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From Easter to Pentecost - "The Holy Fifty Days - The Pentecostarion"

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Once the rigors of Great Lent and Holy Week have past, we enter a new period of time on Easter Day itself. It is a sacred season of joy and celebration, for it commemorates the Lord's Resurrection, His ascent into heaven on the 40th day and the descent from heaven of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the 50th day. This period of time is somehow less known by our faithful and thus I present to you a brief review of the major observances of this time frame known as the "Pentecostarion". The text below is taken from the book "Orthodox Faith" - Volume 2 - "Worship" by Fr. Thomas Hopko.

The Feast of Mid-Pentecost - In 2008 on Wednesday May 21

The middle day between Easter and Pentecost is solemnly celebrated. It is called the feast of Mid-Pentecost, at which Christ, "in the middle of the feast" teaches men of his saving mission and offers all "the waters of immortality."(John 7:14) Again we are reminded of the Master's presence and his saving promise: "If anyone is thirsty let him come to Me and drink." (John 7:37). We think also once again of our death and resurrection with Christ in our baptism, and our reception of the Holy Spirit from him in our chrismation. We "look back to one, and anticipate the other" as one of the hymns of the feast puts it. We know that we belong to that kingdom of the Risen Christ where "the Spirit and the Bride say, Come! And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price". (Revelation 22:17, Isaiah 55:1)

Ascension - In 2008 on Thursday June 5

Jesus did not live with his disciples after His resurrection as He did before His death. Filled with the glory of his divinity, he appeared at different times and places to his people, assuring them that it was he, truly alive in His risen and glorified body.

To them He presented Himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3)

It should be noted that the time span of forty days is used many times in the Bible and signifies a temporal period of completeness and sufficiency. (Genesis 7:17; Exodus 16:35, 24:18; Judges 3:11; I Samuel 17:16; I Kings 19:8; Jonah 3:4; Matthew 4:2). On the fortieth day after His Passover, Jesus ascended into heaven to be glorified on the right hand of God. (Acts 1:9-11; Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51) The ascension of Christ is His final physical departure from this world after the resurrection. It is the formal completion of his mission in this world as the Messianic Saviour. It is His glorious return to the Father who had sent him into the world to accomplish the work that He had given Him to do. (John 17:4-5)

...and lifting His hands He blessed them. While blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy...(Luke 24:51-52)

The Church's celebration of the ascension, as all such festal celebrations, is not merely the remembrance of an event in Christ's life. Indeed, the Ascension itself is not to be understood as though it were simply the supernatural event of a man floating up and away into the skies. The Holy Scripture stresses Christ's physical departure and his glorification with God the Father, together with the great joy which His disciples had as they received the promise of the Holy Spirit who was to come to assure the Lord's presence with them, enabling them to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. (Luke 24:48-53; Acts 1:8-11; Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:16-19)

In the Church the believers in Christ celebrate these very same realities with the conviction that it is for them and for all men that Christ's departure from this world has taken place. The Lord leaves in order to be glorified with God the Father and to glorify us with Himself. He goes to open the way for all flesh into the "heavenly sanctuary...the Holy Place not made by hands." (see Hebrews 8-10) He goes in order to send the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, to bear witness to Him and His gospel in the world, by making Him powerfully present in the lives of His disciples.

Pentecost: The Descent of the Holy Spirit - In 2008 on Sunday June 15

In the Old Testament, Pentecost was the feast which occurred fifty days after Passover. As the Passover feast celebrated the exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God's gift of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ's death and resurrection, the "exodus" of men from this sinful world to the Kingdom of God. And in the New Testament as well, the pentecostal feast is fulfilled and made new by the coming of the "new law" the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Christ.

When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from the heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed as resting upon each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit....(Acts 2:1-4) The Apostles received "the power from on high," and they began to preach and bear witness to Jesus as the risen Christ, the King and the Lord. This moment has traditionally been called the birthday of the Church.

In the liturgical services of the feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit is celebrated together with the full revelation of the divine Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The fullness of the Godhead is manifested with the Spirit's coming to man, and the Church hymns celebrate this manifestation as the final act of God's self-disclosure and self-donation to the world of His creation. For this reason, Pentecost Sunday is also called Trinity Day in the Orthodox tradition. Often on this day the icon of the Holy Trinity-particularly that of the three angelic figures who appeared to Abraham, the forefather of the Christian faith-is placed in the center of the Church. This icon is used with the traditional pentecostal icon which shows the tongues of fire hovering over Mary and the Twelve Apostles, the original prototype of the Church, who are themselves sitting in unity surrounding a symbolic image of "cosmos" i.e. the world.

On Pentecost we have the final fulfillment of the mission of Jesus Christ and the first beginning of the messianic age of the Kingdom of God mystically present in this world in the Church of the Messiah. For this reason, the fiftieth day stands as the beginning of the era which is beyond the limitations of this world, fifty being that number which stands for eternal and heavenly fulfillment in Jewish and Christian mystical piety: seven times seven, plus one.

Thus, Pentecost is called an apocalyptic day, which means the day of final revelation. It is also called an eschatological day, which means the day of the final and perfect end (in Greek eschaton means the end). For when the Messiah comes and the Lord's Day is at hand, the "last days" are inaugurated in which "God declares:...I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." This is the ancient prophecy to which the Apostle Peter refers in the first sermon of the Christian Church which was preached on the first Sunday of Pentecost. (Acts 2:17; Joel 2:28-32)

Once again it must be noted that the feast of Pentecost is not simply the celebration of an event which took place centuries ago. It is the celebration of what must happen and does happen to us in the Church today. We all have died and risen with the Messiah-King, and we all have received his Most Holy Spirit. We are the "temples of the Holy Spirit." God's Spirit dwells in us (Romans 8; I Corinthians 2-3, 12; II Corinthians 3: Galatians 5; Ephesians 2-3. We, by our own membership in the Church, have received "the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit" in the sacrament of chrismation. Pentecost has happened to us!