PENTECOST

And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire.

ACTS 2:1-11

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

The feast of Pentecost is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals of the Jews. The other two are the Passover and the Feast of Booths/Tents.It is celebrated 50 days after the Passover. For this reason it was called the Feast of Pentecost by the Hellenistic Jews (Jews influenced by Greek culture).

It was also called the Feast of Weeks or Shavuot. 7 days x 7 weeks = 49. You begin counting on the second day of the Passover and on the 49th day is the Feast of the Shavuot.

The feast of Pentecost had two other names: the Feast of the Grain Harvest and the Feast of the First Fruits. Obviously the feast of Pentecost was a feast celebrating the harvest.

Later on the feast came to be associated with the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai and with the birth of the Jews as a nation.

The Jewish feast of Shavuot or Pentecost became a Christian feast because on this day the Holy Spirit came down upon the Christian community as promised by Jesus. Just as the Jewish feast of Pentecost commemorates the giving of the Law so the Christian feast of Pentecost commemorates the giving of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Jewish feast of Pentecost commemorates birth of the Jews as a nation, so also the Christians feast of Pentecost commemorates the birth of the Christian community as a church.

TWO PENTECOST EVENTS

The New Testament recounts two Pentecost events, that is, two occasions when the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples. The Gospel of John reports that on the evening of Easter Sunday, Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them. Whose sins you retain, they are retained.

The Acts of the Apostles recounts a second time when the Holy Spirit was given. While the giving of the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel was in a quiet, subdued manner, the giving of the Holy Spirit in the Acts happened in a dramatic fashion.

PENTECOST IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire.

Jesus commanded his disciples not to leave Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high. Jesus was speaking about the Holy Spirit. By manifesting himself as a strong driving wind, the Holy Spirit showed his coming as the coming of one who is powerful.

It then took the form of tongues of fire in order to manifest himself as the source of the gift of speaking in different languages.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different ton-gues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Hearing the apostles speaking in different tongues was not entirely strange to the Jews for the OT prophets did the same. In the early Church and even today in the charismatic renewal, there were Christians who spoke in an ecstatic state.

But the more important intent of the Acts of the Apostles was to show that the Holy Spirit re-established the unity which was lost with the building of the tower of Babel and at the same time, pre-figures the universal mission of the Apostles.

We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs.

The nations mentioned here represent the known inhabited world at the time. The direction of the enumeration is fom East to West with Judea at the center.