Pentecost 2009
May 2009
Today, the feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit.
When describing the execution of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross the four Gospels are very much in agreement as to the details of what happened.
When describing the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit, there is no such agreement in the four Gospels.
This is so because they are trying to put into words something that cannot be described or explained in words.
These three events were ‘faith experiences’ but based on reality. They are more clearly understood by examining the effects they had on the people who experienced them.
For the disciples of Jesus these experiences were events that changed them from fearful, despondent, defeated, human beings into a brave, outspoken group who openly declared their beliefs and laughed in the face of violence and death.
In Acts 9:3-9 St. Paul tries his best to describe this event or experience which totally changed his outlook in life. From being someone who went about with a troop of soldiers arresting and executing people who believed that Jesus of Nazareth had risen from the dead, he became someone who preached openly and tirelessly that Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead and he had no problem about dying for this beliefs.
When trying to describe these experiences in words the writers of the New Testament were faced with something analogous to you or I trying to put into words what being in love is like, what experiencing forgiveness and acceptance is like, what being able to finally forgive a long festering hurt is like, what being free of pain after long years of great suffering is like.
Other examples are illnesses whose cause and cure are unknown and can only be described by the effect they have on the patient.
So the authors of the New Testament are trying to describe in human words experiences that are not ‘putable’ into words. Thus they resort to all sorts of literary stratagems, common in biblical writings, to describe the indescribable. Hence the great discrepancies in the accounts.
(By the way, I know that many of you have been much troubled by these discrepancies.)
For Christianity to have an effect on my life, I too must, in some way, experience these events.
This experience can be, and probably will be, very modest in comparison with what St. Paul tries to describe but will, in some important way, change my attitude to God, to life and to my fellow human beings.