"The Meaning of Pentecost Today"
The last of the Spring Hebrew Feasts is Shavuot. Shavuot means weeks. The feast occurs seven weeks from the offering of the First Fruits. The offering of First Fruits happened the day after the Passover Sabbath, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Jews had to remove all leaven from their houses the day before, and eat their Passover meal with unleavened bread. The day that the Jews removed the leaven from their house is the same day that they killed the Passover Lamb and began roasting it. They called that day the day of preparation (Matt 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:31).
Jesus is our Passover (1 Cor 5:7), the Lamb of God, “Who taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He was crucified on the day of preparation in the ninth hour, which is 3:00 PM, and the same time that the High Priest slew the Passover lamb at the Temple. Jesus lay in the tomb all Passover Sabbath, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, showing that His sacrifice removed our sins. Next day before dawn, before the High Priest waved the first cuttings of barley on First Fruits, Jesus rose from the dead and became the “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor 15:20). The Jews began counting fifty days, that day being the first until Shavuot, the fiftieth day. It is also seven weeks from the offering of First Fruits. That is why it is also called the Feast of Weeks.
Today, we call Easter the day that Jesus rose from the dead. That English word came from the old German word Eostre, the name for the month Resurrection Day typically occurs. Like the names of most months, it is named after a pagan deity, in this case an Anglo-Saxon goddess mentioned by Bede. Unlike the first Christians, Christians observe Easter on a Sunday, not on the Feast of First Fruits, which happens on various days of the week according to the lunar calendar. Once the church decided to observe Easter on the first Sunday after Passover Sabbath, Christians celebrate Pentecost seven weeks after Easter. This year Pentecost Sunday is June 8.
Shavuot is related to the Offering of First Fruits by the sacrifice each makes. The offering of First Fruits is the grain, the first cutting of barley sheaves. We do not eat barley from the sheaves, but thresh it, literally beating the grain out of the sheaves. Afterward, we must winnow it, blow the chaff from the grain. To make bread from barley, we must grind the grain to make the flour.
The offering at Shavuot is two loaves of wheat bread made with leaven. Leaven is forbidden on Passover but required for Shavuot. The First Fruits offering is raw grain, but the Shavuot offering requires the grain to be beaten, winnowed, leavened, and baked. Jesus was beaten and His body torn. He said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24). The contents for the cup from which Jesus did not want to drink and asked the Father to avoid, the cup of the plagues, which Jesus skipped during the Last Supper with His disciples, was filled as God pressed the Holy Spirit from His son while He agonized in the garden before saying, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt 26:39). Even the garden’s name, Gethsemane, reveals His struggle, for Gethsemane means olive press. Just as combining the ground flour and the air produces a mature loaf of bread, Jesus’ substitutionary death and the coming of the Holy Ghost, because Jesus went away, make the bread of life that sustains life.
On Shavuot, when the two leavened loaves of bread were sacrificed, the Holy Ghost fell on the disciples who were gathered according to Jesus’ commandment. All 120 waited in the same upper room where the twelve shared the Last Supper. And He came as promised. Jesus in the person of the Holy Ghost descended: “Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:2-4).
The disciples were on Mount Zion, among the priestly aristocracy scattered among the luxurious homes that overlooked the Temple. Those who first heard them mocked their babbling and accused them of drunkenness. Peter upbraided them and showed that what was happening fulfilled Joel’s prophecy: “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” (Joel 2:28-29). As he continued preaching, each person heard the sermon in their native tongue. People from many nations, from the eastern nations where Babylon and Persia once reigned, and from the western ones, where Greece once ruled and Rome still did, heard Peter’s convicting sermon in their own language.
Shavuot marks the day that Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Law. Only three days before, all the Israelites agreed to keep God’s Law. He told them, “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine” (Ex 19:5). They all agreed: “All the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” (Ex 19:8). While Moses remained on the Mount receiving the Law, the people murmured and told Aaron: “Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him” (Ex 32:1). The Jews teach that Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim 3:8), two of Pharaoh’s magicians, instigated the rebellion. They were part of the “mixed multitude [who] went up also with them” (Ex 12:38) when the Hebrews left Egypt. Moses came down and broke the two tablets that God had hewn with His Law, condemned the idolatry with its merriment, and asked, “Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto me” (Ex 32:26). He sent the Levites among those who would not come, “and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men” (Ex 32:28). The Jews maintain that all who died were of the mixed multitude, non-Israelites who had come out with them.
While giving His Law, God said, “I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God” (Ex 29:45). The goal of the Law, as God engraved it on the first tablets, was to dwell among the Israelites, but they rebelled. Latter-day revelation explains, “Now, this Moses plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God; but they hardened their hearts, and could not endure his presence, therefore, the Lord, in his wrath (for his anger was kindled against them) . . . took Moses out of their midst and the holy priesthood also; and the lesser priesthood continued” (D&C 83:4a-c). God intended to give the Holy Ghost to the children of Israel when Moses brought the Law from Sinai, but He refused after their rebellion. He removed the more spiritual parts of the Law, leaving the carnal parts as a “schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Gal 3:24). Moses passed on the spiritual parts in only the oral law, God postponing the gift of the Holy Ghost almost 1,500 years, until the Pentecost immediately following Jesus’ Resurrection. The Holy Ghost confirmed Peter’s preaching. “They that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41). The same number of the mixed multitude who died when Moses came down with the Law were baptized and they, too, received the Holy Ghost. Those saved were not citizens of Jerusalem, but a mixed multitude, “men, out of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5) “and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes” (Acts 2:10).
Every member received the gift of the Holy Ghost after baptism, like in the days of the apostles, when “laid they their hands on them” (Acts 8:17). Those who nourish the gift through prayer, study, and obedience find that the Holy Spirit grows within them. Alma explained, “Behold, as the seed swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, then ye must needs say, that the seed is good; for behold it swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow” (Alma 16:156). Soon, the growing gift of the Holy Ghost will begin adorning each repentant believer with His fruits. Those fruits are “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal 5:22-23). All those fruits are attributes of Jesus. They transform us from selfish, carnally-minded people, into kind, humble, generous people, people more like Jesus. They “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2P 3:18). They not only make us more like Jesus, but they better prepare us to live in the New Jerusalem, which soon will arise on the appointed place.