June 8, 2025: Pentecost Sunday

Gospel: John 20:19-23

“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retrained.”

Reflection

Peace be with you!

As God has sent me (Jesus), so I (Jesus) send you! Receive the Holy Spirit. Forgive.

Pentecost was originally a Jewish spring harvest festival. Later, Pentecost was celebrated 50 days after Passover, remembering the covenant through Moses at Mt. Sinai. In the first reading for today (from Acts of the Apostles) the feast symbolizes the formation of a new covenant community.

The new community is the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of human begins. It is the community of Spirit-filled believers.

Our Scripture text for today is a kind of summation of the Gospel of John. It contains all that had been promised and is now fulfilled. John recorded earlier Jesus having said that he would come again, that he would bestow peace, that his disciples would be filled with joy, that He, Jesus, would send them as the One he calls Father had sent him, and that the Spirit would be given. All is fulfilled.

In the text, the reference to “Jews” by the community meant all those who had rejected the Risen Christ and from whom they feared persecution at that time (interpretation by Arthur Dewey in The World in Time).

God’s gift of peace to us and the community is expressed in the risen Jesus. Life overcomes death and so we proclaim Easter Alleluia. As Jesus was sent by God, so we, too, are sent in covenant by Jesus. We have been commissioned now to spread peace, and to forgive the act of “rejecting Jesus as the divine communication.” (Dewey) The gift of peace is for the work of humanity.

The Holy Spirit has been poured out upon us to live out our commission of spreading and being peace and forgiveness. We have often repeated the message of John Paul II, “No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Forgiveness.” Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.”

Pentecost is not just about the past. The Spirit of Pentecost, peace and forgiveness, comes today, in flesh and blood, not through Jesus but through us. We are confronted with the Word of Christ Risen and the gift of the Holy Spirit upon us, to bring peace and forgiveness.

Action

How will you and your community of faith spread the Word and be peace and forgiveness in tangible ways? How might you be part of justice making?