Joy of the Feast!
Today in the Orthodox Christian Faith we celebrate the Great Feast of Pentecost.
In the Old Testament, the Feast of Pentecost was one of the Major Feasts of the Jews, where it was referred to as the Feast of Weeks, a harvest festival celebrated 50 days after Passover. Literally, Pentecost means the 50th day, for it was a feast of joy and thanksgiving for God’s protection and His provisions.
It was on the feast of Pentecost that Almighty God gave humanity the gift of the spirit, the pledge of a new Promised Land: God’s coming kingdom. When He had completed His mission on earth, the risen Christ charged His followers to remain in Jerusalem, where they would receive the gift of the Father which He told them about.
Christ told them that in a few days they would be baptised with the Holy Spirit, and that, “you will be filled with power and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.
This feastday thus celebrates the Lord’s bestowal of the Spirit upon His Church. Pentecost is also a feast of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, one God in Three Persons, existing eternally and working together for the salvation of the world.
For as the hymn of Great Vespers for this day sings, “Come people, let us worship God in Three Persons, the Son who abides in the Father together with the Holy Spirit… one Power, one Essence, one God, whom we worship saying Holy God…Holy Mighty…Holy Immortal Comforter and Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son, Holy Trinity, glory to you”!
