PENTECOST SUNDAY, YEAR A

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” … When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
~John 20:19, 22-23

The featured story of Pentecost Sunday, of course, is the receiving of the Holy Spirit in the familiar passage in Acts 2—a sweeping and mighty telling of God’s Spirit falling on people fabulously and almost indiscriminately—much like the story of creation to which it refers. But here in John is a quieter version, an inner reading of the same thing, the same event, you could say.

The context of John’s story is one failure after another of humanity—Jesus’ complete abandonment by his closest followers. When he enters that locked room, he even takes a moment to offer evidence of that betrayal: his pierced hands and feet. And what does he say? “Peace be with you.” He says it twice. And in so doing he shows the way to renewal, to a new creation of peace. And then Jesus gives them the power to do the same thing, to be creators of something new: If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Here again we see in Jesus the image, the very light of God shining out of a life in which there is no violence, only forgiveness, only love, only new and just possibilities, only new understanding, only peace. A new heaven and a new earth.
What if forgiveness is how God keeps creating the world? What is being held closed in your life that only forgiveness can open?

Enter into worship. Wear red!


Readings:  Acts 2:1-21 † Psalm 104:24-34, 35b6 † 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 † John 20:19-23

​About the Art: Miller, Mary Jane. Pentecost (A Second Version), from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59681 [retrieved May 18, 2026]. Original source: Mary Jane Miller, https://www.millericons.com/.

About the Artist: Mary Jane Miller is a self-taught Byzantine style iconographer with over 28 years of experience, born in New York and living in Mexico full time. Her collections of sacred art are contemporary, with a proficient command of egg tempera. The work is extraordinarily rich in style and has been exhibited in museums and churches in both the United States and Mexico. As an author, Miller blends historical content and personal insights to arrive at contemporary conclusions about faith. Her six self-published books include Icon Painting Revealed, Mary in iconography, In Light of Women, and Life in Christ and The Stations. Miller has been published online and in publications such as Divine Temple, Russian Orthodox Journal, Faith and Forum Magazine, Liturgy Today and Profiles of Catholicism. She teaches 4 courses annually, 5-day immersion workshops throughout the US and Mexico. Website: https://www.millericons.com/, https://sanmiguelicons.com/Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iin_the_beginning_34x28_by_Brian_Whelan.jpg - photographed by Wendy Roseberry with permission from Brian Whelan.

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