Vicar's View

Fifty Days On

On 17th May we shall be celebrating the feast of Pentecost, or Whitsun as it used to be known. In mediæval times it was the first holiday of summer, when farm workers could take a break before the rigours of summer on the farm set in. In 1871 Whitsun was created a bank holiday and a hundred years later, the then government decided to fix the bank holiday as the last weekend in May rather than celebrate it 50 days after the moveable feast of Easter.

I put ‘Whitsunday’ into the internet only to find a page full of adverts for visits to some Australian islands. ‘Pentecost’ produced a page of adverts for Jewellery. Wikipedia may have its failings but at least both names led to the Christian festival. In times past it was recognised as the third major festival of the year after Christmas and Easter. Processions were traditional with girls wearing white, reflecting the origin of the name Whitsun as White Sunday. Many communities can boast of pictures of these celebrations for they were major community events.

Today the Anglican church prefers the name Pentecost to Whitsun. Pentecost is the name of the Jewish festival that fell fifty days after the festival of the Passover. Its name is simply derived from that time span. This is important to the bible story because both the death of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples occurred when Jerusalem was full of pilgrims come to celebrate these festivals.

The description of the events of Pentecost that year in Jerusalem that is found in chapter 2 of Acts of the Apostles, speaks of the disciples being together in hiding as they had been since Jesus’ death, experiencing the coming of the Holy Spirit as ‘a mighty rushing wind’ and in ‘tongues of fire’. One problem with anything spiritual is that as it has no concrete form it is impossible to describe, but these phrases demonstrate its power in sound and vision. But what is clear from the story is that spirit of God which entered the hearts and minds of the gathered disciples, changed their lives for ever. And the change was immediate. For seven weeks they had been in hiding, frightened that if found by the authorities they too would be put to death. Now, filled with the Spirit, they threw off their fear of arrest, left their hiding place and went out into the crowded streets to tell the people about Jesus and how he was the Messiah. Peter’s boldness is remarkable, standing in the heart of the city preaching to the crowds in full view of the Jewish leaders. Indeed, from that day on he never looked back and nor did the other believers. 

To me, the day of Pentecost was not just about the Holy Spirit, for through the actions of Peter and the other disciples, it became the first day of the Christian Church. Peter was preaching Christ and it is recorded that at the end of his sermon that day, three thousand people believed. As we read on through the book of Acts, we read of believers coming together as a community, what today we might call a church and we read of believers going out preaching and spreading the word of Jesus well beyond the limits of Jerusalem. Within what was probably quite a short time, we read of groups of Christians in places like Antioch and Damascus, whilst Christians like Barnabas and Paul were planning missionary journeys overseas which eventually led to churches being formed all through the Roman province of Asia and even into Greece and to Rome, the effective capital of the world. We read of opposition, of persecution and executions but still believers carried the message far and wide. 

If you have never done so, then read the Book of Acts, it is an exciting story of the men and women, filled with the Spirit, who in the thirty years from the death of Jesus, established many churches and put Jesus on the map. It is a process that has continued down the years until today the Christian church is a major factor in the world still reaching out as Peter did to those that have never heard the gospel. 

Geoff