The drama of the passage from Acts, with its rushing winds and tongues of flame, is the most familiar image associated with Pentecost. Where God once confused human language and scattered human communities across the face of the earth as a response to human pride and isolationism (Gen 11:1-9), at Pentecost we remember how God creates community while respecting diversity by speaking to each of us in ways we can understand.
Yet it is the passage from John that hints best at what those gathered must have heard in their native languages. Jesus assures Philip, and the rest of us, that "whoever has seen me has seen the Father." This is the heart of the gospel and the content of our proclamation, that the nature of God is revealed in the nature of Jesus.
The notion that we can understand who God is by looking at what God has done in the person of Jesus and, by the power of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentecost, through us as well is the foundation of our Trinitarian faith. In God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, Roman Catholic theologian Catherine LaCugna writes, "Theories about what God is apart from God's self-communication in salvation history remain unverifiable and ultimately untheological" (New York: HarperCollins, 1991, p. 231). We do not need to speculate about who God is because God has revealed God's love, justice, and mercy through the person of Christ Jesus.
At Pentecost we were drawn into the inner life of God, which is cracked open for the entire world to see. We were adopted into a family to which everyone belongs, where everyone is welcome. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are sent to do what Jesus did and even "greater works than these" (John 14:12), namely to proclaim God's reconciling love to people of every language and land. (image: Inspiration, by Paula Wiggins. © Paula Wiggins/TheSpiritSource.com. Used by permission.)
