What does Pentecost tell us about evangelization? Well, what is evangelization, right? It’s the making of disciples born out of the Great Commission at the end of the gospels… [It’s] where Jesus in another dramatic fashion maybe “surprises” his disciples when he gives them the Great Commission. He brings them to that high place and he says, okay, “all authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:18-19) He says, this job of building the kingdom, this job of establishing the Church, this job of helping people be free of sin and walking a new life with Me…you’re going to do it.
And then he does kind of a classic hurry-up-and-wait where he says, you’re going to do it, but not yet. He says, wait in the city, wait and pray, until you receive power from on high, and then you’ll be My witnesses, and then you’ll start to evangelize. So what do the disciples do? Well, they’re good disciples! They do what they’re told! They go to the city, they wait, and they pray! And if you read the beginning of Acts…you know, in almost every homily I have ever heard on Pentecost, it was talked about how scared they were in the Upper Room. Well, we don’t really know. It says nothing about their mental state in the beginning of Acts. It just says they were doing what they were told. They were waiting and they were praying and they were open! They were open. And they knew they had a mission…until some of them were probably taking stock of their resources: do we have any money? No. Do we have any influence? No. Do we have any seminaries? What’s a seminary? I don’t know! They don’t have a plan. But they have the Father, they have the Holy Spirit, they have each other, they have the beginnings of the Sacraments, and they have this mandate to “make disciples,” but not yet until they receive power.
So what does Pentecost tell us about evangelization? It tells us what is necessary for evangelization to be fruitful. Until the moment of Pentecost, even though the apostles had walked with Jesus, they had seen his miracles, they’d even had little moments, right? They had been sent out earlier in the gospel to go out and preach the Kingdom of Heaven… So they have done a little bit, but it is not until this infusion of divine power — that is not accessible to them because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but now that he sits at the right hand of the Father, He pours out his Spirit on his disciples on Pentecost — becomes the fuel by which this missionary effort can happen. And so you see a guy like Peter, who’s all over the place in the Gospel, filled with Pentecost, filled with the Holy Spirit, and launched out of the Upper Room. And it’s important to recognize what he says because it also ties into, what is evangelization?
Evangelization is the making of disciples but to make a disciple means conversion, bringing about a faith that is total and radical, a personal decision to follow the teachings of the life and the promises of Jesus. And so what Peter does, once filled with the Holy Spirit, is he launches out of the Upper Room and gives this dramatic this homily, this dramatic message, that — side line — is the first time the Pope publicly declares something on matters of faith and morals, which we know means it’s infallible. So it’s important to read this message.
And what Peter does is he frames what’s happening. He says, this has been foretold. He talks about how Jesus died. He talks about this “Jesus whom you crucified” but this is where evangelization really hits the mark, at the end, where he says, “let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36) So what are we hearing there? That at the heart of evangelization is a message. That this Jesus, whom we crucified with our sins, is Lord, He’s in charge of everything, and He’s Christ! He’s the only one and He offers both His Lordship, His ability to walk into the kingdom of heaven, and his anointing on us for those who believe. And this is, again, a beautiful moment of evangelization, because the way Peter preaches elicits a response, just like we should — with our lives and our words — elicit a response, a “decision point.”
So what did they say? When they heard this, the crowds who, literally, like 10 verses earlier are thinking, these people are drunk! They’re mocking them. About 10 verses later, they’re saying, “when they heard this, they were cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37), and they said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, “brethren, what shall we do?” Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we preached in our words or actions in such a way that the people we interacted with asked us, what should we do about this? What should we do? And then we cannot ignore what Peter said next, because it’s at the very heart of what it means to make a disciple. If someone asks you what should you do, this is the response: “repent and be baptized, every one of you!” (Acts 2:38) Why? “For the forgiveness of your sins and so you shall receive power of the Holy Spirit.” The gift of the Holy Spirit.
What evangelization is about is entering into people’s worlds filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim a message, a story, a moment of what Jesus has done for us and in such a way that causes people to have to decide whether they believe or they don’t believe. And if they want to believe, what marks belief is repentance, baptism, and then an endowment of the Holy Spirit as well, this supernatural act of grace, this power to live it, as well. So what does Pentecost tell us about evangelization? It tells us a message, it tells us a method, and maybe most importantly, it tells us what is the power source necessary to see it work.