The Christian Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples in the Upper Room at Jerusalem has been described as “A turning point in the history of God’s kingdom” and as “A Spiritual Renaissance in the history of man.”
This amazing event which saw the Christian church being established on earth, took place on the Jewish festival of Pentecost. Fifty days after the Passover celebrations (7x7 +1), the Jewish people held another feast which had agricultural and religious connections.
Agriculturally, it was the time of harvesting the early crops of the season, so it was a celebration of the first fruits. Theologically, it was also the time when the Jews commemorated Moses bring the Law (Ten commandments) to the Hebrew people.
Symbolically, this meant that the coming of the Holy Spirit is both the first fruit of Christ’s Church on Earth and the promised fulfillment of the Law. This is the actual transition of the Old Covenants into the New Testament. As Christians, we no longer live in the time of religious law; we live in the New Age of the love of Christ!
John Calvin stated that this miraculous event took place on Pentecost in order to make the event more famous – Jerusalem was filled with many pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean and Middle East. In the great assembly of people, there would be greater fruit (testimony and witnesses) of the event.
This is why worshipping collectively at church each week is also important. We come here to worship God, but this is also a sacred time when we are spiritually inspired, empowered and equipped TOGETHER to make us more EFFECTIVE in the surrounding community (eg. 1x1 = 1 witness …140 x1 = 140 witnesses)
The crowd assembled in Jerusalem according to religious customs and Old Testament commands. Thousands of them would leave empowered and embraced by the Holy Spirit to begin the Church around the world.
NB EKKLESIA = Greek word for Church which means “those who are called out”
I preached from notes that morning and need to rewrite this. Updates will follow, as well as study notes.
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