A Concord Pastor Comments: NIGHT PRAYER: Thursday 5/21

Tonight's prayer requires a little background which will prepare us not only for this Night Prayer but for the feast we'll be celebrating this weekend. This coming Sunday (May 24) we will celebrate Pentecost, the day on which the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in the form of tongues of fire.

Consider these words from the first reading for Pentecost Sunday:

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

It's easy for Christians to misunderstand what's meant here by the fulfillment of "the time for Pentecost." The disciples of Jesus were in Jerusalem (where they had gone at Jesus' instruction in (Acts 1:4-5) to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jerusalem was mobbed at that time because faithful Jews had come there to celebrate their Feast of Weeks or Shavuot, which falls 50 days (pente) after Passover.

What is Shavuot? The helpful site tells us:

Shavout is a two-day holiday that commemorates the date when God gave the Torah (the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai over 3,000 years ago. Preceded by 49 days of counting in eager anticipation, Shavuot is celebrated through abstaining from work, candle-lit dinners, staying up all night to study Torah, a and listening to the reading of the Ten Commandments in synagogues.

The period from Passover to Shavuot is a time of great anticipation with the people ritually counting the days from the second day of Passover to the day before Shavuot, 49 days or 7 full weeks, hence the name Feast of Weeks. Shavuot is also known as Pentecost, because it falls on the 50th day.

The date for the Christian feast of Pentecost is determined each year by the date of Easter, just as the date for Shavout is determined by the date of Passover. Perhaps you remember that this year Passover (April 1-9) and Easter (April 5) were very close on the calendar. Thus, the celebration of Shavuot begins at sundown today (May 21) with the Christian Pentecost falling on this Sunday, May 24.

Over at To Bend Light, my cyber-friend Alden Solovy suggests the following prayer for Shavout...

What if God arrived unannounced?
No smoke. No thunder.
A gentle appearance of radiance and love.

What if God snuck in on tiptoes?
No earthquake. No blast of the shofar.
A luminous presence of wonder and glory.

What if God’s voice whispered in your ear,

so quiet that you had to hold your breath to hear?
A silent surrender of hope and faith.

What if holiness packed the empty space with light

as your lungs filled with the one divine breatht

together with every other living being?

What if God’s voice is as near

as your willingness to listen quietly

to the soul of the universe
as a sense of calm and peace

pass through you?

What if that moment

is now?

The holiday of Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. This composition is an attempt to convey some of the mystery surrounding the theophany, the revelation of the Lord’s presence. The text begins and ends with a medieval Jewish hymn praising God and asking permission to chant the Decalogue. The middle section presents the first few words of each of the Ten Commandments. The composition is based on traditional Jewish chant, an English translation is provided in subtitles.

Shavuot by Joshua Jacobson

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