A Gradual Pentecost

Dave Brisbin | 4.29.18 From the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, it can seem that the Spirit descending on Jesus’ followers like tongues of fire on each was an event that happened at a particular place and time as they passively waited. But the truth is, there’s nothing passive about the spiritual life. We need to resist the temptation to think of Pentecost or baptism of the spirit or the born again experience as the moment when Spirit is unleashed, no longer withheld. Spirit is always unleashed, permanently permeating everything all the time—never withheld. Pentecost is a conscious choice to return to unity with Spirit as we become aware of its presence in a fundamentally new way. It can be a gradual process, a process of becoming more and more aware until we realize at some point we have a very different relationship with Presence. What is this process? How does it work? Jesus’ Way to Father can be looked at as a return to the Garden of Eden, a return to the kind of connection with which each of started as children. And Jesus’ insistence on loving the enemy, the willingness and practice of embracing what is different and difficult in our lives—people, ideas, circumstances that offend—is the process itself. Each time we love enemy as Jesus did by breaking through the ritual, theological, and social barriers we have set up to keep ourselves safe, we are returning to the borderless relationship beyond tribe and self that is Pentecost.