in humankind. The Holy Spirit, living in the Church, establishes in the latter the Body of Christ, the kingdom of saints which awaits the coming glory. To this glory are predestined not only man but also all of nature. At Pentecost the sons of Israel erected tabernacles of wood; and even now Christians bring into churches flowers, greener of grass, and branches of trees. Through this vegetation, all of nature participates in the event that took place in the temple of the upper room on Mount Zion; all of nature participates in Pentecost. All creatures await, according to the words of the Apostle, the revelation of the glory of the sons of men; they await the transfiguration into a new heaven and new earth, the cosmic Pentecost, which will arrive after the universal resurrection. The Holy Spirit, who lives now in the Church and makes her the Kingdom of grace, will also actualize the Kingdom of Glory; and God’s face will be imaged in all creation—God will be all in all. But this coming Kingdom of Glory will be the fulfillment of Christ’s work which has already been accomplished; it will be fulfilled by the descent of the Holy Spirit into the world. The Lord has already united Himself with His creation, deified it, and abides in it. We also call the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit the day of the Holy Trinity, a second Epiphany as it were. God the Father, who has revealed Himself in His Son, also reveals Himself in the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son. God is trihypostatic love, the mutual love of the divine Hypostases, as well as love for creation, manifested in the divine condescension and descent. And now this divine descent is revealed fully: The Lord not only created the world but also came to dwell in it—the Father by the Son and by the Holy Spirit. Amen.