What the Church Knows and What the Church Doesn't Know

Pentecost Sunday celebrates the birth of the Church.  On Pentecost, the disciples started speaking in other languages.  The was bewildering to the crowd.

What neither the disciples nor the crowd knew was why God's Spirit was manifest by the disciples speaking other languages.  The Church identifies it as a manifestation of God's Spirit, but the Church does not know any more than the world why God would choose to be manifest in this manner rather than another

What the Church does know, and what Peter proclaimed to the crowd, is the identity of the God that was manifest.  And the fact that this God was the same God who created all things, redeemed us in Christ, and who sustains us with his Spirit.

The world is bewildering, mysterious, and full of wonder.  It is also a place where both the believer and non-believer experience beauty and joy.  What the Church is called to proclaim is the God who underlies it.  The buildings where the Church gathers are not themselves holy.  They are built to remind the gathered faithful of the holiness of God and to reveal to the non-believer the holy God who is the source of all the beauty and joy they experience in the world.