8 June: Day of Pentecost (Whit Sunday)
Readings: Acts 2.1-21; Rms. 8.14-17; Jn. 14.8-27)
Today we celebrate one of the great feasts of the Christian Church: Pentecost. The word ‘Pentecost’ derives from the Greek pentekoste, meaning the fiftieth day. It marks the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday. It is a feast which has Jewish origins as do so many of our Christian festivals. In the Jewish calendar, the festival of Weeks (Shavu`ot) was celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover. It was, as so many of the Jewish festivals, an agricultural-religious festival, that celebrated the offering two loaves of bread that were produced from the seasonal wheat and then offered as the ‘first fruits’ as the people then brought their offerings to the temple.
In Christian terms, the feast of Pentecost celebrates the ‘first fruits’ of the resurrection of Jesus which is the giving of the Holy Spirit to form the Christian Church. The Holy Spirit makes the church. This is the message that we hear in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles today in which Peter addresses the Jews gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Weeks. It was a requirement, set down in law (Ex. 23.17, 34.23; Dt. 16.6) that all Israelite males were to attend the three Jewish festivals of Passover, Weeks and Booths. So, it was not surprising that on Pentecost there was a large crowd of ‘devout Jews from every nation under heaven gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate.
Now if you have ever had the opportunity to go to festivals in your life, then you will know that a certain degree of merriment and celebration often accompanies the main event which might be the rock band, the literary performances, or indeed the religious gathering. This was no different for the Jews of first century Palestine. They would have travelled by road and sea to get to Jerusalem and no doubt the odd trinket of wine may well have been consumed along the way! This is why, Peter makes one of those easy-to-miss jokes in the passage from Acts that it is only nine o’clock in the morning and so even though the festival is on it is unlikely that the people would be drunk at that time!
The joke in question refers to the fact that the assembled crowd were able to understand the Galilean apostles speak to them in their own languages and that this was not a trick of the wine, as some were clearly thinking in the gathered crowd (Acts 2.7-13).
Peter realizes the significance of this moment. The Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised he would send upon them so that they would be clothed with the power from on high (Lk. 24.49), has now been poured out upon the apostles gathered together in the Jerusalem house that they were no doubt lodging in to celebrate the Festival of Weeks. In order to explain this to the gathered crowd, Peter turns to the prophet Joel (17-21). The passage is important because it gives us the clue to understanding what the meaning of Pentecost is. Let’s hear it again here, so that we can more easily understand its significance:
‘In the last days —the Lord declares—
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young people will see visions,
your old people will dream dreams.
Even on the slaves, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit.
I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved’.
In other words, the feast of Pentecost inaugurates the end times. This is the period in which the church is brought into being in order to prepare all people for the return of the risen Christ at the end of time or on that ‘great and glorious (terrible) day of the Lord’, as it says in the passage above from the prophet Joel. This means that the church is commissioned to prepare people to declare ‘Jesus is Lord’ both here and now and at the final coming; at the return of Jesus at the end of history. Consequently, in order for the church to do its work, which is to preach ‘Jesus is Lord’ in the Kingdom of God, this Kingdom needs to come here on earth as in heaven.
Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the ruler of the Kingdom of God and the coming of this Kingdom in our time and in our place occurs when Jesus is declared and manifested in real life as Lord amongst us.
Our motto for this forthcoming year, as we transition beyond the golden jubilee celebration of the past fifty years of the Chaplaincy, is: ‘Purpose and Path: Your Kingdom Come’. This why the Anglican Church San Pedro and Sotogrande exists. Its purpose is to announce and to build the Kingdom of God because in God’s Kingdom, Jesus is Lord. But for us to do this, we need to prepare the path. The way in which we work, live and speak needs to continually come closer to this proclamation, to correspond to the fact that Jesus is Lord in God’s Kingdom. So, as we make this transition into the future that God is calling us to as the Anglican Church of San Pedro and Sotogrande, let us ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to proclaim, to heal, to forgive and to reconcile all in the name of the Lord Jesus. We exist for this purpose. Let us continue to prepare the path of this mission of announcing God’s Kingdom. On this feat of Pentecost, this is the mission that is granted to the universal church of which we are a part here on the Costa del Sol.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen