Pentecost in Christian tradition


Fifty days after Easter, when the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is celebrated, the Church celebrates Pentecost, when Jesus gives his disciples the Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel according to Luke, the Resurrected Jesus says to his disciples: "And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). On the fortieth day after Easter, Jesus ascended into heaven, leaving behind him the group of disciples which he had prepared to fill his place in the world. However, this body, made up of the disciples, was deficient after the betrayal of Judas Iscariot. Jesus had chosen twelve disciples, a number that represented the perfection of the body (parallel to the twelve tribes that made up Israel in the Old Testament). The absence of Judah was a harsh blow to the body and therefore Simon Peter proposed to the disciples that they cast lots in order to choose another disciple. In this way Matthias was chosen in order to fill the deficit. Now the body of the disciples was ready to receive the spirit of Jesus, the spirit that would animate the body as it set out on its way, performing the acts of the head of the body who is already seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. The spirit of Jesus is the first fruit of his crucifixion, death and resurrection.

Seven weeks after Passover, the Jewish people celebrates the feast of the First Fruits. (In a later period, this feast became the Feast of the Giving of the Torah). On the feast, people went up to the Temple to bring the first fruits of the earth, thus thanking God for the good and fertile land that He had given them (see Deuteronomy 26). The disciples were in Jerusalem with all the people and Jews from every nation and language came together.


Luke describes what happened in this way in the Acts of the Apostles:

"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs -- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power" (Acts 2:1-11).


To tell of God's deeds of power is the role of everyone going up to the Temple at Pentecost. However, the new element here is the communication that has been created, enabling the proclamation of God's deeds of power to the entire world. The body that receives the spirit at this time, the community of Christ, will now proceed on its way to bring the Good News to all nations without fear. This body walks upright until the ends of the earth, carrying, from Jerusalem, the teaching of Jesus and the Good News that God has vanquished death through Jesus.


In the text that tells of this event, we, the readers, are reminded of the city and tower of Babel (Genesis 1:1-9). Then humanity decided to build a great city and a tower with its top in the sky in order to close themselves off in one place and not to fill the earth as God had commanded when He said" Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth..." (Genesis 1:28). They refused to fill the earth with the Good News of God. Now, in Jerusalem, a human body, the community of Christ on earth, will proceed to spread the Good News. With this body begins a process of repairing the world whose aim is to unite all humanity where the previous refusal of the people of Babel had led to division and confusion.


John describes the giving of the Holy Spirit a little differently from Luke's description. For him, the giving of the Holy Spirit is the re-creation of the human person. He writes as follows:

"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."" (John 20:19-23).


In Greek, the original language of John's Gospel, it is not written "he breathed on them" but rather "he breathed into them" - an expression that reminds every reader of the creation of Adam in Genesis: "Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7). The Resurrected Jesus gives the spirit of new life to the body of the disciples. Thus he makes a new Adam, in the form of the Church which walks the earth to do the will of the Father and bring salvation o the extremities of the earth.


Pentecost is the birthday of the community, "kehillat haMashiah", the Church of Christ. In blood and water, the Church was born at the cross from the side of Jesus, however, at Pentecost she receives the Spirit of Jesus, the spirit of life through which she becomes a living being and by which she walks and proclaims the Good News of great joy.


Traditional songs for this day in Hebrew: here and here


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