The Feast of Pentecost is one of the oldest feast days observed by the church.  In fact, it is the celebration of the birth of the church.  Unfortunately, our celebration has become little more than a memorial service — a commemoration of the nostalgic past that has little or no relevance for our present or significance for our future.  It is simply a day we gather to venerate our history.

The church’s typical observance of Pentecost begs this question:  What meaning does Pentecost have for people of the 21^st century? 

The context of the gospel lesson appointed for the day of Pentecost this year (John 15:26-27; 16:4b-16) is what scholars refer to as the Farewell Discourse — the final conversation that Jesus has with his disciples as they celebrate their last Passover together.  And although this discourse is typically interpreted as a final exhortation of a departing teacher to his disciples, if you pay attention to what is being said, you realize that Jesus’ emphasis is not on the past but on the future — a future that not only breaks into the present but transforms it.  Jesus is insisting that his departure (death) is what will allow the disciples to fully embrace and experience the future.  And this future has nothing to do with prophetic predictions or fortune telling.  The future Jesus is describing is one in which they, and we, are invited to be active participants.

The significance of Jesus’ words is that the future being depicted is a collaborative effort.  The Advocate, or Spirit (of God), is sent to the community of faith — the “called out ones” (or church).  The ministry or work of the Spirit is to make Christ and Christ’s work a present reality through the life of the community of faith.  In other words, the Spirit will enable the community to embody — incarnate — the Love of God in the world.  Through the community of faith the reality of Emmanuel (God with us) continues into the future.  This reality, Jesus insists, is accomplished because the Spirit will proclaim that which it has heard.  The verb translated “proclaim” does not describe a Spirit who foretells the future. Rather it highlights the proclamatory function of the Spirit within the community.  Simply put, the Spirit proclaims the teachings of Jesus to the community within the new and changing circumstances of their lives and context.  This does not describe a community who gathers for the purpose of reciting static creedal statements and repetitive doctrinal formulas.  The work of the Spirit being described is a dynamic process that meets life where it is being lived — in the midst of our circumstances and context.  In other words, whatever our lived experience and wherever we find ourselves is precisely where the Spirit abounds.  And where the Spirit is, there is always Life.

This dynamic reality of the Spirit’s life-giving presence is described by the vision given to the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:1-14).  The time in which Ezekiel lived was a time when there was little hope and the future was bleak.  The people of Israel and Judah had been defeated and deported.  They had lost their land — their place in the world — and thus their connection with God.  Consequently, there was only hopelessness and fear.  The first part of the vision graphically portrays the depths of the despair that engulfed the people — they weren’t just corpses, they were dried out bones.  It is one thing to revive a corpse.  It is a completely different thing to revive petrified and scattered bones.  And yet, God directs Ezekiel “to prophesy to the bones.”  And despite the obvious hopelessness, Ezekiel listens to God and prophesizes to the bones.  And suddenly Ezekiel hears something — a rattling.  And then he sees something — bones coming together and being attached with sinews and then covered with flesh and finally with skin.  And yet, as incredible as this sight was, it only resulted in the creation of corpses.  All remained dead.  There was no life.  But God wasn’t finished.  God then commands Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath — from the four corners of the world — and command the breath to enter the corpses.  And the breath, the Spirit, comes and “they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” 

God goes on to explain to Ezekiel the meaning of the vision.  That even though the future appears to be hopeless; even when our vitality is sapped and death is all we can perceive; when by all appearances we are devoid of life; even when despair is all that we can fathom and scarcity is the extent of our experience, God’s spirit remains.  And take note that in this vision Ezekiel is an active participant — not an observer.  God does not act on God’s own.  God acts through Ezekiel.  God acts through Jesus.  God acts through the community of faith.  God acts through you and me.

Today, we, like the ancient Israelites and the first disciples, live in a time of great uncertainty — at time when hopelessness and fear are the watchwords of the day.  Our world appears to be despondent and desolate:  civil society appears to be failing as petty tribalism is embraced to justify a blatant disregard of human dignity and a deliberate disdain for life itself is provoking a looming ecological disaster.  Given this reality, it is so easy for society to become overwhelmed — perceiving nothing but dry bones.  And yet, it is this lack of perspective that causes society to cling to a nostalgic past rather than embracing a viable future.   The message of Pentecost is to prophesy to the bones — embracing hope and the life it begets.

The key in both the Ezekiel passage as well as Jesus’ “farewell discourse” is that we must be active participants in all life-giving miracles.  The Spirit only works through us.  The life-giving miracle is possible only when we are willing to participate, willing to follow Jesus by incarnating God in our time and place.  The future doesn’t depend on God.  The future depends on us.  When our focus remains fixated on the past — always yearning for the imagined “good ol’ days” — we render ourselves incapable of experiencing God’s presence in either our lives or in our world.  The feast of Pentecost demands that we stop memorializing Jesus’ teachings and start acting like disciples — following and embodying his example and teachings.  And when we dare to live our lives as fully as Jesus lived his — incarnating the Spirit — heaven is joined to earth and earth to heaven and the Dream of God becomes an incarnated reality in our world. 

We live in a world that is desperate for hope.  The world is waiting for us to prophesy to the bones — incarnating the Spirit in our midst and breathing Life into our world.