There’s more to Pentecost Sunday than the Church’s ‘birthday’
Pentecost Sunday, which falls on June 5 this year, is rightly known as the “birthday” of the Church but it also serves as a reminder that Christians’ key mission is to reach the unreached with the Gospel.
Pentecost Sunday commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit on the early followers of Jesus, as Acts 2:1-4 records: “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
On the day of the Pentecost, Peter said, according to Acts 2:38, 39, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
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It is through the Spirit that one can appropriate God’s promises in Jesus by accepting Him as the Lord and Savior.
And as 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and mall were made to drink of one Spirit,” it’s the dwelling of the Spirit, as a result of accepting Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior, that makes one a Christian and part of the Church.
Equally important is what Jesus said about the mission after the early believers would receive the Spirit. It’s called the Great Commission.
Before His ascension, He had instructed His disciples not to leave Jerusalem and wait for “the gift my Father promised.” He promised that when the Holy Spirit came on them, they would receive power and be His witnesses in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the world, according to Acts 1:4, 8.
A gospel movement, Alliance for the Unreached, observes Pentecost Sunday each year as the International Day for the Unreached.
“Today, over 3 billion people, a third of humanity, have yet to hear the good news of Jesus,” the alliance says on its website.
Just before ascending back to the throne of the Father, Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
