Although less popularized than Christmas and Easter, the feast of Pentecost is liturgically just as exalted, and is equally rich with seemingly endless appropriate Scripture readings to aid our celebration, edification, and instruction. As I treated the feast of the Visitation a week and a half ago, I’d like to list and identify a number of scripture readings that you can pull up to enrich your experience of the great feast of Pentecost.

For, at least traditionally, Pentecost is not just one day. In ancient times it had a full octave – eight days of liturgical commemoration starting on Sunday (yesterday) and culminating on the following Sunday, which became known as Trinity Sunday. In the Prayer Book tradition this was simplified to Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, with Trinity Sunday being the theologically-oriented follow-up. Sadly, the modern calendar and lectionary has done away even with that, leaving us with only a single day, officially. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t continue the celebration despite the lack of rubrical direction! So let’s get to it.

The Main Event

Without a doubt, the primary text for the Christian holiday of Pentecost is Acts 2:1-11. There we read of the descent of the Holy Spirit in power, enabling the disciples to preach the Gospel in many languages to the multi-national crowd that was in Jerusalem at the time. Thousands came to believe in Jesus within days! For all intents and purposes, the New Covenant Church completed its secret gestation and was born into this world.

Although it doesn’t normally show up in the traditional lectionaries, the rest of Acts 2 is good reading also. It continues the story, chronicling the preaching of Saint Peter and the largely-positive response of the crowds who heard.

One of the key texts that he cites in the course of his preaching, however, is one of the commonly-appointed readings for Pentecost: Joel 2:28-32. God promises through the ancient prophet that he will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, all his people will receive him, and Peter is pointing out that the events of his day were seeing this promise fulfilled.

The Old Testament Foundation

Pentecost, of course, was already a major Jewish holiday. In fact, it was one of the top three holy days where the Law of Moses required all men to come to the appointed place (Jerusalem) to offer sacrifice. Thus we find another traditional scripture reading: Deuteronomy 16:9-12, which could be extended to cover verses 1-17 if you want to read about the other two top feasts of the Old Covenant sacred calendar. Here Pentecost is called the Feast of Weeks, so named because of its placement seven weeks after the Passover, which remains true in the New Covenant sacred calendar: Pentecost is seven weeks after Easter. And the name “Pentecost” by the way is just the Greek-language version of this, noting the fifty days distance from Easter/Passover.

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus

The Gospel texts appointed for the feast of Pentecost are, unusually, a little sparse, since its primary text is in Acts instead. The historic liturgical appointment for the Gospel lesson on the day of Pentecost is John 14:15-31a, and in the modern lectionaries it’s John 14:8-17, so there’s a bit of overlap there. Both readings include these words of Christ:

 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

The older emphasis went on to read the continuing explanation of the Holy Spirit as the Helper who is to come, while the new order is to read of the unity between the Father and the Son, making the giving and indwelling of the Spirit to be the climax of the lesson.

On the subsequent days, the Prayer Book appointed Gospels are John 3:16-21 and John 10:1-10. The former is the famous text about God loving the world in such a way that he sent his only-begotten Son to give life to the dead. The latter is the beginning of Jesus’ Good Shepherd Discourse, in which he says much the same thing: “If anyone enters by me, he will be saved…” While neither of these readings speak directly of the Holy Spirit, their placement on Pentecost Monday and Tuesday invites us to recognize the realities that Jesus describes as things that are brought about in us because of the Holy Spirit’s work within us.

There’s also John 16:1-15 which pops up in the 2019 Prayer Book. Like much of the Upper Room Discourse of chapters 14-17, it is likely to have been read already on one of the previous Sundays. Here, the Spirit is again named as the Helper, but also as the Spirit of Truth who teaches and guides God’s people.

Subsequent Echoes of Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost in the book of Acts is a pivotal event, and like most pivotal events it has echoes where things kind of repeat themselves in new settings. St. Luke was clever in the way he wrote this book, for while he started with the thoroughly Jewish Pentecost in Jerusalem, he then went on to write about a similar event taking place in Samaria in Acts 8:14-17 and again among Gentiles in Acts 10:34-48. Both of these (albeit in reverse order) are the traditionally appointed readings on Pentecost Monday and Tuesday, keeping the theme and our attentions firmly anchored on the powerful gift of the Holy Spirit.

Another interesting event takes place in Acts 18:24-19:7. While this is less flashy than the previous readings, it does bring the experience down to earth a bit more, and it provides some important teaching along the way. Here, we find two brief scenarios where devoted believers in Jesus have not heard about Christian Baptism, having known only the baptism of John (the Forerunner of Christ). These short encounters provide us with the further teaching that Christian Baptism is also our primary reception of the Holy Spirit into our lives, and that without it we are severely lacking.

As it happens, the New Testament’s most prolific author, Saint Paul, missed almost all these. For most of that time he was raging against this “new sect” and trying to put Christians to death. And so his experience of the giving and the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit was a little bit different. Rather than focusing on specific moments in history which are descriptive, he gives us some straight-forward teaching which is prescriptive.

