Homily For Whitsunday 2026
“And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.” In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, we celebrate the Christian feast of Pentecost, also known as Whitsunday. I say Christian feast of Pentecost for there was a Jewish predecessor of Pentecost - one of the three key feasts in the covenant life of Israel. Passover was Israel’s feast of redemption - to celebrate when God released Israel from bondage to Pharaoh. Passover was followed a couple of days later by the Feast of the First Fruits . First Fruits prefigured the resurrection - this is why St. Paul picks upon this theme in I Corinithians 15:20-23 where he writes, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection.”
The Feast of the First Fruits was followed by a seven weeks (a week of weeks) by Pentecost which represented the beginning of the ingathering of the kingdom of God. Pentecost also celebrated the giving of the Law on Sinai. Pentecost, being 50 days after First Fruits, was celebrated by the presentation of the two loaves of leavened bread -whose yeast prefigured the expansion of the Church on the day of Pentecost - the event which is described in our Epistle for today.
We know that Christ instructed his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came in great power as we read in the Epistle and the Gospel for the Ascension. We read today in our Epistle that when Pentecost was fully come that they were all unified - in spirit and in location. In the providence of God, the feast had brought together a large number of people to Jerusalem on the heels of Our Lord’s death and resurrection.
They had come from remote parts of the known world. Perhaps the distance was too great for them to have made the trip every year. Maybe they did not have the opportunity to hear Jesus the Messiah during his earthly ministry. It was to this gathering that the Spirit came and was poured out with such power. At that point, the Holy spirit filled the place with His power - filling them all with miraculous speech in diverse languages which they did not know themselves but were understood by the multitude who had gathered, each hearing in his own tongue. Jesus on the night of His resurrection breathed on the disciples the Holy Spirit - remember how he said - Receive ye the Holy Ghost:23 Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. On Pentecost, St. Peter declared unto many the remission of sins - he proclaimed the arrival of a new kingdom that Israel had looked forward to. It wasn’t quite as they anticipated but it was God’s work all the same, a greater work than they could have ever conceived.
I began the sermon with a statement regarding the ingathering of the Jews, devout Israelites, from every nation under heaven. There are hints in Pentecost of the reversing of the Tower of Babel, when before that disobedient group were confused and dispersed so that they might fulfill the commandment God had given them to fill the four corners of the earth. Here, the four corners of the earth - every nation under heaven were drawn together in Jerusalem so that they might again understand one another and glorify God. There was an expectation among devout Jews that something great was going to happen at Pentecost.
St. Luke is careful to record the general circumstances - which formed the first sentence of today’s sermon: “And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.”
Later, he elaborates, indeed, reaffirms and elaborates the presence of Jews from all over the world, representing the far flung outposts of the Roman world and beyond to the Parthian Empire of modern day Iran.
This was not the first time the Holy Spirit appeared in history. Remember, the Holy Spirit was known in Israel through the glory cloud - God’s presence that directed them in the Wilderness. God’s manifestation of presence in the Tabernacle and the Temple. The Holy Spirit made Himself known in the teaching of the prophets, the skill of artisans in the construction of the Tabernacle, the inheritance of kings like David and Saul. The second covenant, the new covenant is an expansion of the first. In Adam all mankind sinned. God’s promises to Abraham were for the benefit of all peoples.
The second covenant brought about by Jesus Christ ushered in an era in which the Holy Spirit was not only breathed on the Apostles - Christ’s appointed agents of apostolic succession, but He is the common and constant inheritance of all God’s people. Not just for the Jews who were present at Pentecost but also for all the Gentiles who turned to Jesus. By Him we are made One Body of Christ. Christ as head and the Body knit together, sustained by the heartbeat of the Holy Spirit indwelling the Church.
These devout men, Jews, looked forward to the ingathering of God’s people at Pentecost. They were the first fruits of dedication. They, the first and arguably the best, are followed by a great harvest - one of multitudes too great to number.
On this Feast of Pentecost, let us take heart. Let us look out into the world with hope. Let us ask God to expand our imagination for His work in this world.
God desires the nations be brought into his fold. He desires that all men know Him. He desires that every nation have its witnesses, its elect from their number. We must look out into our neighborhoods and ask - is there a Saul - the persecutor, a hater of Christ who might be converted into a great evangelist? By the power of the Holy Spirit, might our neighbors be Mary Magdalene - unfaithful, unchaste - who might be transformed into the lover of Christ who mourns sin and offers the tears of repentance and joy in Christ’s presence? Can we see ourselves as the forgiven debtors we are and seek to share the good news with others? What great thing, what expansion of Christ’s kingdom might he desire for Alpine, West Texas? What prayers should we offer for the further ingathering? God is at work on earth, calling men and women to Himself. Let’s seek to be part of that. Let us proceed first with prayer for opportunities to serve those around us, to serve each other here at Holy Cross, to cultivate forgiveness and care for each other.
Let us then look to our neighbors outside the church and invite them in. May the Holy Spirit give us godly imaginations for the transformation that Jesus can bring. He truly can meet our needs and the needs of the whole world. Let us turn in faith and encourage others to do so as well. May the Holy Spirit, our joy and comfort, move our hearts to pray boldly for conversion of our neighbors and the sanctification of fellow Christians so that all might be drawn into our Lord’s blessed kingdom. Christ is risen. Christ is ascended and we, my brothers and sisters, on this Pentecost, celebrate the joy that the Holy Spirit is with us in all our joys and in all our struggles. Amen.
