May 23, 2021 (Sunday)
This year, 2021, celebrates Pentecost on Sunday, May 23. The date is based on a Jewish Feast, but is tied to the New Testament unfolding of events after the Resurrection of Christ. The Christian calendar used by the Roman Catholic Church, and many Protestant denominations, celebrates Pentecost on the tenth day following the Ascension of Christ 40 days after his Resurrection. So it is on the Christian calendar 50 days following Easter. The date itself bounces around the Gregorian calendar (the one we use) and is tied to astronomical events. The calculations are too lengthy to explain in this blog. (Another way of saying that I am a dummy when it comes to such things). So, I just asked the computer,”When is Pentecost this year?” and it told me.*
Anyway, today is the day to celebrate Pentecost, the day that the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 people gathered in Jerusalem after ten days of prayer. Tongues of fire sat upon their heads and they spoke in various languages so that the people gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast, who came from many countries, could understand the gospel in their own language. Peter preached and 3,000 people believed in Jesus as the Messiah and were baptized. This was the birth of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The “tongues” spoken by the followers of Jesus on that day were for the purpose of sharing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with the people in Jerusalem who would return to their countries and share that message with the people in those other places. The “gift of tongues” continued for a time as a sure sign that people who believed the gospel were true believers. Paul (1 Cor 13) said, “tongues shall cease,” and controversy still is present among Christians as to just exactly what he meant by that. When would they cease and why would they cease? The letters to the Corinthians clearly say that years later they were still a gift of the Spirit, and Paul wrote to give them guidelines on how to share that gift with the church. It seems to me they were known languages. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul speaks of the “tongues of men and angels,” but I believe he was emphasizing his message on the necessity of love and was saying, “Even if such were possible, it would still be less important than showing love one to another.” I love people who believe differently about tongues, and I am not arguing against their experience; I’m just trying to explain what went on in the early church.
THE CHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION
Samuel J. Stone, pub.1866
Andrew L. Byers, 1907
The church’s one foundation,
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation,
By Spirit and the word.
From heav’n He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
Elect from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation—
One Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food;
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
Long with a scornful wonder
Men saw her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed.
Yet saints their watch were keeping
To hail a brighter day,
When God should stop their weeping,
Take their reproach away.
The evening sun is shining,
The cloudy day is past;
The time of their repining
Is at an end at last.
The voice of God is calling
To unity again;
Division walls are falling,
With all the creeds of men.
Back to the one foundation,
From sects and creeds made free,
Come saints of every nation
To blessed unity.
Once more the ancient glory
Shines as in days of old,
And tells the wondrous story—
One God, one faith, one fold.