Pentecost is often called the birthday of the church because it is the day that the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples in the upper room and they were empowered to go out to preach the Good News of Salvation. We Christians who make our way in the world today are not left on our own to sink or swim. Before Jesus' ascension into heaven, he promised that he would not leave us alone, but would send his Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts. Jesus said "It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7b-8).
The word Pentecost is not exclusively a Christian word, however. It was originally the Jewish festival of Weeks and meant "fiftieth day," meaning fiftieth day after the Passover. For us, then, it has come to mean the fiftieth day after Easter. During the Festival of the Weeks, Pentecost, bread made from the freshly-reaped grain was presented as an offering to God. Through time, the Jewish people eventually came to associate the delivery of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai with the Feast of the Weeks. It was during Pentecost, then, that the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, hence the association of this miraculous gift with the original Pentecost.
In the ancient church, the color for Pentecost was white (but that's not surprising since white was the constant for the church year. The first clear reference to another color is to red for Pentecost, in the twelfth century. Red is still used on Pentecost to symbolize the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells within the hearts of all Christians. In first Corinthians 3:16, Paul reminds the believes in Corinth: "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" And we know from Acts 2:1-8 that this gift of the Holy Spirit was first given at Pentecost. |
