Fearless!

Fearless!

On this Pentecost Sunday, I am reminded of something I read several years ago that put things into perspective, especially when we feel uneasy, anxious, and uncertain about how to share the faith that touches our hearts and changes our lives.

The truth is, the Apostles also felt uneasy. They spent a lot of their time after the Ascension trembling in the upper room. None of them knew what to do after Jesus returned to the Father, leaving them without a lot to go on. How could they speak the truth of Christ to the world around them and not feel vulnerable? Nobody would believe that their master had returned from the dead, walked the earth for a time, and returned to the one true God amid a culture where the Roman emperor was thought to be the only Son of God, and where those who tried to deviate from this idea were persecuted or killed.

This truth of Christ was like a strange language the Apostles had to learn and communicate. Of course, speaking in a new language is scary; it may elicit blank stares or the occasional smile as people do their best to pick out the core meaning of the statements. I can only imagine the anxiety the Apostles were feeling as they tried to speak the truth of their experience with Jesus. Even so, as anyone who learns a new language can attest, the desire to communicate with others outweighs the fear and vulnerability of speaking in a new tongue. This desire propels one to reach out to others and speak, even if he or she is misunderstood or misconstrued. The overriding desire is to communicate and ultimately connect. These new connections are characterized by a spirit of freedom, a spirit of intrepid relationship building, a spirit of fearlessness amid anxiety and inadequacy.

This is what the Holy Spirit gives the Apostles on Pentecost. Peter and his friends receive tongues as if made from fire and begin speaking and understanding every language present in the crowds around them. The people hear them and are astonished, not just because they can understand them, but also because they are speaking at all. And what they are saying is something that they had never understood before: Jesus of Nazareth was the anointed one of God, the Messiah. The Spirit empowered Peter and the Apostles to proclaim truth to the nations by helping them overcome their anxiety and have the freedom to express themselves, to courageously build new relationships, and to be fearless.

We don’t need to learn a new language like French or Spanish to experience what the Apostles experienced. How often are we fearless in speaking languages of justice, compassion, and solidarity to one another? How often do we speak words of compassion to those who think differently than us, whom we consider the “other”? What keeps us trembling in the upper room, unable to speak the truth of God’s love to the world? Let us take the Apostles’ example and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be fearless in the way that our words make God’s love present in this world.