Pentecost Sunday

Sunday, May 20^th, is Pentecost Sunday. For many Christians, especially Baptists like myself, we tend to shy away from recognizing this special day because of its association with speaking in tongues or other [Charismatic] gifts of the Spirit (I am personally a cessationist, believing some of those gifts were for the Apostolic Era and have since passed away). Regardless of a person’s take on spiritual gifts, Pentecost Sunday should be celebrated by all who profess the name of Jesus.

The word Pentecost means fifty days because it is celebrated fifty days after Resurrection Sunday (technically it is forty-nine days by our calendar, but the Jewish calendar measured days from sundown to sundown). The official name of Pentecost is the Festival of Weeks because it was originally set to be observed seven weeks after the first grain harvest of the year. More importantly, Pentecost is also called The Season of the Giving of the Law, for on Pentecost Jews reflected on Moses receiving the law on Mt. Sinai.

Do you remember what happened when Moses was given the Torah? He descended the mountain only to find the Jews worshipping a golden calf that his brother helped fashion, a glaring object lesson to the fact that they could not keep the very law Moses was holding. As a result, 3,000 idolaters lost their lives that day.

In Acts 2, seven weeks after the Resurrection, Luke notes, “the Day of Pentecost was fully come.” In Greek, Luke was saying that this was the Day of Pentecost, a momentous fulfillment of a day that would never again be the same. The Holy Spirit descended on the assembled believers, and Peter preached a message with a newfound boldness. Do you remember how many were saved that day? 3,000.

(The Apostles began to speak in tongues. This is glossa in Greek, the word from which glossary is derived; it can only refer to known languages. People came from around the world to celebrate the Festival of Weeks, and the Spirit allowed the Apostles to preach in the languages that were represented in Jerusalem that day. Any other conclusion is not fair to the original Greek.)

We celebrate Pentecost Sunday because it is a reminder that we are under grace, not law. No one is good enough to keep the law for salvation, but because God’s Spirit now fills believers, we are saved by amazing grace.