Romans 8:12-39 is one standout example. Through the Spirit, he writes, we receive adoption as sons of God. Indeed, the Holy Spirit serves as a sort of midwife not only for us but for all of creation, groaning for new life. And only for the start of our Christian life, the Holy Spirit continues to be our Helper through every stage of growth, all the way to the promise of eternal glory. Therefore we can live with confidence, as “more than conquerors“, knowing that the presence of the Holy Spirit within us makes us inseparable from the Father and the Son.

For a longer discourse on the gifts and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we can also turn to 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. There we read of the unity of the Body of Christ, the Spirit giving both diversity of gifts and ministries as well as unity of purpose and mutual interdependence as one Church. And although he does list a number “gifts of the Spirit,” he goes on to highlight the most important of them is love. With that in mind, he is then able to go on to write more about some of the different gifts of the Spirit like tongues and prophecy, and then wrap it up with exhortations to conducting sound worship in which everything is intelligible, decent, and in order. The Spirit is not a spirit “of confusion, but of peace.”

Saint Peter also chimes in on the primacy of love as characteristic of a Spirit-filled Christian in another scripture lesson appointed for Pentecost Tuesday in one or two Prayer Books: 1 Peter 1:17-23. There he exhorts our love as a result of our new birth from “imperishable seed“, indicating also thereby that the gift of the Spirit is not just any new life, but eternal life.

Other Old Testament Types and Shadows

Besides the establishment of the original Jewish Pentecost in the books of the Law, and the prophecy of Joel, there are countless other Old Testament texts which point forward to the feast of Pentecost in some way. At this point we’ll finish our scriptural tour in canonical order, rather than tracing any more specific topics or themes.

Genesis 11:1-9 is the story of the Tower of Babel. Its connection to Pentecost is that, here, the manifestation of multiple languages was used to divide the people, whereas on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 the gift of tongues was used to unite people around the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Numbers 11, or especially verses 24-30, tells the story of God sharing “the spirit upon Moses” with seventy other elders of Israel. When the Spirit comes upon them they prophecy, and Moses famously quips “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” This, too, has been fulfilled in the gift of Pentecost.

The story of the plague and the bronze serpent in Numbers 21:4-9 is normally associated with John 12 and the crucifixion of Christ. But it can also serve here as a backup to the preaching of St. Peter throughout the first half of the book of Acts. It also provides a handy illustration of living by faith: look up to Jesus and rely on God’s strength rather than grumbling about in your sins. Life in the Spirit changes us and redirects our attentions.

Psalm 48 is a celebration of the heavenly Jerusalem, or Zion, from where God reigns, and beneath which we wait, watch, and worship. The blowing of the East Wind and the loving-kindness of God in the midst of his Temple also can evoke pictures of the Holy Spirit’s power and presence among us his people.

Much of Psalm 68 is associated with the Ascension of Jesus, but specifically verses 1-10 also has a place among the Pentecost psalms because these verses focus a lot on the benefits that God’s people enjoy as a result of his “arising.” Pentecost is very much the promised result of Christ’s ascension, so it is sensible to continue some ascension-themed material to its fulfillment now.

Psalm 104 is a celebration of God’s work of creation. In particular, verses 24-35 summarize the psalm’s theme in identifying God’s wisdom in creating all creatures, and that it is the giving of his breath, or Spirit, that all things are made and given life.

Although a more generic psalm of praise, Psalm 116:1-4 and 12-16 show up in ancient liturgical appointments for Pentecost Tuesday. While not directly mentioning the Spirit of God, it does direct us to respond to his grace, his deliverance, all his benefits, with vows and praises and sacrifices. The gift of the Holy Spirit not only enables us, but compels us to worship him.

The last of the traditionally appointed psalms is Psalm 145, which praises God for his everlasting goodness and his unending kingdom. Its language of God giving “food in due season” and preserving “those who love him” is reminiscent of the themes in Psalm 104.

Ezekiel 36:22-28 is one of the great prophecies of the giving of the New Covenant, and this one, specifically, is the one that uses the language of removing our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh. This promise is flanked by two important details: “I will sprinkle clean water on you” and “I will put my Spirit within you,” thus giving us a picture of Holy Baptism and its benefits.

Ezekiel 37:1-14 follows the above prophecy with the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. Just as a heart of stone indicates a person who is dead inside, so too do dry bones indicate a body that is thoroughly deceased. And while the word of prophecy can reassemble and enflesh the dead, it is the breath of the Spirit of God that animates them, bringing new life. Once again, this is a major role of the Spirit in creation, and in the new creation.

Having explored the law and the prophets, we now turn to the writings. In Wisdom 7:15-8:1 we read of the role of divine wisdom, personified as a women (as found also throughout the book of Proverbs). Now, the church has traditionally found the most appropriate interpretation of Lady Wisdom to be a type of Jesus, God the Son (hence the final verse of this reading giving us the lyrics “O come Thou wisdom from on high” in the song O come O come Emmanuel). Nevertheless, as the Holy Spirit is our Helper and Guide and Teacher, and even more importantly the one who unites us with Christ, this text still reminds us of one of the great benefits of the post-Pentecostal reality of being indwelt with the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom 9:1-6, finally, is a prayer for wisdom written as if by King Solomon. The entire chapter is the full prayer, but the first six verses give us the gist of it, especially in the final line: “without the wisdom that comes from [God] he will be regarded as nothing.” Again, life without the Holy Spirit, is no life at all.

Thanks be to God for this, his greatest of gifts to his people.