Send forth your Spirit - A Guided Meditation for Pentecost

A Guided Meditation for Pentecost Sunday

by Greg Finn

On Pentecost Sunday we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Jesus. It marks the birth of the Church. The disciples had waited together in Jerusalem for nine days after Jesus’s ascension, praying continuously. They were told to expect an Advocate or Counsellor. They could scarcely have guessed the manner in which that helper would arrive.

Please use this meditation (based on Acts 2:1-6) to help guide your prayer today. Read through the words slowly. Try to imagine yourself in the room as one of the followers. Focus in on how your heart is moved as you read and position yourself in the scene. It must have been a magnificent experience for those first Christians. On this day, their hearts were transformed and they immediately began their mission to spread the Gospel. The wonderful news is that Jesus offers us the same gift of the Holy Spirit. He asks us to welcome the Spirit into our hearts and minds and let His transformative power shape our lives.

Send forth your Spirit

Dawn breaks over Jerusalem and a shard of light breaks through a crack in the shutters. The single beam does little to illuminate the darkness of the upper room. It is here that you and the other followers of Jesus have waited obediently, locked away as the Holy City hums to the rhythms of festival preparation. It is seven weeks since Passover, the feast of Shavu’ot has arrived. Yet here there is an eerie stillness.

Cluttered thoughts and a hard floor have allowed you little sleep. With bleary eyes you peer into the gloom. Familiar figures sit hunched, their lips motion resolutely in silent prayer. Others stare forward, brooding. 

The last nine days have passed slowly, confined in this place. Everyone arrived with such great expectation. All were impassioned in prayer, ready to receive the power that the master had promised. His words echo through your mind still.

"Do not leave Jerusalem...You will be baptised with the Holy Spirit!"

He had been so calm and assured, promising an even greater future for you all. But how can anything be better without him? He disappeared from your view ten days back and it feels as though all your strength left with him. You know doubt is stalking in the shadows. Perhaps some of your friends are close to giving up and heading home.

Despite this, you are still determined to block out the doubts and stay. You continually try to think back to those glorious forty days. The days when Jesus, resurrected and alive, had walked by your side once again. Surges of joy and delight had rushed through your body whenever he had appeared. But it seems so hard to recollect those feelings and the peace they brought.  

You know that throughout those miraculous meetings your joy was tainted by guilt. A shame born of a knowledge that when your friend was most in need, in agony, you were nowhere to be seen. You had left him to suffer alone. And yet, despite that, Jesus had not deserted you. Even death could not prevent him from being back by your side. He had not given up on you. You turn that over in your mind. How does it feel to know Jesus still believes in you?

Now he has gone away once more. This time you will not let him down. You are resolved to stay and wait, trusting in what he has next, no matter how long it takes to arrive. 

Your gaze drifts to the stone wall across the room. It was there that Jesus had first reappeared on that bewildering Sunday fifty days past. Two evenings before, you had seen him taken from the cross, his lifeless body, broken, torn and sealed away in the rock. Yet there he had stood, his face shone and through perplexed tears you marvelled as his smile radiated through the room. Unbridled delight had flowed through this space. Now apprehension and uncertainty is trickling into hearts and minds.

You are suddenly startled as a fist crashes into the low wooden table positioned in the centre of the room. 

"When? When will it be?" Simon Peter lets out an exasperated cry. His patience is waning. He hauls himself up and moves towards the window. He nudges open the shutter and peers down into the street below. His voice is hushed but you are close enough to hear his anxious murmurings.

"How did he expect us to speak for him in Judea and Samaria and wherever else? It will be a miracle if we even make it out of Jerusalem with our lives."

He looks down at his open palm and gently kneads it with his opposite thumb. He shudders and his head droops. You know his thoughts. You have shared in them. Perhaps there will be more crosses to carry soon.

By the staircase, a group of women huddle together, their heads veiled. Among them you see a face which catches your eye. It is unlike the others. Her face is not marred by tension. Rather, it is captivating in its serenity. Auburn eyes glisten and a tender and contented smile rests on her lips. Jesus's mother sits with an air of calm expectancy. You wonder if she has been endowed with an understanding of the Holy Spirit that none of you others possess. 

As you consider this, you are distracted by a coolness on your cheek. A breeze begins to whisper through your hair and yet the opening to the outside is well away from where you sit. Others have clearly felt it too and begin to stir, looking around quizzically. 

Without further warning, the room becomes a melee of panic and scrambling bodies. The whole place is blasted by a wind more violent than any of the raging storms you have experienced on the Sea of Galilee.

This is impossible! Your heart pounds within your chest. However, the alarm is infused with an excitement, a realisation that what was promised has arrived!

The whole building shudders and with an almost deafening roar, a blazing mass of flame engulfs the ceiling above you! Your mind is racing. What thoughts are going through your head now?

Streaks of fire suddenly lash down onto each person. Before you can absorb what is happening, a fiery bolt arrows down onto your head and you brace for the shock of pain. 

Instead, it feels as if a cloak has wrapped itself tightly around you and an indescribable force jolts through your body. There is a familiarity about the sensation. Seeing Jesus risen, being in his presence, immersed you in the same feeling. You remember clearly once again the awe when Jesus walked into this room, though the doors were locked. Memories flood back of him greeting you on the shore of the lake a few short weeks ago! You knew then that he was alive, he was God and everything he had promised was true.

It is undeniable. His Spirit is here with you, filling every part of your being. A heat burns in your chest. A certainty of his love saturates you with joy. It feels like those times when you and he were together. The moments of laughter. The moments when you saw his healing hand transform lives...and yet this is more intense, not like he is by your side, but within you.

The elation rises. You know who Jesus truly is and you cannot bear to keep it contained any longer. You shout his name in praise, crying out the truth of what you know. Your words, however, sound different to the way you expected.

For the first time you become aware of your companions in the room. They too are shouting with ecstatic expressions on their faces. They must feel it too. You hear their words. It is not their normal tongue and yet you clearly understand them.

"Jesus Christ is Lord!" someone yells.

"He rose from the grave!" declares another.

Your eyes connect with those of your friends. The wind still swirls and yet laughter and cheers of delight are now woven into the turbulence. There is now no need for quiet, no fear of discovery, no desire to hide away. None of that matters anymore. You know the truth and all you want to do is share it.

The gale subsides and the room settles. A buzz of excitement ripples through the air. All around you, eyes are gleaming.

Movement and raised voices can be heard in the street below. Going to the opening you see people assembling beneath the house. Their faces peer upwards and some point and gesture towards you.

"Come brothers and sisters! Now we begin!" Simon Peter is by the stairs, he is emboldened, his face glows, beaming with excitement. He disappears, bounding down the steps. Without a second thought you dart after him, down and out into the bright morning sun.

Pope John XXIII’s prayer for a new Pentecost in the Church.

Divine Spirit,

renew your wonders in our time, as though for a new Pentecost,

and grant that the Holy church, preserving unanimous and continuous prayer,

together with Mary the Mother of Jesus,

and also under the guidance of St. Peter,

may increase the reign of the Divine Saviour, the reign of truth and justice,

the reign of love and peace.

Amen