In ancient Israel this day was first known as the Feast of Weeks, that is, seven weeks, or a week of weeks, after Passover. It was the time when the first grain of the season was harvested and offered as a sacrifice at the Temple. It was what was called a first fruits festival. Through time, as the city of Jerusalem grew and more and more Jews lived there, away from the land, the day took on a different spiritual significance, and commonly came to be known as the day to commemorate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. It is from this historical significance of Pentecost in the Jewish tradition as a festival of the Law, that much of our Christian understanding of the meaning of Pentecost derives. By the way, the name Pentecost comes from the fact that this "Week of weeks", seven squared, is 49 or for us non-mathematicians about 50 days.

           If we were asked to list the main features of the Jewish religion, we all probably would think first about the Temple in Jerusalem and the sacrifices that were being made continually there. Second on our list might be the dietary laws, what a Jew might or might not eat, and how food was to be cooked, and then we might think of all the other rules and regulations that a devout Jew was required to follow if he were to remain ritually pure and holy. Toward the end of such a list we might mention the Ten Commandments. While this list would tell us something about Judaism, it would be inaccurate, because, you see, that which is first on the list is of least importance, while that which is last is of greatest importance. What we have done, in typical human fashion, is pick up on those things in Jewish life that are most visible, most dramatic, most different, and assign them priority over that which is, while less visible perhaps, of far more import. Because all the things that go into making the Jewish religion what it is, the sacrifices, the food restrictions, the whole system of what is clean and unclean, are nothing more than a set of regulations and bylaws that detail how to keep the overriding, primary, law of the Ten Commandments. All those regulations are important only in so far as they would help a Jew to keep the Ten Commandments. But we would get things backward.

           So too we as Christians often get things backward, forgetting in our discipline of corporate worship, sharing in the sacraments, and following a life of prayer and reading of the Scriptures, that in the end, none of these things that we do mean a whole lot if we forget the primary law of our lives, to love God and each other. And just as the visible features of our religion, all these rites and practices, exist to further its spiritual ends just as was the case in Judaism, so today on this feast of Pentecost, as the Jews celebrated the giving of the old law to Moses, we celebrate the infusing of the new law of love into the Apostles and all Christians through the coming of the Holy Spirit.

           You can see here quite clearly how the history of Israel as recorded for us in the Old Testament acts as a model and prophecy for the saving acts of Christ as told us in the New. As the first born sons of Egypt were killed so that Israel might escape their life of slavery at the first Passover, so the first born son of God himself was killed at Passover so the New Israel, potentially all mankind, might be freed from their slavery to sin. and as after the first Passover and the Exodus Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, so on the first feast of Pentecost after our Lord's exodus from the grave did the Apostles receive the law of Love through the coming of the Spirit. And just as the decalogue was primary and basic to the Jewish life, so too is the law of love basic to the Christian life. The parallels are significant and well worth our consideration.

           "But", you may ask, "of what importance are church attendance, sacraments, Bible reading and prayer, as long as I love God and love my neighbor?" And the answer is exactly the same for the Christian as it was for the Jew, you simply cannot do it. The Jew didn't offer sacrifices at the Temple and obey all the other regulations of his life as some display of his love of God, he did those things as means of expressing his love for God. We don't come together to worship as some independent ritual that has nothing to do with the basics of Christianity, we come together to worship because it is the best way to give God the praise that is his due, and it is our duty to do so if we indeed wish to love Him. We receive the sacrament of Communion as the food that enables us to love God and Each other, and we pray and read the Scriptures so that we can become more loving in our whole life. So while our Christian disciplines are meaningless if love is not our central motivation, neither are we able to love if we do not devote ourselves to the disciplines set out for us. So on this festival of the coming of the Holy Spirit we mustn't forget that the Christian life is a life of duty and discipline.

           The Lesson today from the Acts of the Apostles describes what happened when the Spirit first descended on the Apostles. They burst forth into the streets joyously preaching the Good news about Jesus Christ, and everybody who heard them understood what that Good News meant. By the means of the Spirit, the Gospel message transcended the limitations of human language. It is awfully easy on Pentecost to focus on the mystery of the coming of the Spirit, the tongues of fire, and the ecstatic outpourings of the Apostles, as the lesson describes. But the Gospel reading for today gives us the balance and reminds us of what is basic and essential, how this joyous ecstasy comes about, and where it ultimately comes from: "If you love me you will keep my commandments", and, "he who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my father." The joys of the presence of the spirit are inextricably intertwined with the keeping of the commandments of Jesus. The Apostles understood this, as we learn by reading on in the Acts, After Saint Peter's rousing sermon, that brought so many to be baptized it says:

           Acts 2:42: "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." It doesn't suggest that after baptism these people went on about their business, or followed a discipline of their own choosing, it says they devoted themselves to the Apostle's teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers; they followed a clearly set out set of rules. Which we can see come from Christ himself and are therefore his commandments. The Apostle's teaching came from Christ himself. So they listened and accepted their authority. Christ said about the Eucharist, "do this", and he didn't say if you pray, he said "when you pray, pray 'Our Father...'". So you can see that when Jesus speaks of his commandments which we must keep he is speaking about those things which we must do if we hope to be able to love God and one another. And those commandments are clearly set out for us in the Acts and other writings of the Apostles, as well as the traditions handed down to us. We must keep strictly to the teaching of the Apostles as from Christ himself, break the bread of Christ frequently, and pray together.

           It was hard enough for the Jew to keep the old Law, as it was spelled out for him in great detail. But we Christians are asked to keep a law that is much more difficult. So much more difficult in fact that we cannot keep it. Try as we might we cannot keep the law to perfection. We may keep the regulations, but we cannot keep the Law. If we try to love God on our own we cannot, if we try to love each other on our own we cannot. This in itself should give us some sense of the love that God has for us, that he loves us in spite of our sinfulness.

           And for this reason alone we should come to worship and adore him: that He loves us so much that, even as through the death and resurrection of his son who now reigns in heaven, he has made our salvation possible, he still does not leave us alone but comes into our hearts as the Holy Spirit, the comforter, to whom, with the Father and the Son, be all glory and honor, world without end. Amen