Pentecost for Western Christians, Holy Spirit Day (05/06)

Pentecost — is an important Christian holiday celebrated on the 50th day after Easter in memory of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles.

This holiday was one of the three great Old Testament holidays and celebrated the adoption of Sinai legislation under the Prophet Moses, when one and a half thousand years before the Nativity of Christ at the foot of Mount Sinai, the Jewish people, liberated from Egypt, entered into an alliance with God.

The Jews promised God in obedience, and the Lord promised them His favor. In terms of the time of year, the Feast of Pentecost coincided with the end of the harvest, and therefore met with special joy.

Many Jews, scattered across different countries of the vast Roman Empire, tried to arrive in Jerusalem for this holiday. Born in other countries, many of them already had difficulty understanding their native Jewish language, however, they tried to observe their national-religious customs and at least occasionally make pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit was not an unexpected event for the apostles.

A few centuries before the birth of the Savior, the Lord God began to prepare people for the day of their spiritual rebirth and predicted through the mouth of the prophets: «You will walk in My commandments and you will keep My statutes and pour out My Spirit on all flesh... I will pour water on the thirsty and streams on the withered... and you will joyfully draw water from the sources of salvation... And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will give you, and I will take a heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit inside you and do it» (Joel 2:28; Isa. 12:3, 44:3; Ezek.).

As he prepares to return to His Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ dedicates His farewell discourse with the apostles to the coming descent of the Holy Spirit before the crucifixion.

The Lord explains to the disciples that the Comforter — Holy Spirit — must soon come to them to complete the work of saving people.

Preparing to receive the Holy Spirit after the Lord ascended to Heaven, the disciples of Christ, together with the Blessed Virgin Mary, with some myrrh-bearing women and other believers (about 120 people) on Pentecost, were in Jerusalem, in the so-called «Zion Upper Room». This was probably in that large room where, shortly before His suffering, the Lord celebrated the Last Supper.

The apostles and all those gathered were waiting for the Savior to send them the «Promise of the Father», and they would be clothed with power from above, although they did not know what the coming of the Comforter Spirit would actually consist of (Lk. 24:49). Since the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose during the Old Testament Easter, the holiday of the Old Testament Pentecost fell that year on the 50th day after His resurrection.

And so, at nine o'clock in the morning, when the people were usually going to the temple for sacrifice and prayer, suddenly a noise was heard over the Upper Room of Zion, as if from a stormy wind. This noise filled the house where the apostles were, and at the same time many fiery tongues appeared above the heads of the apostles, which began to descend on each of them.

These languages had an extraordinary property: they shone, but did not burn. But even more extraordinary were the spiritual properties that these mysterious languages reported. Everyone on whom this language descended felt a great surge of spiritual strength and, at the same time, unspeakable joy and inspiration. He began to feel like a completely different person: peaceful, full of life and ardent love for God.

The apostles began to express these internal changes and new untested feelings in joyful exclamations and in loud praise of God. And then it turned out that they spoke not their native Jewish, but some other languages unknown to them.

Thus the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire took place over the apostles, as predicted by the prophet John the Baptist (Mt. 3:11).

Meanwhile, the noise, reminiscent of a stormy wind, attracted many people to the apostolic house. Seeing the people flocking from all sides, with prayers of praise and glorification of God on their lips, the apostles went out onto the roof of the house.

Hearing this stream of joyful prayers, those gathered near their house were amazed by a phenomenon incomprehensible to them: the disciples of Christ, mostly Galileans by origin, uneducated people by appearance, from whom knowledge of a language other than their native language could not be expected, suddenly began to speak different foreign languages.

And, no matter how diverse the crowd of those gathered was in their origin and language, everyone, however, heard one preacher who glorified God in the language of his country. The surprise of many turned into horror, but there were also wicked people who ''scoffing, said'' that the apostles ''drunk sweet wine' (Acts. 2.13).

Seeing the bewilderment of people, the Apostle Peter stepped forward and preached his first sermon, in which he explained to those gathered that an ancient prediction had been fulfilled in the miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit.

This sermon was short and simple, but since the Holy Spirit spoke through the mouth of Peter, these words penetrated the hearts of those who listened. Many of them were touched by their hearts and asked him: — What should we do? — Repent, — the Apostle Peter answered them, — and may each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And you will not only be forgiven, but you yourself will receive the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Many who believed in Christ according to the word of the Apostle Peter immediately publicly repented of their sins, were baptized, and by the evening of this day the Church of Christ from among 120 had grown to 3,000 people.

In such a wonderful event began the existence of the Church of Christ — of this fertile society of believers, in which everyone is called to save their souls. The Lord promised that the Church would remain undefeated by the gates of hell until the very end of the world's existence!

After the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, they began to annually celebrate Pentecost Day and commanded all Christians to remember this event (1 Cor. 16:8; Acts. 20.16).

Mass baptisms were usually timed to coincide with the all-night service of this day, as well as the Easter holiday, and this custom still persists in relation to baptizing adults in the Roman Catholic Church, in whose liturgy this holiday is equivalent in significance to Easter. The famous «gold sequence», «Land, Holy Spirit» («Veni Sancte Spiritus»), a hymn belonging to an unknown author of the 13th century, is sung during the festive mass of Pentecost.

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