Getting Ready to Pray                     

The Jewish people prepared to celebrate the Feast of Weeks, or (fifty days) by waiting for the seeds to grow into edible food. They had planted at the time of Passover which was a remembering of how God had brought them out of Egypt and planted them in the new and promised soil of Israel. They prepared by waiting, watching, and hoping for nourishing rain. They would gather at the time of harvesting the first cutting and celebrate their faith in the abundant and accompanying God.

We prepare to celebrate the abundant blessings of the “Wind” of God by being honest about how we have been growing, because of the constancy of that Spirit. We can be quite occupied by how we need to grow, advance, virtue-up in our lives. There are good crops growing in our lives and our relationship with God, because of the goodness of God, which we can easily negate. God gives increase and we are God’s farm-field.

It is good to be honest about the growth we are.

Some Thoughts                     

In our First Reading and in the Gospel we hear some heavy breathing. The “breath” that brought about creation in the book of Genesis, is spreading out once more and bringing about a new creation, a new revelation. Devout Jews are gathered for the second of their three major feasts—the first being Passover and the third the feast of Booths, which is a thanksgiving celebration for the abundant wheat and grape crops.

People from all differing languages are gathered and they hear members of the Way or of his followers, begin speaking as “in-spired.” It is a second genesis in which a second creation is to come forth. The apostles experience the Spirit of God and they will be urged to speak in every land and every language to bring about the completion of the original “Let there be light,” and “Let there be life.”

Pentecost is a festival of the first fruits, and in our faith, the first fruits were these early believers. They were encouraged to live it out, speak it out, bring it about, and the “it” was the creative Word of Christ.

Jesus enters the locked-up spirits of the frightened disciples and they experience some in-spiring words themselves. Regret is replaced with renewal of the relationship which Jesus initiated individually several years before. Now there is something new about the relationship. Instead of “Come and see,” or “Come follow me,” there is a sending and a going-out party. Jesus breathes the Spirit into their vacancies and invites their insides to go outside and create the new incarnation of Jesus.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit,
and they spoke of the great things God had done. (Acts 2:4)