Pentecost #14

Pentecost is Luke’s account, in the book of Acts, of the Holy Spirit’s descent on Jesus’ followers fifty days after the resurrection and ten days after the ascension he describes at the start of the same book (Acts 1:9-11). The event does not appear in any of the four Gospels themselves, and Christians have long regarded it as the founding moment of the Church as a Spirit-empowered community.

Biblical Account

As the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Shavuot, called Pentecost in Greek because it fell fifty days after Passover, “suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4). Jews “out of every nation under heaven” who were staying in Jerusalem for the feast were amazed to hear their own native languages, and some in the crowd instead mocked, saying the disciples were drunk (Acts 2:5-13).

Peter then stood and addressed the crowd, arguing that what they were seeing fulfilled the prophet Joel’s promise that God would pour out his Spirit “upon all flesh,” so that sons and daughters would prophesy and young and old alike would see visions and dream dreams (Acts 2:14-21; Joel 2:28-29). He went on to preach that the Jesus they had crucified, God had raised up and made “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:22-36). Those who heard were “pricked in their heart” and asked what they should do; Peter told them to repent and be baptized, and about three thousand were added that day, devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:37-42).

Theological Significance

Luke, who wrote both his Gospel and Acts, frames Pentecost as the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Spirit would empower his witnesses “in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8), a program the rest of Acts goes on to narrate. Interpreters have often noted a symbolic reversal of the scattering of languages at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), where many languages become, at Pentecost, a single occasion of understanding — though Luke does not draw the comparison explicitly himself.

Pentecost is kept as a major feast in most Christian traditions and is often called the Church’s birthday. Modern Pentecostal and charismatic movements trace their name and much of their theology of Spirit-baptism to this chapter, though Christian traditions differ on how the sign of tongues recorded here relates to ordinary Christian experience today.