Holy and Glorious Pentecost
Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-52; 8:12
Read Acts 2:1-11
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
The Acts of the Apostles is full of people being “filled” and “full”. Even a whole building was “filled”. Because of the similarity between these words in English, it can seem that they are always talking about the same thing, but they aren’t. There are two different Greek words being translated into English and the translators sometimes use both “filled” and “full” for both words, making it difficult for us to always distinguish which meaning is being conveyed.
Most of the time, “full” is about a person’s character being permeated by the Holy Spirit. Think St. Stephen. He was “full” of faith and the Holy Spirit. Or Tabitha. She was “full” of good works and acts of charity.
Most of the time, “filled” is about a sanctifying event that is empowering for Christian mission. Today’s reading is the epitome of all such events – Pentecost.
Pentecost connects us with Christ in two directions: back to the promise of the risen Christ that the apostles would be empowered when the Holy Spirit would come upon them, hearkening back further to Jesus’ promise to be with them (and us) to the end of the age; and forward to the unfolding mission of the Church to make Christ known to the end of the earth.
We know that Christ said He would be with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit but, like Stephen and Tabitha, we still need to apply ourselves to being “full” of the Holy Spirit. That is an ongoing process where we let the Holy Spirit into all the recesses and corners of our selves through feedback from others, self-examination, scripture reading, prayer, confession, and communion. God will sovereignly decide to fill us for service; we must allow ourselves to be full of the Holy Spirit.