The Feast of Pentecost
The word Pentecost means fifty. The number fifty points to fullness, to ripeness, to a time that is ready for something to happen. This feast has three levels :
A. Harvest Festival. Israel, fifty days – seven weeks to the day – after the sickle was first put to the grain there was a harvest festival. Fifty days after the grain harvest, processions of pilgrims bore baskets of their first fruits to the temple as a thank offering for the harvest. It was something akin to our Thanksgiving day.
B. Torah Festival. In later Judaism (two centuries before Christ) Pentecost was seven weeks to the day after the Passover Sabbath to celebrate the giving of the Law at Sinai where God had made a people for Himself. Akin to our Independence Day.
C. Spirit Festival. Evangelization Festival. Prophetic Festival. Seven weeks to the day after Jesus died and rose from the dead, He breathes the wind and fire of His Spirit upon His Church. This is the fulfillment of the Harvest festival : Fifty days after the sickle had been put to the grain, fifty days after Jesus was hung on a cross, crucified and buried, fifty days after the promised Seed that had been buried in the ground sprouted to life, there was a harvest festival of the resurrection – the reaping of the souls. This is also the fulfillment of the Torah feast : Fifty days after His exodus through death into life, Jesus forms a people, His Israel, His Church. A new covenant, a new people. The Church’s birthday. A day of celebration for the outpouring of the Spirit and the spread of the Gospel to all nations.
The red paraments remind us of Pentecost fire, the fire of Jesus’ love poured out in the Holy Spirit towards others.