Ruminations on Pentecost

I've been preparing to teach the first of four Sunday School lessons on the topic of "Pentecost."  The word itself is a reference to the time during which the Old Testament feast of Pentecost was to be observed--fifty days after the Passover Feast.  Pentecost was the middle one of the three feasts that all Israelite males were required to attend.  Others besides the men were invited also.  The ones specifically mentioned are sons and daughters, male and female servants, Levites (the priestly tribe), foreigners, widows, and the fatherless.  It was to be a time of rejoicing, offering sacrifices, and a time of bringing freewill offerings in proportion to the blessings that God had given. 

The interval of fifty days is reminiscent of the Year of Jubilee, a special observance which was to take place after seven 7-year cycles of labor and rest (six years of labor and production, followed by one year of sabbath rest).  In the fiftieth year, debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, land was restored to its original owners, and the land rested (no planting or harvesting occurred).

On the first day after the death and resurrection of Jesus, a momentous event occurred on the Day of Pentecost.  The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had promised, visibly appeared and the church was inaugurated, made up of an energized, empowered group of Christ-followers.

Pentecost apparently was celebrated on the first day of the week.  We know this because Passover was always a Sabbath celebration, occurring on the seventh day.  Observance of the Sabbath itself was in response to God's command.  Here are the words from Scripture:

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so, on the seventh day he rested from all his work.   And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.   (Genesis 2:2-3)

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.   Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.   On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.   For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.   Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.   (Exodus 20:8-11)

Something clicked with me this morning as I was studying.  I have often wondered, usually in passing, about how it is that the keeping of the sabbath (the seventh day as a day of rest) is the only one of the Ten Commandments that is not regularly observed among Christians.  The explanation I've heard is that Christians shifted from seventh-day observance to first-day observance after the resurrection--because Jesus came back to life on the first day of the week.  Gradually this became the gathering day for Christians.  The "rest" part of the Old Testament Sabbath was incorporated into the first-day observance for believers--not always successfully, as it turns out.  Today I'm wondering why people ever tried to combine rest, worship, and gathering all in one day.  I'm thinking of what might be gained if we moved toward restoring the seventh day as a day of rest, and kept the functions of worship and gathering as First Day activities.

I know why this seems impossible--because most of the people in most of our households are absent from their homes during the other five days of the week, for most of their waking hours.  If any work is to be accomplished at home, Saturday seems to be the only day for that to happen.  So we've made Saturdays as full of work as any other day.  Our Sundays may be only slightly less busy, with leaving home for gatherings a prominent feature of the day.  This is a different kind of hard work, but in some ways, no less taxing than physical labor.

What if, in our homes, our schools, and our businesses, we shifted to a four-day work week?  In other words, the work-at-home day could happen every week on Friday.  This would leave Saturday for rest, and Sunday for worship.  I believe the work hours during the first four days of the week might need to be extended, but I suspect that some efficiencies would be gained by less time spent "starting and stopping"  and going to and from our work and school places. 

While I'm on a roll, I'll add here that I have often wished that people who live at our latitude could somehow give more recognition in our schedules to the fact that daylight hours vary enormously throughout the year.  Basically, I believe that God gave us daylight for work, and night for rest.  

The Sabbath for the Jews begins on Friday evening at sundown.  This means that far more rest occurs during the "short day/long night" portion of the year than otherwise. Anyone involved in agriculture knows that crop production requires many hours of hard work, so it's fortunate that the days are long during this period.  In other words, far more work could occur during the long day/short night portion of the year than otherwise.

I don't have any illusions about being able to figure this out now, for everyone, for all time.  Nevertheless, I long to see at least small steps being taken toward a more sustainable way of ordering our lives.  Perhaps there's no better time than now, having just come through the most major societal disruption of routine in our lifetime.  

What if a reordering of our routines turns out to be one of the most durable blessings of our time in "the wilderness?"  What if labor, rest, and worship could be restored to balance on our watch?  I can think of no better prospect for looking back on the pandemic with gratitude rather than lament.