The Great Feast of Holy Pentecost may be said to be the celebration of enthusiasm. The etymological development of the word enthusiasm is derived from the Greek enthousiasmos — “divine inspiration”, from enthousiazein ” to be inspired or possessed by God, to be in rapture, to be in ecstasy,” from entheos “divinely inspired, possessed by God,” from en “in”+ theos “God” – to be in God. Holy Pentecost is the feast of enthusiasm – of being in God, of being possessed by God, of being on fire for God.
The Gospel for the feast provides a clue why this is the feast of enthusiasm: “He who believes in me, as the scripture says, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive.“ “Do you not know,” writes St. Paul, “that you are temples of the Holy Spirit?” (John 7:37-52; 8:12) God comes this day as “living water flowing from within us. He comes with power. He comes announced only by the strong winds, which are themselves, symbols of the advance of God’s All-Holy Spirit.
The great theologian, Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, put it this way: “Something new happened at Pentecost, something wondrous, something marvelous – God came and dwelt not only among us as our Lord Jesus Christ, but within us through the Holy Spirit. The promise of our salvation that we would be united with God, began to be made manifest. At last, joy came to the anxious heart of man and woman.”
In the Church‘s annual liturgical cycle, Pentecost is “the last and great day.” It is the celebration by the Church of the coming of the Holy Spirit as the end – the achievement and fulfillment – of the entire history of salvation. For the same reason, however, it is also the celebration of the beginning: it is the holy beginning of the Church as the presence among us of the Holy Spirit, of the new life in Christ, of grace, knowledge, adoption to God and holiness.
Our holy Father St. John Chrysostom communicated the fullness of this day, the reason for its joy, and the grounds for enthusiasm: “Let us spiritually extol the grace of the Holy Spirit in spiritual hymns, since spiritual grace has on this day shown upon us from heaven. Joy has come into the Church because of the hope of perfection, the end of expectation, the longing for salvation, the fulfillment of prayer and the image of patience.”
It is no wonder, then, that the Apostles ran from the Upper Room as if delirious. They needed nothing more to be convinced about God, about His Word-Made-Flesh, and about the Holy Spirit who, this day, burned their hearts with fire and faith. They ran into the crowded streets of Jerusalem, to announce in many languages, the great wonder of God, the fact that He had deeply possessed them, and their belief that He would come again in glory – and that very soon. This was the beginning of eschatological (end times) fervor. The believers were viscerally convinced that Jesus would return in glory in their day and age.
That caused joy to blossom in their hearts, aided by the warmth of the Spirit’s fire and power. Orthodox believing, then, has as one of its manifestations – joy/happiness. In his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul speaks about joy and about the Christian’s duty to rejoice over and over again. For example, he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I say rejoice!” (4:4a). Legitimate questions might be raised: What happened to the fire? Where did the joy go? Does our faith make us enthusiastic about it, about life – about our “Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth?” Or have we fallen into a spiritual lethargy?
It was the Patristic scholar, Fr. Walter Burghardt, of blessed memory, who, in explaining this waning joy and enthusiasm for the faith, said: “If you share the Gospel because you’re passionate about Jesus Christ, then you’ll do so with infectious enthusiasm.” We live in days when the fire of the first Pentecost has diminished, when many Christians’ joy is barely apparent, let alone passionate, and when the expectation of Christ’s return has faded into a distant fantasy – for many a fiction! It seems the crowded and noisy city center of the first Pentecost has grown silent. We are heirs of the Enlightenment (1715-1789) and have allowed the fire of faith in the gut to become a sterile concept in the mind. This is why we celebrate Holy Pentecost as the “feast of enthusiasm” – it is the rediscovery of Christian joy!
How is it that we can live our faith with enthusiasm? Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, in his book Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, shares his perspective and makes an important point: “Orthodoxy is marked by sobriety, not by emotional enthusiasm. It is also marked by a quite “ordinary” persistence in living the humble, consistent life of Christ not by seeking out extraordinary experiences, especially supernatural ones.”
Having joy in your faith does not mean walking around smiling all the time, nor does it mean that we adopt superficial behaviors, excessive piety, or a “preachy” attitude. As Fr. Andrew notes, enthusiasm is sobernot an emotional (superficial) display and it is living the humble, consistent life of Christ. Yet, at the same time, if we are to evangelize others and lead them to the faith, our Divine Services must lift them from their earthly burdens, our welcoming must let them know they have a faith home here, our demeanor must communicate that, while we are real people, we DO have a passion for the Lord!
The enthusiasm we celebrate this Holy Pentecost also challenges us to keep our yearning for the Lord’s return alive in our hearts. How is this done? It happens by one simple process: develop an intense desire for God. Elder Thaddeus of Vitonica in Serbia writes: “It is therefore necessary for us to cooperate with God, to allow Him to work in us and to shape our own will to His will. If we resist Him and refuse to cooperate with His direction and His leading, then He will withdraw and will not force Himself upon us unwilling. Therefore we must develop within ourselves a desire, a yearning for God which surpasses all other desires and a love for Him which is greater than any other love.”
This desire and love for God keeps us focused on our ultimate nature and destiny – to be with Him for eternity. That thought alone should spark our enthusiasm. But we are so busy and occupied with sinking our roots in the here and now, in building the city of man, in thinking that this is forever our home — that we lose sight of the fact that we were made for another city, a heavenly city, the City of God. In his Confessions, St. Augustine of Hippo lamentingly wrote of losing sight of his ultimate end: “But my sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in Him but in myself and in this world, and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error.”
To be enthusiastic about God and our faith, we must know where we are headed, know the way, and follow that path to blessedness. You and I can never make the mistake of thinking THIS is our final destiny and glory. The Apostles knew it on that first Pentecost. St. John the Beloved knew it when, in his first Epistle he wrote: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (I John 2:15-17)
We have much for which to give thanks on this Holy Pentecost. Though we have struggled and continue to do so, we are heading for the Light. Let us pause this weekend (and always!) to consider the Faith we hold together, the Divine Mysteries that nurture our hearts and souls, and the solidarity we have with one another as Church. Let us take heart and shed the darkness and anxiety. Let us realize that the Holy Spirit comes upon us in a new Pentecost in our day. He fires us up. He imparts spiritual power. He comes to rest deep within us as Himself – the love of the Father for the Son. Let us pray in joy together, this ancient hymn of the Church to the Holy Spirit:
“Holy Spirit, Lord of Light, from the clear celestial height, Thy pure beaming radiance give. Thou, of all the Comforters best, Thou, the soul’s delightful guest, dost refreshing peace bestow. Light immortal, Light Divine, visit thou these hearts of thine, and our inmost being fill. Bend our stubborn hearts and wills, melt the frozen, warm the chill, guide the steps that go astray. Give us comfort when we die, give us life with thee on high. Give us joys that never end. Amen. Alleluia!”
Faithfully in God’s Holy Spirit,
Fr. Dimitrios