Holding Down our Tabernacles

Image courtesy of http://www.cruzblanca.org/hermanoleon/

I have always loved comic books so when a comic book character or story makes a transition to television, I am a happy person.  For the seasons it was on television, Smallville ranked pretty high on the list of “must watch TV.”  In one episode a group of superheroes from the 31^st century comes back to our time to visit with Clark Kent and they are surprised to find out—in Smallville’s timeline anyway—that Superman hasn’t made it to “Superman” status yet.  One character asks, “Hey, Kal, where’s your cape?” Clark asks back, “Cape?”  A few minutes later two of the 31^st century heroes are talking, “Are you sure that’s the right guy?” The other says, “It’s him.” The first says back, “I don’t know.  No glasses, no tights, no flights.  So far he’s nothing like the Man of Steel.”

If glasses, tights and flights make the Man of Steel, what then, is the Community of Faith without the presence and gifts of the Holy Spirit?

The Feast of Pentecost answers that question for us.  One pastor writes about the Before-and-After Pictures of the Disciples: “Before Pentecost, they were dense, timid bumblers who fled at the least sign of trouble. Afterwards, they were fearless leaders. They healed the sick and cast our demons. They went to jail gladly, where they sang hymns until the walls fell down.”

Pentecost is like graduation day or the day we get kicked out of the nest and are given our wings.  But the diploma is grace-given, not earned through hard work.  The wings and the flight are Divine gifts, not natural talents.  The transformation that happens through the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is anything but natural.

Pentecost comes from the Greek, meaning “50^th”.  Before the day was claimed as the Church’s birthday, it marked the Feast of Weeks for the Children of Israel, celebrating the Spring Harvest.  The feast happened 50 days after the offering of the sheaf of first-fruits at the time of Passover and Unleavened Bread.  In later Judaism, the festival marked the giving of the Law and Covenant made at Sinai.  

So now, 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus, the first-fruit from the grave, we have a different sort of harvest that occurs.  There is a new manifestation of God’s timeless Law, a new sign of God’s covenant…the indwelling of God’s Spirit.

Go with me for a moment to the conclusion of the book of Exodus.  The final chapter of Exodus describes the Tabernacle’s completion: “So Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle…the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey.”  Once the tabernacle is finished, the glory of the Lord, the visible sign of God’s presence, descends in fire and cloud upon the dwelling place of God.

From Genesis, where God walked in the garden with the first humans, to Exodus, where God crashes from heaven to earth to dwell in the tabernacle, to Jesus where fully God and fully human get wrapped together in one flesh, to the Day of Pentecost where once again, God’s Spirit crashes to earth with wind and fire to take up residence in the Temples of the New Covenant, it is safe to say that God is not satisfied with a life of remote transcendence, but desires intimate imminence with Creation. 

Pentecost reminds us that the gift of saving grace is – at its core – personal and communal, for one and for many.  Our manifestations of the Spirit are for others to see Christ at work in us, for them.  To think that the presence of the Spirit is for us alone, for my personal gain and nothing else, is to stifle the Spirit of God.  And if we do that, if we make God our servant, put God at our beck and call, may God have mercy on us.

Pentecost, the day in the history of the Church when the disciples were locked in a room, waiting for the promise of God, and what they find is that God’s promise looks like a reversal of Babel’s curse.

Babel showed what humanity could do when working together for our own gain (as well as God’s ability to thwart our selfish endeavors); Pentecost shows us God’s partnership with humanity to use the power of the resurrection for God’s purposes and for God’s kingdom.  (As Peter’s first sermon concluded, 3,000 new members are added to the Church!)

Speaking of Babel, I recall watching a movie when I was a child about the stories of the Bible, maybe it was by Cecil B DeMille or someone like that.  The portion of the Tower of Babel has always stuck with me—not because it was so accurate to the text, but the way the story was told.  I remember as the tower was completed a man stood on top and launched a flaming arrow into the heavens, almost as if he was saying, “From this height, I can kill God!” And at that point the languages became mixed up, our unity for self-promotion was shattered, with a flaming arrow to the heavens.

But on Pentecost, Babel’s fiery arrow comes back down, not as a returned curse but as God’s blessing.  The Spirit’s descent may appear violent and chaotic, as Luke describes the event with ‘violent wind…divided tongues, as of fire…’ and an eruption of different languages from around the world, but this is the same God who entered the first tabernacle with fiery cloud and who descended upon Sinai with crashing thunder.  God’s movement makes noise.

I went camping in Palm Desert in California one year during Spring Break, our tent was in a valley and one night we were sitting out listening to music and talking and this wind begins to work through the valley we had set up in.  It started out as a gentle wind, evening breeze, nice and refreshing after a hot day in the desert, but it kept building, blowing harder.  We started laughing because at some point “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors had come on, but it became so violent that I had to hook my arm through the door of the tent to keep it from blowing away, and I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t going to go for a ride with the tent.

I sometimes wonder if we don’t hold down our tabernacles, hook our arms to things, to prevent us from being blown away by the rushing wind of the Spirit, fearful of the places God would take us if we just let go.