- Our Christianity needs that filling Spirit.
One of the best book titles I know is The Kingdom of God Is a Party. It brought to the reader’s attention the celebrations of Scripture – the festivals and festivities set down in Leviticus (Unleaved Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, etc.) and elsewhere – David dancing before the Ark, the Temple dedication, the wedding at Cana with Jesus, the Prodigal Son party and, finally, the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation.
The author had a point…from Torah to Revelation – parties throughout.
Christians have added their elaborate merriments with Christmas and Easter, and we celebrate them in ways that have spilled out to a secular world keen on their own holiday revelries.
But today is the day when very few of us celebrate with enough panache, I fear. Today is the Day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church.
Know any church today that threw a birthday party for the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ? Any helium-filled red balloons in the sanctuary (for the tongues of fire)? Any noise of wind pre-sermon? Any birthday cake and a musical rendition of “Happy birthday to us…?” Dinner on the grounds? Baptisms? Testimonies of how the infilling Holy Spirit has changed your trajectory, and that of your family?
Probably not, and the lack of celebration might eerily suggest what we need to know about the anemic stature of the Church in the West.
One of the best books I have ever read and certainly the best book on Pentecost I know of is by Methodist missionary E. Stanley Jones titled The Christ of Every Road. He talks about the “why” of Pentecost after the Resurrection.
Draw a line through the New Testament and on one side is spiritual fumbling, hesitancy, inadequacy, defeat, and on the other side is certainty, courage, adequacy, victory. That line runs straight through Pentecost.
Jones is polite in these words. Truth is, with a personal relationship with Jesus such as no one has had since (they walked with Him intimately in the flesh!) the disciples denied Him, betrayed Him, argued over who of them was the greatest and, in the darkest moment of Jesus’ life, ran for their lives.
Then, Pentecost. And the abundant life they saw in Jesus became real for them, personally.
So – why don’t churches celebrate? It is laid down as a non-negotiable in Leviticus and while we are no longer required to hold an annual jamboree because of the teaching in the Torah we certainly can recognize the importance in the account following the Gospels.
Christmas, we celebrate. Easter, we observe with spiritual gusto. Pentecost – virtually nothing…in many churches, we don’t announce it or even preach on it.
I think I know the problem, and it was good-naturedly shared by a Facebook friend who is a pastor:
I joke every year (and it is really only a half joke) that as much as we decry the commercialization of Easter and Christmas, Pentecost could sure use some! The fact we haven’t yet created a Pentecost Claus or a Pentecost Bunny means it is a completely irrelevant holiday for most Christians. I long for a Pentecost commercialization that will drive people to church on that day so that I can tell them the commercialization that brought ’em is wrong and the Holy Spirit is the true reason for the season!
Funny, or really sad, and probably spot on. There may be something to the perspective that “we become what we celebrate.” If that approaches some degree of truth, then we perhaps should figure out a way to regain the party called Pentecost.
Our Christianity needs that filling Spirit.
