A weekly comment by our Rector, John Davies. For previous week's comments, click here.

Pentecost

Today we celebrate what is one of the Church’s great feast days. Yet, for many years it was largely ignored and indeed still is by a large part of the Church. The Day of Pentecost was and is the Jewish harvest festival. It is celebrated on the fiftieth day after the Passover. The first Pentecost in Christian history occurred 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus.

In the old 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Pentecost was known as Whit-Sunday or white Sunday) because it was the day on which baptisms took place and candidates for baptism wore white garments. It was so special that the following two days were holy days (holi-days). And, in fact, tomorrow is still a holiday in Britain – although today, probably most people do not know why!

So what is the importance of this feast day in the Church calendar? What is it that we are actually celebrating at what is the halfway point in the church year?

When I was growing up, I was taught in Sunday school and, I guess, in sermons that Pentecost was the Church’s birthday. However, as I study the Scriptures – especially the first couple of chapters of the Acts of the Apostles – I have come to reject that view. Let me explain why.

After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus showed himself to the apostles and others over a period of forty days and gave convincing proofs that he was alive [Acts 1:3]. During this time Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God and on one occasion told them to wait in Jerusalem for the gift of the Holy Spirit which God the father had promised [Acts 1:4-5]. Then He ascended into heaven.

The disciples returned to Jerusalem in obedience to the command of Jesus where they gathered in the Upper Room and joined in constant prayer. These disciples included the apostles (who are named), Mary the mother of Jesus, his brothers and others [Acts 1:12-14]. This gathering of believers numbered about 120 people [Acts 1:15].

So, the Church (the people of God) was already in existence – 120 believers praying constantly as they waited in obedience to Jesus for the promise.

Then comes the Day of Pentecost!

Picture the scene. It’s about 9.00am on this Jewish festival. Jerusalem is crowded with pilgrims from the Middle East, Africa & the Mediterranean [Acts 2:9-11]. It’s a festive occasion and the throngs are in the streets – probably singing and dancing. At the same time a second storey room is crowded with a group of people – the Church – who are praying and waiting expectantly.

Suddenly, there is a sound like a violent gale. The whole house is filled with the noise. If their eyes had been closed prior to this, they were now surely wide open. As they turn and look at each other, they see what seem to be tongues of fire, which separate and come to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit enabled them [Acts 2:2-4].

So, rather than a birthday, this was the empowering of that church for its ministry – for the work of Jesus in the world. And that work began immediately. It seems from what followed that they burst out into the street praising God in those tongues they had received. The following text tells us that the thousands on the street understood them despite the fact that the speakers were Galileans. Probably, they spoke in tongues and the multi-cultural crowd receive interpretation.

Many in the crowd wondered what it meant and were possibly a bit scared. Peter explained that this was the fulfilment of prophecy and the teaching of Jesus [Joel 2:28-29; Luke 3:16 & 24:49; Acts 1:4,5, 8]. As a result there were 3000 new disciples added to the Church.

So, Pentecost celebrates the empowering of the Church (the disciples of Jesus) for ministry – an empowering that is still available today for those who ask.

John Wyndham

8 June 2003