Pentecost has often been understood as the moment the Holy Spirit arrived, as though God’s Spirit was absent from the world until Acts 2, waiting for the official launch of the Church. It has been called the birthday of the church, and I was once in a parish that celebrated it that way, complete with cake and balloons!  This however is an inaccurate description because it suggests that Pentecost is the beginning of the Divine presence in the world rather than its revealing. 

 Scripture tells a different story. The beginning of Genesis tells us that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” The world begins not with divine absence but divine nearness. Later in Genesis, humanity is formed from the dust of the earth. Adam is sculpted from clay, but the figure remains lifeless until God breathes life into it. The Hebrew word is Ruach: breath, wind, spirit all at once. Which means that humanity has never existed apart from the Spirit of God. Every lungful of air we breathe in is charged with divine intimacy. The very air we breathe is literally the breath of God. 

 Again and again in Scripture, we see that it is the Spirit that animates and enlivens. Moses gathers the elders in the tent, and when the Spirit falls upon them, he responds with a kind of holy longing: “I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” The Spirit rushes through the Hebrew scriptures. Kings are anointed by the Spirit, prophets speak through it, Samson’s strength is not his own but the Spirit stirring within him.  Psalm 51 prays “Do not cast me away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” Repeatedly, the story Scripture tells is not of a distant God occasionally intervening, but of a world already saturated with divine breath. 

 Pentecost is not a moment when God suddenly decided to enter the world, but about humanity finally beginning to recognizing the Spirit that had been there from the beginning—moving through creation, through prophets and poets, through frightened disciples and ordinary people trying to remain faithful. People like us living messy, complicated, wonderful human lives. 

 So, if the Ruach, the Spirit of God has always been present in the world and always present in God’s people, what did Jesus mean when he said that the disciples were to wait for that Spirit, that he would send the Spirit to be with them? Why did they wait together in the upper room and what were they doing during that time of waiting? 

 I think they would have been praying, to tune in to God’s frequency, to plug in to the power that was already there, that had always been there. 

Yesterday, I woke up a little earlier than usual and at a certain point, I became aware of a faint but familiar melody somewhere in the distance. I couldn’t place it at first being only marginally awake, but eventually I realised that it was the alarm on my phone that I had left downstairs. I didn’t leap out of bed immediately and dash downstairs but having tuned into the repeating music, it seized my attention and I wasn’t able to tune it out. In the end, I did get up and go downstairs to turn it off. This phone alarm had been doing this every morning for the past few weeks, but I hadn’t heard it, hadn’t tuned in to its frequency. 

The Spirit of God is always present and active in our lives but unless we tune in, we are not able to receive it, not able to act in its power. Our attempts to rely only on our own efforts are inadequate at best. The first disciples felt the same way: fearful, powerless, inadequate to the task. This is why they were in the upper room. 

So here is a question for all of us this morning: where are our upper rooms? Where are we waiting in fear, waiting in prayer, waiting to be empowered for the fitting tasks we are assigned? What do we hide behind? What holds us back? Where do we seek shelter? 

Pentecost isn’t just about tongues of fire or a story that happened a long time ago. It’s about fear turning into courage, confusion turning into clarity, and ordinary people like us being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

 At the end of today’s service we will extinguish the Paschal Candle which has burned near the altar throughout the Easter season as a visible sign of the Resurrection and Christ’s living presence among His people. 
 
The candle remains lit throughout the fifty days of Easter until Pentecost because the Church is celebrating the full Easter mystery:  the Resurrection, Christ appearing to the disciples, the Ascension, 
and finally the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 
 
After Pentecost, the Paschal Candle is extinguished because the Church symbolically marks the end of Christ’s visible earthly appearances after the Resurrection. Spiritually speaking, the mission of Christ is now entrusted to the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
The apostles are no longer following the physical presence of Jesus; they are now sent into the world to continue His mission. 
 
Extinguishing the candle does not mean Christ is absent. Rather, it symbolizes a transition: from Christ’s visible Resurrection appearances, 
to His sacramental and spiritual presence through the Church and the Holy Spirit. 
 
The light of Christ is now meant to shine through us. 

After Pentecost, the Paschal Candle is still lit during baptisms, funerals, and occasionally solemn liturgies. 
 
At Baptism, the newly baptized receive light from the Paschal Candle, symbolizing receiving the light of Christ. 
 
At funerals, the candle reminds us of hope in the Resurrection and eternal life. 
 
to summarize, the Paschal Candle is extinguished after Pentecost because Pentecost completes the Easter season. The extinguishing symbolizes the end of Christ’s visible Resurrection appearances and the beginning of the Church’s mission through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

And so we say together: Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, glory to God from generation to generation, in the church and in Christ Jesus. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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