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Pentecost 6/23/2013
The New Testament Pentecost is the day of the glorious fulfilment of Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. This is an ultimately joyous, magnificent and consoling event. The house in which they have been gathered in oneness of spirit is all of a sudden filled with noise from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and cloven tongues as of fire spread out and descend on each of the disciples. Thus they are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to preach the Gospel in various languages, as the Lord the Holy Spirit endowed them to converse. Unlike the mysticism, for instance, of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos, at the coming of the glory of the Lord and the other wondrous phenomena from the beyond which manifest as a vision only to some of those present, the events of Pentecost become apparent to all, not only to the worthy ones. In order to see them, the citizens of Jerusalem did not need spiritual sight, though they did not give the same spiritual response to the seen. So, this speaking in all the languages the people of Jerusalem spoke (since there were newcomers from various lands) some viewed as a marvellous miracle, others as a sign of drunkenness. Peter explains this event inspired and refers to the prophecies regarding this event rendered to the Chosen people through the Prophet Joel. Peter’s proclamation of the gospel reached the hearts of a multitude that heard him and they received the repentance in the name of Jesus Christ. On that day there were around three thousands people baptised and conjoined to the Church of Christ. From then on Pentecost has been regarded as a birthday of the Church of God. For the first time after the fall, after Adam lost his originally created spiritual light, man hypostatically receives the Holy Spirit and is granted the full and real possibility to live by the spiritual laws of the increate Divine grace. He is given the opportunity for spiritual renewal and growth.
