Pentecost

 May 28, 2023

Today is Pentecost, considered the birthday of the Church. Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, his disciples and over a hundred others were crowded into an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem, praying and trembling, wondering when the authorities would batter down the door and arrest them all. As associates of Someone executed as a traitor and insurrectionist, it would have been logical for them to scatter, but they were doing as Jesus had commanded…waiting. For what, they didn’t know. Jesus’ words were somewhat cryptic: “Wait for the power on high.”

So they were waiting. Fifty days of waiting. Fifty days of praying. Then finally, the Holy Spirit came! I think we get too caught up in the manifestation of them speaking with tongues and forget the significance of the day. After all, why do we expect (and in some cases, insist) that people speak in tongues, but have no such insistence that a wind blows and flames of fire rest upon us? 

The significance, as pastor Brandon pointed out this morning, is that the day of Pentecost was the Jewish Feast of Firstfruits when the first cuttings of the harvest was presented to God. The Church, born this day, is the firstfruit of what God has planned for Creation. We are living in that in-between time, waiting for the final harvest at the end of the age, and by faith we offer ourselves to God, knowing that much work is yet to be done, but there is joy in the beginnings and the promise of the full ingathering at the end of the age.

To the outsider, all this is merely religious babble; to the believer, this day is our opportunity to look forward to the fulfillment of our hope.