Sunday Bulletin Service theme: "Life-giving Spirit"
Acts 21: 1-21 When the day of Pentecost had come....
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b How manifold are your works... O bless the Lord, my soul.
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 Many gifts, one spirit.
John 20:19-23 Receive the Holy Spirit....
When the day of Pentecost had come, the city of Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims who had come to observe the festival of Shavout, which falls seven weeks after the Passover, and commemorates the presentation of the Torah to Moses on Sinai. The disciples were praying together in an upper room (perhaps the same room in which they had shared the Passover with Jesus), when they received the "power from on high" which Jesus had promised them.
The gospel of John includes a different version of the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, directly from the mouth of Jesus, on the day of resurrection. There is no fifty day wait, as in Luke's version (the Acts of the Apostles is volume 2 of Luke's story, see the first chapter of each book). This suggests to me that Luke is making a deliberate connection between the gift of the Torah (what we know as Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers and Leviticus, the first five books of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures), and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, law divine, reign within this soul of mine.
Be my law, and I shall be firmly bound, forever free.
--Hymn #63, New Century Hymnal
Shavout observance includes an offering of the first fruits of the harvest at the Temple, as a testimony that the land which produced the crops has been received from God.
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