In May of this year, many Christians around the world will celebrate Pentecost. This is especially a season of celebration in more liturgical churches who keep up with key historical events of the Christian faith every year whilst many Christians outside this tradition just let the season pass. The season of Pentecost certainly lives in my psyche. Born and raised in God’s own county of Yorkshire, I well remember the annual Whit Walks or Whit Sunday Walks. These were not only a feature of Yorkshire churches and Sunday Schools, but right across the North of England. But I do not think it was so much a feature the further south one came. And I am open to correction by any Southerners! I remember being chosen to be “The Boy Bishop” one year - resplendent in cope, mitre and Bishops Staff! These walks or processions consisted of believers taking to the streets of our towns to demonstrate unity in Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit to birth the Church. They usually ended with a massive picnic in the local park! Sadly, this tradition is largely long gone and forgotten, except by those of us of more mature years.
But what is Pentecost all about? The events recorded in Acts 2 tell us what it is all about and this is certainly the first use of the word “Pentecost” in the Bible. As with many things in the New Testament there is, however, a connection with practices from Old Testament times. The word “Pentecost” references “the fiftieth day.” In the Old Testament the celebration was known by several names including “Feast of Weeks,” “Feast of Ingathering” and was the second of three great pilgrimage feasts celebrated by the Jews. It was essentially a harvest festival and was celebrated fifty days after Passover. It was a highly significant feast when the Jews offered thanks to God for the grain harvest. It came close to the end of the harvest.
By the end of the inter-testamental period and by the time of Jesus, the feast had taken on further significance. It had become an occasion for the Jews to celebrate the giving of the Law at Sinai because it was reckoned this took place fifty days after the Exodus. The people transferred the joy of the harvest feast to joy over the Law. All males of Israel were obligated to come to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast.
Unlike the days leading to Easter which were marked by fasting, during the days of the Church Fathers (100 AD -800AD) the days preceding Pentecost were not marked by fasting, and Christians could pray standing rather than on their knees! It was often a time when believers were baptised.
By referencing this season (Acts 2:1) and recording the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, what is Dr Luke the Evangelist wanting us to know? British Theologian and Anglican Priest, John Stott makes some important observations: “(Pentecost) was the final act of the saving ministry of Jesus before the Parousia [Jesus’ Second Coming – my addition]. He who was born into our humanity, lived our life, died for our sins, rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, now sent His Spirit to His people to constitute them His body and to work out for them what He had won for them.”1 Notice how Stott references “the saving ministry” of Jesus - one event, though with several acts. Personally, I would suggest we need to see Jesus’s saving ministry as an integrated whole, rather than a series of events though each event (His life, His earthly ministry, His death, His resurrection, His Ascension, Pentecost and His future Second Coming) is of paramount importance for our salvation. Pentecost is the event that inaugurates the new era.
In recording Jesus’ water baptism (and Spirit filling), Matthew 6:11-17 and Mark 1:4-12 record John the Baptist’s announcement of a coming One who would baptise not in water but in the Spirit and fire. For these writers, this is an eschatological or end time event. In pouring out the Spirit, Jesus is making it possible for fallen humanity to be brought into the extravagant embrace of God’s grace, and to be part of His forever family. This diverse family (the Church) should live together celebrating difference and remain united because: “...we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13).
This Pentecost, let us all freshly receive God’s extravagant embrace and work together to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is Heaven.
1 Stott, John R W, The Message of Acts, (IVP: Leicester, 1990), Page 60