The Feast of Pentecost

Today when we hear Pentecost, we remember that was the day the Holy Spirit was given to believers in Acts 2.

But the Jewish people had always celebrated Pentecost. It was one of the seven feasts of the Old Testament. It was also the second of three feast times when Jewish men were to appear before the Lord. (The three were Passover, Pentecost, and Feast of Booths.) Pentecost was fifty days after Passover.

During His ministry, Jesus compared the Holy Spirit to having living water flowing from one’s innermost being (to the woman at the well in John 4:10 and John 7:37-38). In a country that was hot and dry with limited water, living water was fresh moving water-not water collected in a well or cistern.  Jesus offered living water that never ended that would quench the thirst of believers.

Jesus taught His followers in John 14 that once He went back to heaven, He would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to be with them forever-to abide with them and be in them, verses 16-17. And that when they received the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit would teach them and bring to remembrance all Jesus had taught them. John 14:26.

After Jesus’s resurrection, He told His apostles to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit. The living water of the Holy Spirit would come to and indwell believers. It was the plan of God to send the Holy Spirit during the Feast of Pentecost.

During the ministry of Jesus, Pentecost celebrated the gathering of the wheat harvest.  Priests would make two loaves of wheat bread made with leaven to offer to the Lord. Jewish tradition says that God gave Moses the Law on Mount Sinai at Pentecost. In the Old Testament, God’s law was written on stone tablets. God gave the prophet Jeremiah the words that in the future a new covenant would be written on their hearts. Jeremiah 31:33.

Jesus, after His ascension back to heaven, sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The symbolism is powerful as we see this is the moment that the two loaves of leavened wheat bread represents both Jews and Gentiles. Pentecost is celebrating the “harvest” of believers-both Jew and Gentile-who were given the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

The OLD COVENANT required the blood of animals that foreshadowed the blood of Jesus. The Laws of the OLD COVENANT were written on stone tablets.

The NEW COVENANT required the blood of Jesus-the Lamb of God. The Laws of the NEW COVENANT would be written on the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit.

Luke 22:20 says, “And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you in the new covenant in My blood.’’  

Hebrews 10:15-16 connects the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:33 to the coming of the Holy Spirit, “And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, and upon their mind I will write them.’”

Today, we rejoice that the Holy Spirit comes into the hearts of a believer to stay forever. The living water of the Holy Spirit never ends. As Jesus told the woman at the well:

“The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 3:14.

Carla Killough McClafferty