Acts 2:1-4 (NRSV Updated Edition)
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
John 20:19-23 (NRSV Updated Edition)
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
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"Again is this sense of ... undoing of the notion of the Holy Place in the temple, where of course Jews were frightened to go in, as well they should be. No one was allowed in except the High Priest, and the High Priest only with extreme precautions. But so here we have this inversion: in an ordinary house where the disciples are hiding. And guess what? This house turns into the Holy Place in the temple, because “Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'” In other words, the first thing to notice about them is: they're frightened, they're ashamed, they are kind of failures, they've been following someone who turned out to have been killed, they don't know what's going on, they're hiding. The very first sign of his presence is peace.
...
"A second time he says: “Peace be with you.” In other words, his whole appearance, this is the definitive theophany for the Most High in the whole of the scriptures. And unlike all the others, it's not frightening. This is if you like the great shock of the New Testament, that when God finally does turn up, God is not frightening.
...
"When he had said this, he breathed into them. And I changed the translation. The translation said, “breathed on them,” but it's the same verb as was used in Genesis when our Lord breathes into Adam's nostrils to give him life, exactly the same verb. So it seems to me better that it be translated “breathed into” here because that's what he's doing: he's creating the new Adam. And says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Which means, strangely: now be insiders in the life of God.
"“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” And of course, alas because we tend to be moralists and so on and so forth, this very easily becomes a matter of priests forgiving other people's sins and so on and so forth. It means so much more than that. This is a new creation we're talking about. What it means is that we are being invited to be insiders in God's opening up of creation, making it a much much bigger, healthier space. And he's giving the power for this to happen to *us*. In other words, this is going to be a human endeavour. Now it says: you know, in as far as you open it up, in as far as you let go of the things that bind down and open it up - in other words, forgive sins and they'll be forgiven; those you don't, they won't.
"In other words, there's no extra outside, you know, deus ex machina [ie. God coming out of the sky] figure coming to sort things out. No, it's up to you. I have done the whole of this so as to make you insiders in the creative act of God, as humans - with your intelligences, with your foibles, with your failures. It is you who are going be able to do this. This is one of the most astounding things that anybody could possibly have heard: that God would turn up and say: now be participators in the inside of my life, and you are going to be, if you like, its bearers. I want you to take charge of opening up creation.
"Please understand that this is not creation in some, let's say, historical sense of something that happened a long time ago. He is saying: no, that which is real, that which is of God, that which is truthful, it's actually a reality we're talking about. You are opening up reality. You're going to be conscious participants on the inside of opening up reality. And this is going to be a human-centered exercise. That's what I find astounding about this.
"We think of the Holy Spirit, we listen to the imagery from Luke, we read the passage here and the sense that we are being with something incredibly gentle, a breath into us. Of course, you're welcome to the more pictorial imagery of Luke, but ultimately it's the same thing: this incredible gentle breath within us which turns us into insiders, into the life of God. And means that at this very very intimate personal level, we are being invited as an act of extreme gentleness, intimate gentleness, to be co-discoverers of the real, the truth, of the trust. What actually the life of God is really like, life of God and reality, everything that is real. It is the Creator Spirit who is making us as part of reality, open up part of reality.
"So much going on here. I just wanted to leave you with this sense of this act of intimate trust that we've been invited to take part in. And as we sit with this to discover what it is to be living inside this new in-between, this life in which we are being made together, intimate participants, sharers, builders-up of each other, openers-up of life for each other."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Pentecost Sunday Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_oJDmT09E)
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