If you celebrate Pentecost this coming Sunday as primarily an event wherein individuals are filled with the Spirit, you are missing the whole meaning of what the Orthodox call "The Great High Feast of the Church." Pentecost is not just about me or about you. It's about everything
Pentecost is eschatological. To be filled with the Spirit is to be a sign of The End when the whole cosmos shall be filled with the glory of God.
Pentecost is not about a "Holy Ghost Good Time." It is about The Time. The Awesome and terrible Day of the Lord.
Pentecost is about judgment, a fire that burns away at our affections, leaving only that which can stand in the Final Day. Pentecost is the Gift of the Coming Kingdom. It is a harvest festival that gathers the rich produce of the fruit of the Spirit.
Pentecost slays before it fills. It burns before it renews. It destroys before it re-builds. This Pentecost we are in need of some slaying of privileges and destroying of holdouts.
The icon of Pentecost says it best. As the Spirit is poured out, King Cosmos emerges from the darkness. He is the tattered and beaten down world, with all its prejudices and fallenness- coming into the light that streams from The End.
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