Pentecost Sunday
8th June 2025
Lectionary Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Ps. 104; 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13 or Rom 8:8-17;
Jn 20:19-23 or Jn 14:15-16, 23b-26
This Sunday the liturgy of the Church celebrates the Feast of Pentecost, which marks 50 days after Easter. This celebration does not coincidentally occur every year close to the celebration of the Jewish Feast of Shavuot (Feast of Weeks), recorded in the Bible (cf. Exodus 34:22 // Deuteronomy 16:9-11). Shavuot is part of one of the three pilgrimage feasts: Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkoth, in which the people of Israel go up from all parts of the world to praise and thank God with their offerings to the Temple in Jerusalem. It is the time to see God and be seen by Him. It is also known as the Feast of the First Fruits (Yom ha-Bikurim), Numb 28:26 or the Feast of the Harvest (Hag ha-Qatsir), Exodus 23:16. Jewish tradition also celebrates it as the Feast of the Gift of the Torah (Zman Mattan Toratenu), TB Shabbat 86b.
Because it is a pilgrimage festival, it means coming to Jerusalem, where all the people of Israel gather, and because it signifies the gift of the Torah, the festival of Shavuot is the moment in which the people are constituted as a people in its complete sense through the Covenant sealed by the unanimous acceptance of the Word of God by the entire community of Israel: “And he took the book of the covenant and read it to the people; and they said, All that the Lord has spoken (Naasse veNishma) we will do and listen to ” (Ex 24:8). This event on Mount Sinai is described amid extraordinary manifestations such as thunder, noises, fire, and wind…
Thus, the liturgy of Pentecost teaches us that our celebration is founded on biblical tradition and rooted in the Jewish liturgy of the time of Jesus and the Apostles. Chapters 1 and 2 of the Acts of the Apostles introduce us perfectly to this context of the great Assembly of Israel in Jerusalem in which groups and people from all over the Jewish diaspora were represented on the occasion of the celebration of Shavuot.
Similar to the revelation of God on Mount Sinai when God gives his Torah to the people of Israel, Pentecost takes place on Mount Zion amidst extraordinary phenomena where the entire people of Israel is represented and with them all the Nations. Furthermore, the messianic affirmation is represented through the Apostles gathered together with the opening to the Nations. On Mount Sinai, God reveals his Word to the people of Israel and on Mount Zion the people of Israel reveal the Torah to the Nations: “We hear them proclaiming in our own tongues the wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11).
After the experience of Jesus’ death and resurrection, his followers proclaim Him as the long-awaited Messiah. Therefore, it is time for the promises to be fulfilled, the prophecies begin to come true and the Kingdom of God begins to be established. Israel fulfils its vocation through Jesus, a Jewish man who died and was resurrected, because the nations recognise and seek to practice the Word of God that revealed Himself to Israel: “In the end of the age it will be that the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established at the head of the mountains, and will rise above the hills. All nations will stream to it, and peoples will come in droves. “Come,” they will say, “let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Is 2:2-3).
Therefore, the celebration of Pentecost teaches us that the Word of God revealed to Israel on Mount Sinai is fulfilled on Mount Zion at the moment that Israel, through Jesus, makes it accessible to all humanity: the Torah leaves Jerusalem-Zion for the world.
This week’s Sunday Liturgy Commentary was prepared by
Elio Passeto, NDS Jerusalem-Israel, Bat Kol Director
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