Waiting for Pentecost with Mary

The winds of Pentecost began to blow the night before Jesus’ death. There, in his last hours of teaching his disciples and friends, Jesus told them about the coming of the Spirit. “If I do not go, the Helper will not come” (John 16:7). Though months earlier he had already warned his disciples that he was going to be betrayed, killed, and, three days later, rise again, the disciples did not understand. So, that night in the upper room, it’s no surprise that they also could not fully fathom what being filled with the Holy Spirit might mean. As their evening of sharing the Passover meal unraveled into the incomprehensible arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the promise of the Spirit must have seemed very far away.

We can only imagine the churning emotions and thoughts, throbbing heads and anxious breathing of Jesus’ disciples in those hours between Thursday evening in Gethsemane and early Sunday morning. These must have been traumatizing hours as they experienced life-threatening violence, ran for their lives, witnessed the torture and death of their dearest friend, and bottomed out in shame and horror at their own cowardice. The hope for which they had given up their homes, careers, and communities for the last three years was eviscerated. Their expectations of glory were shattered. Despite Jesus’ reiterated teaching about what was going to happen, in the darkness and blood and screams of those hours, his words likely vanished from their minds, replaced by fear, despair, and confusion.

And where was Mary that evening? At what point did she realize that her son’s hour had come? We know that the next day she was at Golgotha, at the foot of the cross to which her son was pinioned (John 19:25), as close as she could be. As some traditions have it, she accompanied him the whole way. Someone ran to her with the news of Jesus’ arrest and brought her to the house of Annas, where he was being interrogated. She followed when Jesus was taken before Caiaphas, the high priest, and trailed him to the palace of Pilate, the Roman governor. She heard the mockery and the shouts of hatred; she listened to the scourging and Jesus’ cries of agony; she stood among the mob who called for his crucifixion. Wasn’t Mary, more than anyone, bearing the weight of this calamity?

Easter morning reversed everything: death was life, defeat was victory, shame was glory, darkness was light. But this Sunday morning reversal was as shocking and difficult to comprehend as Friday’s ordeal. Jesus’ restoration to his community of followers was full of joy and astonishment, yes, but it was also clearly a time of processing all they’d been through and what had changed.

The days after Jesus’ resurrection were sweet, surely, but unpredictable. Jesus was with them but not like before. Several weeks went by; some people saw him, some didn’t. He and his disciples continued to share meals; he continued to teach, opening their minds in new ways. He had some very private conversations, and continued to refine his followers’ understanding of his kingdom. Then he was gone.

Albrecht Dürer, Pentecost, from The Small Passion, woodcut, ca. 1510.

His ascension may have left his band of faithful with more questions than answers, but it did give them something to do. As they clung to Jesus’ final command and final promise – “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about” (Acts 1:4) – they gathered to pray. To wait was to pray. Together. That upper room slowly filled with disciples, with the women who had supported Jesus, and with Mary and Jesus’ family (Acts 1:12–14). Jesus’ instructions had not included a timeline for this waiting and receiving. That element of unknowing kindled an active faith. Day after day, they devoted themselves to praying together. Day after day, they waited. For what? For coming of the Holy Spirit – they knew that much, but how they would experience it was unclear. Day after day, they turned toward God together, praying through the tumult, the obscurities, the joys, and the longings of the weeks since Passover.

Mary was there, too, in that upper room. What were her prayers during those days of waiting? She was far from that angel’s visit in Nazareth and from that overshadowing of the Spirit (Luke 1:26–38), yet surely the years of remembering those astonishing events bore fruit here in this upper room. Her suffering at the cross, her joy at Jesus’s resurrection, and her wonder at his ascension must have quietly grounded her prayers now.

Her presence in the upper room with the other believers is often central in Christian art of Pentecost. We see her as she enters into this new stage of intimacy with Jesus along with his followers. The scriptures’ testimony to her presence there is meaningful, for she was the first to have been filled with the Spirit – filled and overflowing; overshadowed and empowered with new life. She alone knew what might be given to them all. She was the first to have waited and prayed, pondering the mystery of Jesus’ imminent birth. She had years of experience holding perplexing events in her heart. She knew the shame of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, of lowly childbirth, of fleeing one’s country by night. She surely carried the horrible weight of knowing that other mother’s babies had been slaughtered after her flight because of her child. She knew exile and homelessness and uncertainty. She also knew the joy of divine presence and the certainty of God’s call.

In many ways, Mary is key to understanding those hours of prayer before the descent of the Spirit. The one who prayed “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) once again leads us forward on this journey of faith. Her embeddedness in the community and her sharing in the community’s prayers of waiting and expectation teach us how to move through our own experiences of suffering and distress, of faith and waiting, of hope and loss, of questioning and seeking. With her, we bind ourselves to the community and to communal prayer. We pray with expectation and with uncertainty; with hope and joy and with wounds of loss and longing; with letting go and with receiving.

We pray, like Mary, to be filled with the Spirit, for the breath of Christ within our souls. Fire and wind, burning and blowing, infusing and illuminating, conceiving the body of Christ in the world, birthing the life of Christ in us, bearing the hope of an eternal weight of glory.