The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

Feast of Pentecost

PENTECOST: THE FEAST OF WEEKS

As the Greek term Pentecost suggests, the annual Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot, took place 50 days after Passover began.

Considered the second most important of all of the ancient Jewish celebrations, and one of the three occasions on which all males were required to appear before the Lord at the temple.

This joyful festival marked the end of the grain harvest.

It was also a reaffirmation of Yahweh's covenant with his people, for the successful harvest proved that he had taken care to sustain them through the previous year.

Following the Old Testament injunction for a "cereal offering of new grain," two loaves of leavened, salted bread were offered at the Shavuot ceremony.

The use of yeast, unique to this ritual in Hebraic practice, suggests an origin as a Canaanite agricultural festival adopted by the Israelites when they gave up their wanderings and settled down to become farmers in Palestine.

After the founding of the Christian church at Pentecost, and especially after the temple was destroyed in AD 70, the interpretation of Shavuot gradually changed.

Since it was believed that Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Sinai 50 days after the original Passover in Egypt, the feast became a commemoration of the giving of the Torah and the Covenant of Sinai.

For Christians, Pentecost celebrates the miracle of the birth of the church, a dramatic affirmation that God's plan of redemption applies to all of the world's people, not the Jews alone. The gift of the Holy Spirit that day was considered to be the dawn of a new age in which believers then and now were enjoined to become missionaries until the Gospel message is heard "to the end of the earth."