The Sunday after the Ascension Feast is Pentecost Sunday– which was last Sunday. Again, I thought perhaps half the evangelical Christian world was oblivious of that. Pentecost is always a great day to highlight the universality of the church– how the little group of Christ followers of mostly Jewish background in Jerusalem grew to thousands in one day, a symbolic opening of salvation’s door to all people. All through the two services I was thinking, “We could have showcased First Baptist’s different international representation on this day of Pentecost!” Each Sunday at First Baptist I see Ethiopians, Eritreans, Filipinos, Chinese, French, Hispanics, an Egyptian, Koreans, ethnic Ukrainians and Poles and other races mingled with Canadians.
Last Sunday, following services at First Baptist Lloyd, I decided to watch Saddleback Church’s live webcast online. What made me smile was that Saddleback Church’s theme for the weekend was Pentecost and Rick Warren’s sermon titled Real Christianity was based on Acts 2! I’m sure it was intentional than coincidental. Rick mentioned having 63 different ethnic groups represented at Saddleback and to showcase that he asked twenty of their members to declare “Jesus can change your life” in twenty different languages! It was moving! Some wouldn’t think Saddleback is a kind of church that would follow or observe the high holidays/feasts found in the traditional liturgical calendar! Yet it does, in a subtle way. At GCF, we observed major liturgical feasts that way. We had multilingual scripture readings and prayer for Pentecost, we always display the cross with white cloth for forty days after Easter with the Paschal Candle lit beside it, we light Advent candles, etc.
But what are “feasts” good for if they would not be venues to deepen our spirituality?
In a Worship Conference I attended years ago, Don Moen said, “Tradition is good as long as it is Biblical and helps us grow in our faith walk.” God Himself ordered Moses that things be done to remember His mighty acts, which is no different from the Lord’s Supper– a tradition in memory of Christ. So, feast observance should help edify us. More than just a Harvest Feast, Pentecost to the Hebrews was a time to commemorate the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to the entire Israelite nation assembled at Mount Sinai. In Acts 2, it became the birthday of the Church– God sends the Spirit to write His laws in man’s heart, and opening the kingdom to all people.
What does Pentecost teach us?
One of the take-aways we glean from our understanding of Pentecost is that Holy Spirit, or the Advocate, or Spirit of truth, as Jesus described Him, is that everywhere is pregnant with spiritual potential because the Spirit is uninhibited in pervasive power. Every location, every circumstance, even the boring, routine moments of going through the motions of our jobs and relationships are not outside the Spirit’s bounds. For that matter, no person falls outside. Pentecost is in part a celebration of the fact that no one is excluded from God’s gracious kingdom. All fall within the perimeter. It seems that one of the benchmarks of God’s kingdom is that no one is meant to be left out of God’s economy of love and justice. I suppose this is an obvious thing to say.
Then again, as you know, I like to talk about obvious-seeming things that can easily slip away from our awareness. And what more so than the idea that God is intimately present in every moment everywhere for everyone? And that no race is meant to be excluded from God’s gracious kingdom come to earth? I know these are very basic concepts of the Christian tradition and spirituality, but honestly, do we really live our lives as though they were true? As you well know, even Christians have a thousand and one reasons for slicing and dicing the human family into those that are in and those that are out. And half the time we’re not certain we ourselves either have been included or even want to be included.
1 SBauman CCNYC52310
2 Rick Warren, Real Christianity 52310
Confluent Thoughts 