Orthodox Celebration of this Holy Day
Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-52; 8,12
In some Christian churches, the events and actions of Jesus Christ are memorialized, but they are celebrated only as the past, as something that once happened. In the Orthodox Church, in the Orthodox faith, we recreate and relive those events in our worship services, our rites and hymns in the present.
At Christmas, we do not just say that Christ was once born, but we say and celebrate that now "Christ is born!" And so we go on to say or reply, "Let us meet Him!" Not once upon a time, but now He is born, and now we should meet Him.
In the Kontakion [short hymn] of the Nativity of Christ we sing:
“Today the Virgin gives birth to the Eternal One...”, angels with the shepherds’ praise, and wise men with the star travel...”
The implication here is that all this is happening today, now, and we must glorify it.
We don't just sing about things that happened in the past; for us, everything is in the present. We do not just remember the birth of Christ, but we react as witnesses to that birth; as participants in those great events, we experience them.
Likewise, for us in Orthodoxy, Holy Week is not just a story, a remembrance. As we participate in the Passion Service, we experience the Last Supper and the prayer of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. We become--during the readings of the 12 Gospels, the chants of Christ's sorrow and suffering--witnesses to Judas' betrayal, His interrogation before the Jewish Sanhedrin, His trial before Pilate, and the mockery, torture, spitting upon, crucifixion, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
We do not just recall what happened two thousand years ago, but all that is painful and tragic happens before our eyes. Similarly, on Good Friday, we do not just remember the funeral of Jesus Christ, but we perform that funeral when we take out the Shroud. We do it with Joseph and Nicodemus, and with them we put Jesus Christ, wrapped in a clean shroud, in a tomb, and we bury Him.
That is why we have tears of suffering and emotion, why we mourn our Saviour. And when on the third day the priest proclaims that our Jesus Christ is risen, "having conquered death by death, and having given life in the graves," everyone, with tears of joy and comfort, shouts joyfully: "He is risen indeed!"
- The Risen Christ is among us and will be among us. Truly, life has triumphed. Here, not only did Christ come to life, but He rose from the dead: He defeated evil, defeated all the evil designs of the haters of God. Not only did life triumph over death, but the Truth-Indeed won. Christ defeated the devil, the devil's plans, and testified to the omnipotence of God.
When we celebrate today the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, it is also not just a remembrance of the ancient past. The Holy Spirit truly descended on the first community of Christ in Jerusalem. But the Holy Spirit also descends on the Church of Christ today.
Christ affirmed to his disciples at the Last Supper that the Holy Spirit, the "Spirit of Truth," will remain in the Church of believers forever:
"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever." (John 14:16-17)
Christ spoke:
"He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38); "this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive." (Ibid., 39).
Because we believe in Christ, when we kneel down today with supplication and ask for the Holy Spirit to come upon us, we will receive Him. We, the Church of believers in Christ, will receive the invisible power of God, which will be a source of living power in us, helping us to overcome all evil, the sins of this world, which will give us the strength and wisdom to nurture and grow the fruits of goodness. For, as the Apostle Paul affirms (Galatians 5:22-23):
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..."
With the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are not afraid of any obstacles, just as the holy apostles were not afraid of any obstacles in the realization of the great mission.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
