Pentecost Sunday • Year C

Brothers and sisters, in a profound mystery observe the harmony, observe the difference: harmony of the law, difference of the people. Passover, as you know, is celebrated among the ancient people by the slaying of the lamb and unleavened bread; where the slaying of the sheep signifies Christ, while the unleavened bread stands for the new life, one that is without the yeast of staleness. That’s why the apostle says to us, Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new dough, just as you are unleavened. For Christ has been sacrificed as our Passover (1 Cor 5:7). So the Passover was celebrated by that ancient people, not yet in the brightness of broad daylight but in the symbolism of a shadow; and fifty days after the celebration of Passover, as anybody who wants to can find out by just counting, the law was given on Mount Sinai, written by the finger of God.

Came the true Passover, Christ was sacrificed; he made the passage from death to life; the Hebrew Pascha, you see, means passage or passing over; the evangelist made this point when he said, When the hour had come for Jesus to pass over from this world to the Father (Jn 13:1). So the Passover is celebrated, the Lord rises again, he makes the passage from death to life, which is the Passover; and fifty days are counted, and the Holy Spirit comes, the finger of God. But notice how it happened there, and how it happened here. There, the people stood a long way off, there was an atmosphere of dread, not of love. I mean, they were so terrified that they said to Moses, Speak to us yourself, and do not let the Lord speak to us, lest we die (Ex 20:19). So God came down, as it is written, on Sinai in fire; but he was terrifying the people who stood a long way off, and writing with his finger on stone (Ex 31:18), not on the heart.

Here, however, when the Holy Spirit came, the faithful were gathered together as one; and he didn’t terrify them on a mountain, but came in to them in a house. There came a sudden sound, indeed, from heaven, as of a fierce squall rushing upon them; it made a noise, but nobody panicked. You have heard the sound, now see the fire too, because each was there on the mountain also, both fire and sound; but there, there was smoke as well, here though the fire was clear. There appeared to them, scripture says, divided tongues, as of fire. Terrifying them from a long way off? Far from it. Because, it settled upon each one of them and they began to talk in languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1-4). Hear a person talking a language, and understand the Spirit writing not on stone, but on the heart.

So, the law of the Spirit of life, written on the heart, not on stone, in Christ Jesus, in whose person was celebrated the ultimately real and genuine Passover, has delivered you from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:2). I mean, to show you that here we have the clearest statement of the enormous difference between the old and the new covenants or testaments, which leads the apostle also to say, not on tablets of stone, but on the fleshly tablets of the heart (2 Cor 3:3), the Lord himself says in the prophet, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will conclude over the house of Jacob a new covenant, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt. Then to make the difference absolutely clear, he says, Putting my laws in their hearts; on their hearts, he says, I will inscribe them (Jer 31:31-33). So if the law of God is written on your heart, it shouldn’t be terrifying you from the outside, but soothing you inside; then, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus will deliver you from the law of sin and death.