The Christian Pentecost According to the Book of Acts, when the disciples gathered to celebrate the Hebrew festival of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on them in a form like fire, and She filled them with the power of speaking in tongues and prophesying. The apostle Peter spoke with such passion that thousands felt compelled to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Thus the Christian church was born. If this had been the first time humans had ever felt the touch of something awesome and spiritually terrifying, Peter would probably have had a hard time convincing his audience that Jesus was worth worshiping. Yet when we…
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Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, and God’s Hands
Riding Roller Coasters Years ago, while preparing to preach about Pentecost, a holiday that at the time I knew nothing about, I discovered that one of my Unitarian Universalist colleagues had once been a Pentecostal minister. Pentecost and Pentecostal must be related, I figured, so I asked him to explain what this holiday was. He didn’t answer directly. Instead, he told me about an amusement park in the town where he grew up. The park was famous for its roller coasters. When he’d been a boy, they had this old wooden one. The train would chug along, inching up the slope, painfully cresting the hill, and then dash down the…