By Frances Stebbins
Contributing writer
On May 31 –last Sunday –many Christian believers observed a major festive day in their services, still carried mostly on-line. It is Pentecost, a day established hundreds of years ago to mark an occurrence recounted in the Bible Book of Acts, Chapter 2.
Following the Easter Resurrection of Jesus and several appearances the great teacher made to followers, there is an account of Jesus being taken up into heaven. The Lord in human form had promised that a “comforter” would be sent to all followers left behind. Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, marks that occasion. Along with Easter and Christmas, it is considered a time for definite celebration.
Around 45 years ago, when I was the Religion Writer for the Roanoke daily newspapers, I learned how this event of the sending of God’s Spirit has been celebrated among many different Christian faiths. Several different groups use the term, “Pentecostal” to define a major emphasis in their worship which tends to be joyful in a noisy way, demonstrative of affection and characterized by open prayer. This to an outsider seems a kind of babbling but to those who have “received the gift of unknown tongues,” as recounted in Acts 2 it’s the mark of being at one with God.
These congregations of Pentecostal style abound in our Western Virginia communities serving both white and people of color. I visited a number in the past and interviewed pastors and visiting leaders. For many years a branch of the Church of God with headquarters in Cleveland, Tenn., maintained a large tabernacle near Interstate 81 at Hollins. In early July each summer a week-long series of services for factory workers on vacation was held there; for me, it was an enlightening experience.
One Sunday around 30 years ago, while each month worshiping at a different congregation in the New River Valley, I chose to attend a Pentecostal Holiness service on the day in which churches using a “liturgical year” were celebrating. I assumed a church using Pentecostal-style worship would make an even bigger deal of it that Sunday.
Not so. The worship was the same as always. When I asked the pastor about it, he replied, “Why we do this all the time because we follow the Bible.”
In my own historic denomination, Pentecost takes a different form; the Acts 2 story and a prophetic Old Testament passage are read, and a number of hymns are usually sung to honor the coming of the Holy Spirit to all who attempt to follow the teachings of Christ.
Following my recent practice of visiting churches other than my own to experience on-line Sunday morning worship, I found inspiring the remarks of the Rev. David Drebes of Salem’s College Lutheran Church and of the Rev. Willis Logan of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Fincastle.
Both pastors –even on the special day—dispensed with the usual Holy Communion and used the less elaborate traditional style Morning Prayer (Episcopalian) or a message, hymns and prayers (Lutheran). This, having been the tradition with which I grew up in Piedmont Virginia, suited me well.
Both men in their remarks related the work of the Holy Spirit to the need for its guidance in the unsettling events related to the COVID-19 respiratory pandemic. Logan especially, after greeting his congregation of about 25 through the Zoom computer technology, pointed out that just as people appear to be adjusting somewhat to enforced staying indoors, an epidemic of protests against racial injustice is consuming many large cities. Though peaceful protests have at times brought needed change, too often violence results making a bad matter worse, the minister suggested.
Pentecost is associated with blood –of martyrs—and the fire of the Holy Spirit descending on the assembled followers of Jesus. When the evangelical Christian organization that came to be known as The Salvation Army was founded in London in the mid-19th Century, it took the motto “By Blood and Fire” to signify the transforming power the acceptance of Jesus’ way of life could bring especially to those mired in addictions and poverty.
Because the color red is a reminder of the tongues of fire, it’s become common –though certainly not required—to wear something of that color on Pentecost Sunday. At the Fincastle Zoom informal sharing, only a few remembered to do it this year. I, for one, didn’t.
But, as Drebes and Logan asserted, God’s Spirit is as alive to comfort, guide and perhaps protest against human injustice as it was in biblical times.
