We observe Pentecost on our May 19 program. On this day, we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Pentecost means “the fiftieth day” and was originally a Jewish festival of the first-fruits of the harvest, a part of the Festival of Weeks. Christians decided to keep the name “Pentecost” because of it being 50 days after Easter. There’s also a connection to the first-fruits as, on the first Pentecost, there was a gathering of around 3,000 who were given new life by the Holy Spirit.
The reading that Rev. Dr. Lawrence Rast uses for his sermon on Pentecost Sunday is Ezekiel 37:1-14. In this passage, God gives a demonstration of what He can do to give new life. Without the Holy Spirit, we are indeed dry bones. We are not only dead to Him, we are told in Romans 8:7 that those with the mind set on the flesh—set on our sinful nature—are hostile to God. We need the Holy Spirit! What a gift that the Spirit is with us now! He comes to us in God’s Word, giving us the gift of the good news that Jesus died and rose for us— the power to save. We are given new life in baptism where the Holy Spirit gives us new life.
As Romans 8:15 (ESV) proclaims, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’”
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Ezekiel 37:1-6 ESV