Peace and Pentecost

When Jesus speaks of leaving his peace* with the disciples, he is talking about something much deeper than the absence of violence. Throughout his ministry, he demonstrates that peace is about wholeness, about healing the brokenness that results in the physical, mental, and spiritual illness of individuals; and for mending the brokenness that comes between individuals and communities through mutual forgiveness. After the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit is given to the disciples so that they may offer this healing, this peace, this forgiveness, to others.

Paintings of the reception of the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire dancing around the heads of the disciples as they gathered in that same upper room where they had shared a last meal with Jesus before his crucifixion, have historically included only men. Recently, however, some artists have been noticing that women, who are central to so many of the stories about Jesus both before and after his death and resurrection, are absent from these images. As iconographer Mary Jane Miller writes of the second of two Pentecost icons she has painted,

In the second version I have included women. I believe they too were there as witness and recipients, receiving the holy spirit and advocate in full measure. All of them present have their feet firmly placed on the earth. We are a collective species having been given a world to love and cherish. Our Earth abounds with all that is necessary for abundant life and the spirit of God has been given in full to humanity. Let us live in peace.

As you look at Miller’s two paintings, what else do you notice about them? Who else has been left out of your mental images of Jesus’s disciples? Who do you need to ask for forgiveness because you have kept them out of the picture?