Today is Pentecost, the remembrance of the giving of the Law in the Jewish tradition and the remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Christian tradition.
And we will get to that, but first, I want to talk a little bit about our Gospel reading. I haven’t looked through them all, but I would bet that this is the shortest gospel reading in the lectionary. Its only 3 sentences. And, kind of like all the readings we’ve had since Easter, its out of order from the other readings. The “big” reading today is about the Holy Spirit coming and then right after that we read in the Gospel about how it has not yet come. I almost switched the readings around, but sometimes I think I tinker with the liturgy enough already so decided not to.Even though the Gospel is short, and it would be easy to just gloss right over it, I want to take a look at it because I think it is a good example of what I was talking about last week with God’s Plan and how we can see it all throughout scripture. There are definite and major themes throughout scripture and one of those themes is how Jesus fulfills all of these things that the Jewish people were looking for.
The Gospel reading takes place during the Feast of Tabernacles, also called the Festival of Booths. It was done at the end of the harvest season, and it was a time to thank God for the proceeding year’s provision and to pray for a good rainy season from Oct. to March.
This part of the festival has pagan sounding roots, and for good reason. At that time and for hundreds of years before this, most tribes of peoples had some kind of harvest festival where they prayed and made sacrifices to the gods for their crops. It isn’t really surprising that the Jewish people would continue this tradition, but we see here something that we see all through the Old Testament – the idea that God is doing something different here. Other tribes tried to placate their gods through their sacrifice in the hopes that the gods would be happy enough with them to continue to bless them or to change their minds about them if things weren’t going well.
The Jewish people add something to their festival – they aren’t trying to placate God, they are celebrating what he has done for them and remembering that he is good. They remember how God led them out of Egypt and provided for them in the desert, leading them to the promised land. Even through all their whining and unfaithfulness to Him.
During this festival they would build these small booths to live in to remind them that didn’t always have it so good.
I think its good to remind ourselves sometimes when we’re feeling that nothing is going right for us that things could always be worse.
[caption id="attachment_893" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
Filling up[/caption]
Anyway, part of this celebration and was this big ceremony of the pouring of the water. A procession of priests would go down to the Pool of Siloam and fill up these golden containers of water and they would bring them back up to the temple with great pomp and ceremony, blowing shofars and the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem would wave palm branches as the priests carried the water around the altar, read psalms and then poured the water out, with some wine. This was both an act of prayer to God to provide his blessing of rain and to thank him for the water he provided them while in the desert after Egypt.
On the final day of the feast, this water celebration reached its climax. The priests would circle the altar seven times and then poured out the water and wine again. This was called the “Hoshana Rabbah” – which means save us now.
[caption id="attachment_892" align="alignnone" width="1024"]
Water and Wine pouring out[/caption]
It was at this moment – the apex of the ceremony – when Jesus stands up and cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
He’s saying – That water? That’s me. If you are thirsty for God’s blessings – here I am. It would have been an incredible statement to make, and would have infuriated the Jewish leaders. It would be almost as if we were celebrating Easter at St Peter’s Basillica in Rome and while the Pope was celebrating Eucharist someone cried out – That bread there? That’s ME. That’s MY BODY.
And by the way – does any of this sound familiar? People waving palm branches in Jerusalem, the Hoshana cried out and soon after a pouring out of water and wine in an act of sacrifice?
It sounds a lot like Holy Week to me all condensed into one celebration. The Palms and Hosanna on Palm Sunday and Jesus dying on the cross on Good Friday as water and blood pour from his side. And Jesus is pointing at all of this and saying THIS IS ME. But I am living water, and if you drink of the living water, it will go forth from you as well from your innermost being.
So, I know what you’re thinking? I thought today was Pentecost, right?
Oh yeah! It is!
So whats the connection here?
The Feast of Pentecost is also rooted in Jewish tradition. This time, it’s the festival that kicks off the harvest season. It’s the festival of the first fruits – the beginning of the wheat harvest. It started 50 days from Passover. At Passover, the Jewish people celebrated their freedom from bondage from the Egyptians. At Pentecost, they celebrate their spiritual redemption through the receiving of the Law from God through Moses.
It was a pilgrimage festival, like the festival of booths, so there would have been thousands of Jews in Jerusalem for the celebration. And this is the day the Father chooses to send the Holy Spirit – a new way of knowing God, not just through the Law but in the Spirit as well.
What we can see here is an evolution of the ways that God relates to us – or how we relate to God… These festivals start out probably not much differently than the harvest festivals of the other pagan tribes around them, but with a twist – our relationship with God is different than theirs – and as time goes on our relationship gets clearer.
You’ve probably heard people accusing Christians of appropriating pagan holidays like
Easter and the Spring Fertility celebrations of Ishtar or how the winter Solstice celebrations became Christmas. I wonder sometimes if those things are not coincidence or not us co-opting a holiday so we can paint eggs and put up decorated evergreen trees too, but something that God put in us – an understanding of His plan that the people who celebrated these things thousands of years ago weren’t really sure of why there were doing it – it just felt right… and as time has gone on, we are able to see more clearly the why’s. Maybe the myths lead us to the truth if we follow them rightly.
If the lectionary were a TV show, last week’s episode would have been like a season finale – Jesus rises up into the clouds and we’re left wondering “what now?” – and this week is the first episode of a new season and we now have the answer. The Holy Spirit comes and the answer now is to – ah wait – the answer to that comes next week! You’ll have to come back then to find out.
