by Bonnie Calhoun

Today we are going to study tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost is the fiftieth day of the Jewish Passover. I say 'of Passover' and not 'after Passover' because the counting begins with day one, rather than zero.

Though various Christian denominations commemorate Pentecost, many forget that it was a Jewish holiday before the Church was established. The name Pentecost comes from the Greek word for fifty, but the Jewish name is Shavuot (meaning weeks or sevens).

The Torah - the five books of Moses - details seven feasts during the Hebrew calendar. The first three feasts are in the spring, in the month of Nisan: Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of First Fruits.

The first Passover was defined in Exodus, chapter 12, when the Jews covered their doorways with blood so that the Angel of Death would pass over them.

The first Feast of Unleavened Bread and Feast of First Fruits occurred in Exodus, chapter 13 as a seven day feast after leaving Egypt and before crossing the Red Sea. The Lord commanded that they east unleavened bread and consecrate their first-borns to the Lord

These feasts are predictive of the First Coming of Jesus.

Christ is our Passover. It is His shed blood that saves us. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is the Lamb of God which taketh the sin away.

He became this on Palm Sunday when He entered Jerusalem riding on an ass, demonstrating the lion-like quality of the Lamb. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was kept four days later at the Passover Supper, after which He and His disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane.

There He could say in His prayer to the Father, “I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do.”
Then followed His three days and nights’ after which He burst the bonds of death. On Resurrection morning, He became ‘The Resurrection and the Life and the First Fruits of them that slept’.

In between the spring and fall feasts, fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits, there is the Feast of Pentecost (or Feast of Weeks).

This feast, celebrated this week, is associated with the Church.

The Birth of the Church appears to be a fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost. See Acts 2:1. (It is interesting to note that this is the only feast in which leavened bread is ordained.) With this difference — the first was unleavened bread, the second was two loaves baked with leaven. Our Lord was sinless - the church is not.

The last three feasts are in the fall, in the month of Tishri: the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and the Feast of Tabernacles.

These are associated with Jesus Second Coming.

These seven holidays were later refined by the Lord in Leviticus chapter 23.

The confusion over Pentecost comes from the word 'Easter'. The holiday 'Easter', is called Passover in other languages─this is fitting, because Easter is the Christian Passover.

There are three methods for calculating the day. Within each system Pentecost is the fiftieth day of Passover. That is, Pentecost is the fiftieth day of the Jewish Passover, the Orthodox Pentecost is the fiftieth day of the Orthodox Passover, the western Christian Pentecost is the fiftieth day of the Christian Passover, which we confusingly call 'Easter' in English.

Some wrongly think that the chief purpose of the Church is to provide a place for people to worship and enjoy God. This view of only one function of the Body as its prime purpose generates an "upper room" mentality that has us huddled together, waiting for God to act.

Surely there are times when we ought to wait on the Lord for His empowerment, but He wants an active, dynamic Church to bring His message of salvation to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). He doesn't want us to remain in seclusion waiting for miracles. He wants us to go out among those who do not know Christ to tell them, in the power of the Holy Spirit, of God's salvation.