Pentecost (May 31) is the culmination of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. Secular culture has co-opted our other major feasts: Christmas and Easter. For some reason, Pentecost just hasn’t caught hold of the popular imagination in the same way. Perhaps that is a good thing in the final analysis. In any event, we will make a festival of it at St. Mark’s. But before I get to that, let’s look briefly at the Great Fifty Days as a whole.
We celebrate Christ’s victory over death and read of the empty tomb on the Day of Resurrection. For the next thirty-nine days the Gospels focus on the appearances of the risen Christ. We hear that he appeared to his friends. The disciples could hear him with their ears and touch him with their hands. Jesus shared meals with them. At one point, he even appeared to 500 of his followers at one time. We mark these forty days with these readings precisely because the risen Lord walked the earth for forty days after he rose from the dead.
On the fortieth day, Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father. On that Thursday we celebrate Ascension Day each year. The following Sunday is sometimes called Ascension Sunday, since ascension themes are still often used that day.
Some have made light of the Ascension, remarking that only the most simple-minded among us would believe that Jesus would float up into some space called “Heaven” as he seems to do at the beginning of The Acts of the Apostles. St. Luke—the author of Acts—did not mean to suggest that “Heaven” could be reached after getting to a certain altitude or a certain distance from earth in outer space.
St. Luke was telling us that the risen (embodied) Christ continues to live in intimate union with Father in a way that is deeply mysterious and, in the end, beyond our finite capacity to understand. At some point, Jesus will come again. Heaven and earth will be a single Kingdom. Christ will dwell forever in our midst. He will be our God. And we will be his people.
In the meantime, we are the people born on Pentecost: the Church. The Holy Spirit descended on that first Pentecost and did a new thing. Of course, we Trinitarians believe that God has always been three-in-one and one-in-three. Pentecost was not the birth of the Holy Spirit.
On that day the Holy Spirit made Christ available to every human heart and wove all believers into the single body that we call the Church. The Holy Spirit continues that same work this very day. Through the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus is at work through his Body—the Church—administering the sacraments and proclaiming the Good News in word and deed.
To perhaps oversimplify, Pentecost is the Church’s birthday. So let’s celebrate! On Pentecost, I ask everyone to wear something red to remind us of the flames above the disciples’ heads. I also urge all parents with young children to attend church and bring your children for a children’s sermon. I will ask children to come forward for a sermon that day. Those of you who have heard my sermons at Family Chapel on Fridays know that these sermons are for young children and adults alike. There will also be special liturgical expressions appropriate to this great feast.
So come on May 31 and celebrate! The Holy Spirit is very active right here at St. Mark’s. You won’t want to miss it.
