What is Pentecost?

Pentecost Sunday is just around the corner!

But what is Pentecost?

It’s not like Pentecost is a word that we use much outside of church. Unlike some other Christian holy days, it hasn’t leaked into popular culture. You won’t find new stories about the “War on Pentecost” – there’s no tradition of gift giving (and the accompanying sales) around Pentecost. You aren’t even likely to find an increase in chocolate sales to go with the holiday.

So what is Pentecost … and why should we care?

The Basics of Pentecost

Pentecost Sunday is the day when Christians around the world celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.

On Christmas, Christians celebrate the Incarnation – the idea that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ.
On Easter, Christians celebrate the Resurrection – the belief that Jesus rose from the dead, a sign of the promise of resurrection given to all God’s people.
And on Pentecost, we celebrate the Holy Spirit – the gift of God’s comfort, power, and strength given to God’s people.

The History of Pentecost

In the Hebrew Scripture, the Jewish people celebrated a holiday known as the “Festival of Weeks” (see Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 16). This was a harvest festival, a time when the Israelites celebrate the generosity of God, shown in a successful harvest of grain.

While the Temple stood in Jerusalem, each farmer would bring their first fruits – the first ripe samples from their fields – and give them as an offering of thanksgiving in the Temple. This meant that many Jews from all across the countryside would gather in Jerusalem in order to present their offering at the Temple.

The Festival of Weeks happened fifty days after the Passover. For this reason, the Greek-speaking Jews of the first century called the festival “Pentecost” – from the Greek word meaning “fiftieth day.”

It was during the Festival of Weeks, fifty days after Passover, that the disciples of Jesus were gathered in Jerusalem. They had spent the last fifty days making sense of their experiences of the resurrection of their teacher, Jesus, and the fact that he had just ascended into heaven (for this whole account, see the book of Acts, chapters 1 and 2).

While the disciples were gathered, the Holy Spirit filled them. They began to tell to the pilgrims who were gathered in Jerusalem about Jesus. As they preached they were amazed to discover that all the pilgrims – regardless of what language they spoke – were able to understand them.

So What

Icon depicting the day of Pentecost

The Christian holiday of Pentecost is rooted in this historical event – an event sometimes called the “birthday of the church” because it marks the day that Jesus’ disciples began to share the story of Jesus and invite others to share in their faith in Jesus as the Son of God.

But Pentecost is more than just remembering a historical event.

On Pentecost, we invite the same Spirit that filled the disciples that day to transform our lives.

Even more important than looking backward and remembering what God did two thousand years ago, we look forward and invite the Spirit to pull us into the future.

The Holy Spirit has a way of turning things upside down. The story of Acts is all about how the lives of the disciples got turned upside down – and by extension, how the world turned upside down by this new, Spirit-filled faith.

On Pentecost we invite this disruptive presence of God into our own lives.

The fruit of the Spirit, says Paul, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are what we seek to live into, how we seek to transform the world, and the evidence of the Spirit at work in our lives and in the world.

Join us as we celebrate and explore all that Pentecost means for us.

Join us for worship – Sundays at 10:00 am.