 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Pentecost Sunday! The Jewish feast of Shavuot…  49 days after Passover begins the two day feast of Shavuot, which this year is Thursday night, May 25 through Saturday evening, May 27. It celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mt Sinai. One of the most common ways to celebrate it is to stay up all night to study scripture, and to hear the Torah read, especially together with others. The giving of the Torah is the “end” – the goal, that is, the purpose of the Passover celebration of freedom from Egypt. Having been set free from one master, and an abusive one at that, the people receive the Torah to be their guide for living as God’s people instead of Pharaoh’s. That is why for Jews, the Torah is not a burden, but a gift – not a set of legalistic requirements, but a way, an expression of truth and life – an expression of God’s desire to establish a community of mutual trust and love – between God and his people and between the people themselves.  The Christian feast of Pentecost Pentecost comes 50 days after Easter – We also celebrate the giving of a gift 50 days after our Passover. “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast,” we say. And we have kept it with music and bells and plenty of Alleluias! But now we come to the “end” – the goal, that is the purpose of Christ’s death and Resurrection. Having been set free from “sin and death” as the Eucharistic prayer declares, we receive the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, the presence of God, to be our way and our truth and our life. We do not receive a set of commandments now, not a written Word, but the Spirit who has given us the “law of liberty” as Paul says. The New Testament assumes that free people will eagerly embrace the presence of God given to us by the Spirit, and live according to the Way, and in that Spirit’s power.   |
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