Wearin’ o’ the Red

Today, my wife and I wore red to church.

So did the pastor, the altar, the pulpit, the lectern, and the music team (all except one singer who didn’t get the memo). So did many of the other congregation members. Even the flowers behind the altar were red.

Now, I get wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, even if the Irish side of my ancestors were “Orangemen” Protestants from Northern Ireland. Green is associated with Ireland, as are shamrocks, leprechauns, green beer and St. Paddy himself. But why red? Is this for a Russian saint’s day? St. Dimitry’s Day? St. Vladimir’s Day? St. Nicholas’ Day (yes, he is Russia’s patron saint)?

No; we wore red because today is Pentecost, the day in the Church year that celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit in power upon the Church and into the lives of believers. Acts 1 and 2 tell us that the first believers, about 120 in number, were gathered in Jerusalem waiting for “power from on high” (Luke 243:49) before taking the message of Christ and his resurrection out into the world. Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus had ascended into heaven, but not before promising the Father would send the Holy Spirit to his disciples in his place. Now another ten days had passed, and Jews from around the Mediterranean had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast day of Pentecost.

Pentecost, from a Greek word meaning “fifty,” was a feast held fifty days after Passover. The Jews called it the “Feast of Weeks” (7 X 7 weeks plus the actual day) or the “Feast of First-Fruits,” which celebrated the first harvest of the year. It also came to celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. It was one of the three major feasts of the year, one which Jewish males were supposed to celebrate by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But now, it was about to take on special significance to Christians.

Acts 2 tells us the events of that day: “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

The Holy Spirit came upon them in the promised power from on high with signs that were both visual (tongues of fire) and audible (the sound of rushing wind). Then, to show that the Spirit not only came around them but also entered into each of them, the believers began to speak in other languages beyond their natural capabilities. By the power of God, they spoke in many other languages which were understandable to the various nationalities of Jews who had come to Jerusalem and now heard them speaking – and praising God – in their different tongues.

This amazed the hearers, who realized the Spirit-empowered believers were predominately Galileans; how did these back-country folks know their dialects? The phenomenon was so striking that some of the hearers thought the disciples were just babbling drunkenly; maybe those critics couldn’t understand the languages themselves.

Many Christians today focus on the supernatural gift of tongues which the Holy Spirit bestowed that day, as if that were the great sign of God’s presence and empowerment. But it was just a sign, an announcement of sorts to get people’s attention to pay heed to the greater miracle which was about to occur. For following the miraculous speaking of foreign tongues, Peter got up and spoke in a common, understood language, explaining not only the just-witnessed phenomenon, but also proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This man Peter had gone from hiding out in fear and denying his Lord three times, to standing up boldly before a crowd and charging them with killing their Messiah. This was miraculous in itself that Peter would do so, but Pentecost’s miracles were not finished. When the crowd cried out in conviction of their sin and pleaded how they might be saved, Peter told them to repent and be baptized. The Holy Spirit moved in the people’s hearts, and we are told that 3,000 of them were baptized that day.

And thus the Christian Church was born, and disciples empowered by the Holy Spirit would go out into the whole world, risking and giving their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ and the souls of the people of every nation, tribe, and yes – language.

Over the centuries, Christians have noted several things about the events and significance of that special day of Pentecost:

1. God chose the Feast of First-Fruits, a harvest festival, to begin the harvest of souls in the Church. The 3000 who joined the Church that day were the first-fruits of evangelism by the newly-empowered apostles. That gathering of fruit continues to this day, in that over 2 billion alive today have been baptized in Jesus’ name.

2. Just as the Jews marked the giving of the Law to Moses in their Pentecost celebrations, so the Christian Church marks the giving of the Gospel at the new Pentecost. This also celebrates the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy that God would send another prophet “like unto Moses” to whom the people were to listen (Deuteronomy 18:15). The comparison/contrast between Moses and Christ is stated explicitly in Acts 3:22 and Acts 7:37. John 1:17 puts it this way: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

3. Pentecost is a reversal of God’s curse upon the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), at which he confused what had been the one common language of all mankind so that the people could not understand each other. This thwarted their building of the tower, and caused them to spread out over the earth, as God had originally commanded them to do. Ever since, the world has been filled with many languages and dialects which developed in the millennia since the days of the confusion. Today there are estimated to be around 6,500 different languages (I don’t know if this includes invented languages like Klingon). Then along comes Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit bridges the language gap, uniting people from many countries into the one Church by speaking their language. As God once cursed mankind by separating them due to their sin, he now unites them in the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

4. Today, mission work requires people to study and learn other languages through hard work. Organizations such as Wycliffe and Lutheran Bible Translators are committed to providing the Scriptures in every language. But it is still the Holy Spirit who takes those translated works and uses them to change the hearts and minds of the hearers and readers, creating faith and bringing them to Christ their Savior, who died for them as well as for first-century Greek and Hebrew speakers.

Personally, I don’t lament that there are many languages around the world; they have added a richness to human life and experience. How else could we eat hamburgers, tacos, chow mein, pad Thai, pizza, sauerkraut, borscht, sushi, bagels, and lutefisk? Wait, skip that last one. But what I lament is that we (and I) can’t speak or understand all of them. The Bible promises that people of every language will be in heaven: “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands” (Revelation 7:9). I believe in that day we will understand each other, whatever language or languages we will use, and that our words will do the same as the miraculous words did on Pentecost: we will praise the mighty and wonderful works of God.

But again, why do we wear red on Pentecost? To symbolize the coming and work of the Holy Spirit, who manifested his coming by tongues of fire resting on the disciples. May his power, so evident that day in so many ways, bless and keep you strong in the faith every day of the year!

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Acts 2, John 1.