Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for May 24, 2015

Pentecost – Duccio di Buoninsegna (1308) Tempera on wood. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

It is Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter. The apostles have endured Jesus’ death, encountered him in mysterious resurrection appearances, then watched him taken up into the clouds. They must have faced the future with wary uncertainty … and then the Spirit, the Advocate whom Jesus had promised would come, filled the room with noise and wind and fire, and everything changed! Speaking fluently in many languages, they face a startled crowd and, quoting the Prophet Joel, declare the coming of God and our hope for salvation.

Psalm: Psalm 104:25-35,37

This joyous Psalm celebrates the diversity of God’s creation, filling earth and sea with too many amazing creatures to count. Evoking the story of creation in Genesis, the Psalmist reminds us that just as God’s spirit – “breath” or “wind” in Hebrew – was at work in creating the Earth, God’s spirit continues active in renewing creation. The loss of breath ends life; new breath restores it. We must take care not to interpret the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, as expressing the Christian theology of a Triune God. That would come hundreds of years later in a different time and place. Still, we can hear the creative work of God’s Spirit breathing through Creation, the Psalm and Pentecost.

Second Reading: Romans 8:22-27

Paul’s metaphor of all creation groaning like a mother giving birth, and of the Holy Spirit joining in “with sighs too deep for words,” may seem odd at first; but like all striking metaphors, they prompt us to deep reflection that yields insight. Like a mother eager to hold her new infant, we live in hope of the new life that God has in store for us, waiting patiently for something that we desire but cannot yet see.

Gospel: John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

As we near the end of John’s long account of Jesus’ final conversation with his apostles at the Last Supper, Jesus tells of an Advocate – the Holy Spirit – who seems as mysterious as Paul’s sighing spirit in Romans. While the apostles have been with Jesus since his public ministry began, there is much that they don’t understand, much that Jesus has not explained. When the Advocate comes, bearing Jesus’ words, much more will be revealed, and they will understand.