Ten days after Ascension Day the Holy Spirit will come to indwell God’s people of faith. This will happen on the day of Pentecost, the Jewish festival. Pentecost occurred fifty days after Passover. It was the Jewish celebration of the giving of the Law to Moses, and it was a harvest celebration. God will flip Pentecost on its head by giving us something (someone) far greater than the Law. He will give us himself as the final blessing and guarantee of our inheritance. Over these last ten days of Eastertide we will look at this world changing event known as Pentecost, and the birth of the Spirit led church that resulted.
Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks.
Exodus 34:22. You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.
Leviticus 23:15-16. 15“You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord.
The Festival of Pentecost or “Weeks” was (and is) one of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar. The name Weeks is something worth considering. Why is Pentecost called the Feast of Weeks? Is it simply because there were seven weeks between Passover and Sinai? That seems a bit arbitrary, naming a holiday after a length of time. That would be like calling Christmas “Day 25.”
The number seven is also important. Seven is the number of completion or perfection in the Old Testament. Resting on the seventh day. Seven trips around Jericho. Seven dips in the Jordan by Naaman.
The Feast of Weeks is also deeply connected to the idea of Sabbath. Leviticus 23 literally commands Israel to “count seven Sabbaths” from Passover to Pentecost. So we’ve got seven, and we’ve got Sabbaths. Perfection and rest.
The Feast of Weeks was the conclusion of what was called “Collection of the Omer.” An omer is a unit of measurement (for those of you keeping track, an omer is a tenth of an ephah). The Omer Offering was brought on the second day of Passover as a grain offering to the Lord, and then 49 Sabbaths later, on the fiftieth day the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost began. On the first day of the Feast of Weeks, two loaves of bread would be offered to God. Each loaf was made from…you guessed it, an omer of grain. So two omers. A double portion.
All of this was meant to remind the Israelites about what happened to them between Passover and Mount Sinai. What happened? They were fed by God’s grain, the manna. Heavenly bread that rained down on them every day except the Sabbath. But the day before the Sabbath they would receive a double portion of manna. And how large was each portion? You guessed it again…an omer.
Exodus 16:16. This is what the Lord has commanded: “Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.”
How does all of this point to the giving of the Holy Spirit? Or, why of all possible days did Jesus send us the Spirit on this particular day? What does the giving of the Holy Spirit have to do with omers and manna? How does Pentecost fulfill what the Feast of Weeks pointed our hearts towards?
The Feast of Weeks was all about waiting. Waiting on God for manna. Waiting to get to Mount Sinai. In the Promised Land it meant waiting for the harvest to arrive.
In the same way, when Jesus rose from the dead (Passover), there was a waiting period of fifty days for the Holy Spirit to arrive (Pentecost). If Jesus presented himself as the single omer of grain, then the Holy Spirit is the double omer loaves that he presented to God to be shared with us. Fittingly the loaves presented at the beginning of the Feast of Weeks were eaten by the priests. Similarly, we receive the Holy Spirit into our being. We are filled with his fullness, the fullness of Christ, and all the fullness of God himself.
There’s another reason why Pentecost was the right day for the Spirit to come to us. At the Feast of Weeks, the people offered God the first-fruits of their harvest in commemoration of the giving of manna in the wilderness. At Pentecost (aka the Feast of Weeks), God offered to us the first-fruits of the Spirt. Just as manna was rained down on the people, so too the Spirit is rained down into the hearts of all who believe in Christ Jesus. Just as manna was a preview of Christ, the Bread of Life, the Spirit is a preview of our glorification in Christ when we will become like him fully forever, our bodies raised as the final harvest of God unto righteousness and glory. Hallelujah!
Pentecost is not only a past event, it is a present reality – Christ in you by the Spirit. It is also a preview of the age to come. Just as he did with manna, and by the incarnation, and just as he does with grain and by the Spirit, God will break into time and space once more and put all things in subjection under Jesus’ feet.
Until then we wait in joyful expectation, knowing that the Spirit is the first-fruits of what is to come – life in the presence of God where there will be fullness of joy.
You: Do you see your life as one of waiting? What are you waiting for?
You in Christ: By the Spirit you are filled with the fullness of God. How does this truth have the power to change your perspective on whatever trial you face today?
Christ in you: What might waiting in joyful expectation of Christ’s return look like for you in your daily life?
Prayer: Father, by the Spirit you have given me perfection, rest, and life. Help me to live from this position in Christ, trusting you to bring me into the final, eternal life of perfect rest in him. Amen.
To Live is Christ 