Pre-Pentecost, Pre-Salvation, You.
Acts 20:16-18, 28-36
John 17:1-13
Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves
Do you remember the images of the Christmas tsunami from several years ago? I don’t mean the images of death and destruction but rather of the event itself. As the wave was seen far out on the horizon, the water withdrew from the shore, sometimes several yards out, revealing the sandy sea bottom. Then there was that rushing onslaught of water. Regular waves of course function the same, but to a lesser degree.
Wind and storms seem to function that way as well – although it may only be our perceptions after the fact. But it seems there is always a painful quiet before the storm, a deathly still. My Mom tells this sort of story about being in a tornado: of a greyish yellow light and a deathly still where she says even the rain seemed to have stopped dripping from the leaves. It’s the “calm before the storm”.
Several of the Resurrection stories of Jesus have him speaking of or imparting the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not defined in these stories, but in my favourite one the image is of the Spirit as Jesus’ breath, isn’t it? He breathes on the disciples and says “Receive the Holy Spirit.” It’s kinda of a pun, really, because the word for “Spirit” in Greek comes from the root for wind and breath.
Some how the Holy Spirit, proceeding eternally from the Father alone, is Jesus’ to give to us. This is, somehow, his joy being fulfilled in us.
Among all the images of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we might miss the most basic understanding – that was common in his own culture. Without getting too deeply into a theological debate of “west vrs east” scope, I wanna talk about pagan vrs Jewish.
In the eyes of Old Testament writers (Psalms 50, 104, 146) all life belongs forever to God, who created it and can never lose it. Humans and other animals enjoy filling up with life (or breath) for a while; then when they die it flows back to God like water (or blood) running back into a sea, leaving the once lively creature empty and weak (that is, dead). A sinner cut off from God, and so from the sea of life that filled her at birth, can only lose that life and die. But God mercifully offers a way out: if the sinner will bring a ram to the temple, and instead of killing it to eat it, kill it prayerfully and leave it for the priests to eat, God will not take that ram’s life back, but will give it to the sinner as a sort of life-transplant. (The sinner does not exactly receive the ram’s life, because there is no such thing; there is only life, some of which was in the sinner, and some in the ram, until both lost what life they had.)
Fr Rick Fabian, writing in Worship at St Gregory’s
Now, follow that for a moment: all life is God’s, we’ve cut ourselves off from God (ie, are dead) and we need more life.
The Greek scriptures – at least written in part by Jews – actually have two words for this, our life, our individual existence, our personal box of “stuff”, is called “psyche“. The life of God, however, the divine life, the fullness of life is called zoe. In our daily life, our psyche, we are cut off from God. Christ says he is the Zoe, the Life. Salvation is, somehow, sloughing off this old psyche and being filled with Zoe.
We are, some how saved – made whole – in the living of Zoe or, perhaps better, in the being lived by Zoe. We do not live in God: but rather God’s life lives us.
Now, how do I tie this all together, tsunamis and Zoe and Jesus’ joy “fulfilled in” us?
The Church Calendar is not a list of historical commemorations, but rather an icon of our Salvation. We see this from the very get-go, the basic images of Nativity at the winter Solstice or of Pascha in the Spring – yes, written for the Northern Hemisphere, but ok. We see it later as the Church starts to add other feasts to the calendar, especially the cycle of feasts of the Theotokos, but also of certain other events. We’ve just passed the feast of “Mid-Pentecost”, which commemorates nothing really, but gives us a chance to read a couple of scriptures and see an icon. We have the feast of the presentation of Mary in the Temple, drawn from extra-Canonical sources. We have, really. Today.
If we look at the idea of Jesus’ Ascension, celebrated earlier this week on Thursday, and the feast of Pentecost, next Sunday, we have really nothing happening today. It’s nearly like this day is a dead zone.
Apart from some idea of historical accuracy – not terribly important to the Early church – there’s no reason to have this nine-day pause between the Ascension and the Pentecost. There must be an iconic reason: a salvific reason that there is this pause. There needs to be something we can learn here.
There’s a couple really – but one comes rather late in the process, so we can set that aside for a moment.
Now, tsunami.
This is the way I see today: Jesus came and went, the first wave. We’re in the calm before the storm, before the big wave, before the huge onslaught of life symbolized by Pentecost. We’re at the low point when, as the waters draw back, we can see the sandy bottom, we can see the the coming event by, really, the absence of it.
What could this be in our own life? What part of our salvation can this symbolize?
If Pentecost is our Baptism, if Pentecost is not only the “birth of the church” but the symbol, the icon of our own entry into God’s new covenant (as Pentecost was also the time of entry into the older covenant) then today – these nine days – must be seen as our own journey, our own pilgrimage to Jesus. Today is, really, the commemoration of our own being lost. Certainly it is not the case that we are lost – the Holy Spirit is not withdrawn from the world for these nine days. But rather in the icon of our salvation this is the time before such…
Where are you?
The tradition among very conservative sorts is that we shouldn’t talk about our life before salvation. It is said that traditional monastics and clergy do not reference the time before their ordination or tonsure. Certainly today in our blogging world we are more used to posting about our past, about our journey. But we’re not out of sync with the past: we see from Scripture that the Apostles all reference their older life. Likewise in their own writings the Church Mothers and Fathers – who also reference their older life.
Today is also a feast of the church, the 7th Sunday of Pascha is dedicated to the Fathers of the 1st Ecumenical council. The Nicene creed lays it all out for us, but it wasn’t new. The stuff in the creed was there, in the Church, all along. Orthodoxy wasn’t invented at the fist council – but it was demarcated. Today’s feast, coming before Pentecost, pictures the idea that the truth of the Church’s reading of the scripture was always there. That God’s triune personal singularity is present in the scriptures of the earlier covenant, that the Father’s pre-incarnate Son is the Creator from all time, that the Virgin’s conception and birth was prefigured in Eve. Today’s commemoration, coming before next week’s birth do the Church, indicates that the Church wasn’t born at Pentecost: but rather only came into her fullness.
So, today, I want to leave the door open: it is a good day to look. Symbolically, at least, the water has withdrawn and we can see all the refuse, the sea bottom.
What’s there? What’s the past for you? Where have you gone that brings you here? When you came to God for salvation, what is it that makes you you? What exactly did you get saved from? To draft language from our evangelical friends, what is your testimony?
And how, when you look at that, do you see, even then, before salvation, your salvation happening?
For what is true of the Church is also true of you: there wasn’t a BLAM! New person.
But that new person grew. The Truth of the Gospel was in your life before you knew that it was Gospel Truth.
Where was the breath of God breathing on you then. Where were you already living the life of the Spirit?
