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PASTOR'S PEN
Growing in spirit
 | | Father Al Leveridge is vicar at Trinity by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Port Aransas. |
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In Greek the word 'Pentecost' means "50th." Pentecost Sunday ends the 50- day season of Easter. Pentecost grew from a festival marking the first grain harvest of the Middle Eastern year. It was a festival offering sacrifices to the gods from the first harvest. In Palestine, their early cultures tied the first-fruit sacrifice to their religions gods of power and fertility (both in farming and in sex).
As the Jews grew to understand themselves as followers of the one and only true God, they created ways to be thankful to God for the first harvest, without the pagan trappings. The celebration became a minipilgrimage, where they would stay at their region's shrine, bringing grain loaves and young livestock for sacrifices. The Jewish kings started to centralize religious activity into Jerusalem (a process that took several centuries). Pentecost was the celebration of a blessing of harvest, and its joy was symbolized by leavening the bread.
Now, fast-forward to the time of Jesus, where Luke reports the believers gathered after Jesus' ascension. Not just the 12 disciples, but about 120 of them were talking, remembering, praying and wondering what was next. (They had just been through several of the strangest months ever).
On the morning of Pentecost, lit up by the Holy Spirit, they came out of the room and started telling the people about Jesus,. The streets were full of people from many places, mostly there for the holy day, some still hanging around from Passover. When each of them heard the witnesses speak, they heard it in their own language! (That is, if they were allowing themselves to listen; otherwise, they heard babbling, as shown by the remarks about drunkenness).
The good news of Jesus was being told for the first time and what it means for all people. But more than just words, these words were being carried with power and authority by the Holy Spirit into the ears and the hearts of those who were listening. About 3,000 new people joined their ranks. These were the first fruits of a new kind of harvest and the giving of a new covenant of grace that was to fulfill the covenant of the Torah.
We now begin the long season between Easter and Advent where through God's grace we will grow in the spirit.
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