This past Sunday was the celebration of Pentecost (which means that after this post, I will be caught up, liturgically speaking...kinda).Pentecost is also referred to as "the birthday of the Church," which takes some explanation...
In Christianity, the Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter. The prefix "pente" is the Greek word for fifty and the suffix "coste" means fire or burning. Therefore the Pentecost the celebration of the Holy Spirit appearing in the form of flame fifty days after Easter. I guess that wasn't that much explanation...
The new piece that I learned this year (thanks to the
Pulpit Fiction guys) is that the Pentecost was not
originally a Christian thing. The celebration of Easter coincides with or parallels the Jewish feast of Passover, and 50 days after that is the festival of Shavuot, which any Hellenistic Jew would call Pentecost. This Jewish festival commemorates when God gave the Torah to them at Mount Sinai, all of which happened after the Passover in Egypt, the result of which being the Hebrew release from slavery by Pharaoh.
What the heck does this mean for the
story of Pentecost? It means that when the lectionary reading starts with "When the day of Pentecost had arrived..." it doesn't mean that God had ordained this day for the followers of Christ, but that the Jews in Jerusalem and the surrounding area would be coming into the city to celebrate what God had given
them. The disciples of Christ were totally bogarting the celebration with their wacky tongues of flame and speech in other languages! But Christianity has a long, time-honored tradition of taking other people's celebrations and not giving them back, so whatever...
Any rate, since the story tells that the Holy Spirit filled Christ's disciples, Pentecost is ofter referred to as the birthday of the church. And here is a meme to that effect:
