The
Day of Pentecost is a day of Christian celebration observed on the seventh
Sunday after Easter. On Pentecost we remember an event that occurred to the
disciples 50 days after the Passover during which Jesus was crucified and 10
days after they watched Jesus literally ascend into the clouds.
The
disciples and followers—we are told there were 120 in all—had gathered in Jerusalem to
celebrate the Jewish feast of Shavuot. With Passover and Succoth,
Shavuot was one of the three pilgrim
holidays on which all Jewish adult males who were able to do so were
required to come to Jerusalem to sacrifice the first loaves from the new grain on the
altar in the temple.
When Jesus’ disciples met for this
holiday it
must have been a difficult time, given the
recent events they had experienced. While they were gathered there was a sound like a
violent wind, then something that looked like tongues of flame came down
and rested on each person’s head. The disciples all began to speak in such a
way that people of many different languages could understand them, each in
their own language. Hearing the noise, others came to
investigate and were astonished to hear this group of mostly uneducated
Galileans speaking the various languages of many countries.
The people began to ask each other what all this could
mean. Some thought the young men must be drunk, but Simon Peter
pointed out that it was only 9 o’clock in
the morning and offered another explanation: Peter equated the events of Jesus during his life
and beyond with fulfillment of prophecy, reminded them of the miracles
they had all witnessed, including their Rabbi’s resurrection. He equated
the physical ascent of Jesus that they had witnessed to Jesus’ being
exalted to the right hand of God and declared that it was the Spirit of
God, which Jesus had promised, who had “poured out” what the
crowd was seeing and hearing that day. His conclusion was that God had
made Jesus both Lord and Messiah. The first Pentecost
ended with Peter baptizing all 3,000 people in the crowd in the name of
Jesus.
Christians consider the Day of Pentecost the birthday of
the church because, from that moment on, the disciples carried the message
of Christ everywhere they went all over the world. At St. George’s, a
Pentecost tradition is to wear red to symbolize the tongues of flame and
the Holy Spirit.
The Season after Pentecost, in which Christians develop
their relationship with the risen Christ, lasts from the Day of Pentecost
to the day before Advent. Thus it begins on May 31 this year (2009) and
ends on November 22. (In 2010 Pentecost will fall on May 23 and the
Last Sunday of Pentecost will be on November 21.)
Decorations on the Day of Pentecost are red to symbolize
tongues of flame and the Holy Spirit; during the season of Pentecost they are green to
symbolize the growth and life of the church.
