Pentecost

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

Pentecost: The Birth of the Church

Pentecost was one of the Jewish feast days. Only they didn’t call it Pentecost. That’s the Greek name. The Jews called it the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks, the celebration of the beginning of the early weeks of harvest. The Christian holy day of Pentecost, which is celebrated on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter, commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31). In Christian tradition, this event represents the birth of the early Church. Many Christian denominations provide a special liturgy for this holy celebration. Pentecost also refers to the entire fifty days of Easter through Pentecost inclusive. The fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday may also be called Eastertide.

On Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit filled the Church with power and added 3,000 new believers. The account in Act 2 reports that, after Jesus ascended into heaven, Jesus’ followers were gathered together for the Feast of Harvest (aka Pentecost), and the Holy Spirit “filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). “ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).