A Reflection on Malcolm Guite's "Pentecost"
The right words come today in their right order
And every word spells freedom and release
Today the gospel crosses every border
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother-tongue is Love, in every nation.
- Malcolm Guite "Pentecost"
The final stanza of Guite’s poem invites the reader to take a fresh look at the significance of the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. The penultimate line in particular opens itself to multiple interpretive possibilities.
“Today the lost are found in His translation.”
The word’s “His translation” refer to the ways that Christ has translated sinful humanity from death to life. This reading draws us to Paul’s words in Colossians 1:13:
He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The line leaves open the alternative possibility that the lost are also found through faithful Christians’ translation of Him into language that others can understand. The encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch provides a fitting illustration of “His translation” in this second sense:
Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.
It is this act of “guiding”—Philip’s willingness to faithfully translate the words of the prophet Isaiah to the Ethiopian eunuch—that results in the man’s salvation. In response to the eunuch’s question, Philip testifies to, or “translates,” Jesus’ presence throughout Scripture.
Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.
It’s also true that we who were once lost and have been found by Christ find ourselves as we translate and make Christ accessible to others. In the above example, Philip’s act of listening to and guiding the eunuch to Christ through the narrative of Scripture not only transforms the eunuch (the passage concludes with his baptism), but also (we assume) transforms Philip. This assumption involves reading between the lines of the account, but it’s at least possible that Philip’s proclamation of the good news to this particular gentile opens Philip’s eyes to see God’s grace at work in new ways. Consider how this chance encounter on the road marks Philip, perhaps reshaping his understanding of the reach of God’s love and care.
Or consider a more straightforward instance of a follower of the Way “finding himself” through this work of translating Christ to others. Before the Apostle Paul became the Apostle Paul, he was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison (Acts 8:3). Saul’s conversion, striking as it is, merely begins his movement from from lost to found. This initial conversion continues as Paul travels new roads in pursuit of a new purpose. We might say that Paul’s accumulation of life experience as a devoted missionary—that work of faithfully translating Christ cross culturally—also moves him from lost to found. Evidence for this assertion comes at the end of Acts, where we find Paul in Rome engaging in activity that, when contrasted with his actions described in Acts 8:3, demonstrates the extent of his transformation that continued to occur during his missionary journeys. Consider the two passages side by side:
But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison (Acts 8:3).
He [Paul] lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:30).
These two descriptions that bookend the narrative of Paul’s life suggest that Paul is first translated by Christ on the road to Damascus, a work that enables Paul to faithfully translate himself on the journey to make Christ known.
The descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost creates the conditions for “Christ’s translation” to occur in each of the above senses. As those who have been remade by Christ’s work and baptized in His Spirit, we are invited to participate in this multifaceted, boundary-crossing work of translation.