And we will get to that, but first, I want to talk a little bit about our Gospel reading. I haven’t looked through them all, but I would bet that this is the shortest gospel reading in the lectionary. Its only 3 sentences. And, kind of like all the readings we’ve had since Easter, its out of order from the other readings. The “big” reading today is about the Holy Spirit coming and then right after that we read in the Gospel about how it has not yet come. I almost switched the readings around, but sometimes I think I tinker with the liturgy enough already so decided not to.Even though the Gospel is short, and it would be easy to just gloss right over it, I want to take a look at it because I think it is a good example of what I was talking about last week with God’s Plan and how we can see it all throughout scripture. There are definite and major themes throughout scripture and one of those themes is how Jesus fulfills all of these things that the Jewish people were looking for.
The Gospel reading takes place during the Feast of Tabernacles, also called the Festival of Booths. It was done at the end of the harvest season, and it was a time to thank God for the proceeding year’s provision and to pray for a good rainy season from Oct. to March.
This part of the festival has pagan sounding roots, and for good reason. At that time and for hundreds of years before this, most tribes of peoples had some kind of harvest festival where they prayed and made sacrifices to the gods for their crops. It isn’t really surprising that the Jewish people would continue this tradition, but we see here something that we see all through the Old Testament – the idea that God is doing something different here. Other tribes tried to placate their gods through their sacrifice in the hopes that the gods would be happy enough with them to continue to bless them or to change their minds about them if things weren’t going well.The Jewish people add something to their festival – they aren’t trying to placate God, they are celebrating what he has done for them and remembering that he is good. They remember how God led them out of Egypt and provided for them in the desert, leading them to the promised land. Even through all their whining and unfaithfulness to Him.
During this festival they would build these small booths to live in to remind them that didn’t always have it so good.
I think its good to remind ourselves sometimes when we’re feeling that nothing is going right for us that things could always be worse.
[caption id="attachment_893" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
Filling up[/caption]Anyway, part of this celebration and was this big ceremony of the pouring of the water. A procession of priests would go down to the Pool of Siloam and fill up these golden containers of water and they would bring them back up to the temple with great pomp and ceremony, blowing shofars and the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem would wave palm branches as the priests carried the water around the altar, read psalms and then poured the water out, with some wine. This was both an act of prayer to God to provide his blessing of rain and to thank him for the water he provided them while in the desert after Egypt.
On the final day of the feast, this water celebration reached its climax. The priests would circle the altar seven times and then poured out the water and wine again. This was called the “Hoshana Rabbah” – which means save us now.
[caption id="attachment_892" align="alignnone" width="1024"]
Water and Wine pouring out[/caption]It was at this moment – the apex of the ceremony – when Jesus stands up and cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
He’s saying – That water? That’s me. If you are thirsty for God’s blessings – here I am. It would have been an incredible statement to make, and would have infuriated the Jewish leaders. It would be almost as if we were celebrating Easter at St Peter’s Basillica in Rome and while the Pope was celebrating Eucharist someone cried out – That bread there? That’s ME. That’s MY BODY.
And by the way – does any of this sound familiar? People waving palm branches in Jerusalem, the Hoshana cried out and soon after a pouring out of water and wine in an act of sacrifice?
It sounds a lot like Holy Week to me all condensed into one celebration. The Palms and Hosanna on Palm Sunday and Jesus dying on the cross on Good Friday as water and blood pour from his side. And Jesus is pointing at all of this and saying THIS IS ME. But I am living water, and if you drink of the living water, it will go forth from you as well from your innermost being.So, I know what you’re thinking? I thought today was Pentecost, right?
Oh yeah! It is!
So whats the connection here?
The Feast of Pentecost is also rooted in Jewish tradition. This time, it’s the festival that kicks off the harvest season. It’s the festival of the first fruits – the beginning of the wheat harvest. It started 50 days from Passover. At Passover, the Jewish people celebrated their freedom from bondage from the Egyptians. At Pentecost, they celebrate their spiritual redemption through the receiving of the Law from God through Moses.
It was a pilgrimage festival, like the festival of booths, so there would have been thousands of Jews in Jerusalem for the celebration. And this is the day the Father chooses to send the Holy Spirit – a new way of knowing God, not just through the Law but in the Spirit as well.
What we can see here is an evolution of the ways that God relates to us – or how we relate to God… These festivals start out probably not much differently than the harvest festivals of the other pagan tribes around them, but with a twist – our relationship with God is different than theirs – and as time goes on our relationship gets clearer.
You’ve probably heard people accusing Christians of appropriating pagan holidays like
Easter and the Spring Fertility celebrations of Ishtar or how the winter Solstice celebrations became Christmas. I wonder sometimes if those things are not coincidence or not us co-opting a holiday so we can paint eggs and put up decorated evergreen trees too, but something that God put in us – an understanding of His plan that the people who celebrated these things thousands of years ago weren’t really sure of why there were doing it – it just felt right… and as time has gone on, we are able to see more clearly the why’s. Maybe the myths lead us to the truth if we follow them rightly.If the lectionary were a TV show, last week’s episode would have been like a season finale – Jesus rises up into the clouds and we’re left wondering “what now?” – and this week is the first episode of a new season and we now have the answer. The Holy Spirit comes and the answer now is to – ah wait – the answer to that comes next week! You’ll have to come back then to find out.
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