Just as the Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday cycle is celebrated and understood in the context of the Passover, we need to understand our celebration of Pentecost in the context of the original celebration.
Pentecost is known as Shavuot to our Jewish brothers and sisters. In the Bible it is referred to as the Festival of Weeks, or the Day of the First Fruits. These two different names remind us that the day carried agricultural as well as theological significance.
Just as we see a direct connection between Easter and Pentecost, so is there a direct connection between Passover and Shavuot.
We remember with tremendous awe the story of God sending Moses into Egypt to demand before Pharaoh the freedom of God’s people. Moses was empowered by God to stand before the stubborn Ruler of Egypt – the Enslaver of God’s People – and repeatedly demand the freedom of God’s People. Each time Pharaoh would seem to acquiesce before his heart was hardened against the demand of God. Each time God would respond to this hardness of heart with a plague...
But, the final plague was to be the deaths of the first-born...
God gave Moses specific instructions for the Hebrews on the evening when this plague would descend as the Angel of Death. They were observe the evening with a special meal. It was to begin with the select of a pure, spotless lamb that would be sacrificed and the blood allowed to drain out of it. Some of that blood was then applied to the door-posts and mantle of the entrance way of the house. The lamb was then roasted and and eaten in a special ceremonial meal to remind the Hebrews of who they were and of who they were to become: we who were once slaves in Egypt are now living in the Land our Lord has given us!
So it was on that night – the evening of that Last Supper Jesus had with his disciples – that he celebrated the Passover meal with them. As they broke the bread he said Take and eat, for this is my body broken for you. Then after he gave thanks over the cup he said Take and drink, for this is my blood shed for you. It was a vivid reminder of what cousin John had said at his baptism: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It reminds us that as we break bread and drink from the cup that the blood of Christ – the Lamb of God – is applied to us that the Angel of Death may pass over us.
Fifty days after that original Passover (which is where we get the name Pentecost) the People of God found themselves standing at Mount Sinai. It was there that God made a covenant with the people and he gave them the gift of the Law – it was written on stone, that they could carry the Law with them in the Ark of the Covenant.
So we now come to the Fiftieth Day after the Passover of Our Lord when Christ our Paschal Lamb was sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). Now God’s people stand not at the Mountain of God’s Presence on Mount Sinai in the wilderness, but at the Temple that represents the Presence of God with his People built on Mount Zion. Here, God does not write a law on stone to give to us, but pours out the Holy Spirit that the law may be written on our hearts. As on that Mountain, Moses heard God speak from the flames of the burning bush so does God speak on Pentecost through the experience of the flames of the tongues of fire from the Holy Spirit.
The the significance of the agricultural aspect of the First Fruits and the Life of the early apostolic community – the People of the Way.
Shavuot was the day people would bring their First Fruits to the Temple of God. From the day the People of God first entered the Holy Land after the Wilderness experience they were to put to practice the concept of the first fruits. While this is very clearly seen in an agricultural context its application is all across our lives. When the Hebrews crossed the River Jordan into the Land God had Promised Them they came first to the city of Jericho. God promised the people that the city would be delivered into their hands, but that the city itself was to be devoted for God (Joshua 6:15-21), that it, they were not to lay claim to it or rebuild it, for it was the first fruits of the conquest of the land and it belonged to God.
So each year, fifty days after the Passover, the People of God would return to Jerusalem, to the temple, with the fruit fruits of their harvest and present this tithe to the temple reciting out God had provided for their means (Deuteronomy 26:1-10).
In the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost we see that First Fruits of the harvest – the provision of God – includes that Spiritual Fruit that is produced within us by the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:23-25). This is the fruit that grows in us as we learn to walk in the Spirit.
In the celebration of Shavuot the stress is placed on the fact that it is God who gives the Law, not on we who receive it, because we are continually receiving it (Reference). In the same way we want to emphasize the gift of God on the Day of Pentecost – we stress the Giving God rather than we who receive the gift, because we must be continually open to the outpouring of God’s Spirit into our lives.
The word for Spirit in Hebrew and Greek also carry the meaning of wind and breath. Sometimes the words are used in the sense of power or life. In is in the Fourth Gospel when Jesus is speaking at night with Nicodemus that he uses the word with its multiple meanings to create a playful pun that confuses Nicodemus. The wind blows where it will, you don’t know its coming or going, so it is with the Spirit. We miss the pun because we have separate words for each of these things, but poor Nicodemus wasn’t sure if Jesus was talking about Wind or Spirit or whatever! (John 3:8-10).
It is this Spirit blowing as a mighty Wind across the Waters of Creation (Genesis 1:2).
It is this Spirit, breathing life into the nostrils of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:7).
It is this Spirit blowing as a mighty wind to part the waters of sea (Exodus 14:21).
It is this Spirit that rests upon the Prophets as they utter a Word from God (e.g. Ezekiel 11:15).
It is this Spirit, breathing life into the dead dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 37:5-6,9-10).
It is this Spirit that overshadows Mary as she conceives the Son of God (Luke 1:35).
It is this Spirit that Jesus breathes on his disciples as he gives them the authority to forgive sins in his Name (John 20:22-23).
It is this Spirit rushing in as a violent wind on the believers gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:2).
It is this Spirit who assures us of God’s love for us as his children (Romans 8:16).
It is this Spirit who prays through us even when we do not know what to pray (Romans 8:26-27).
It is this Spirit whose gusts continue to fill our sails that we may be moved into the areas of ministry we are given by God.
So we are continually open to the Spirit of God who sometimes rests upon us, sometimes caresses our cheek like a gentle breath, sometimes pushes us into action with the force of a violent wind.
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