IN THE calendar, developed as the Christian Church spread around the Mediterranean, there were 40 festival days of Christmastide (ending with Candlemas on February 2) and 40 solemn days of Lent (beginning on Ash Wednesday). These led to the great Christian festival of Easter. The resurrection narratives of Jesus celebrate the amazing good news of God's Love and Light overcoming death and darkness. These stories are told throughout the 40 days of Eastertide till Ascension Day (always a Thursday). But this festival time has ten more days, of ceremonial waiting.
The full 50 day period of Eastertide leads to the festival of Pentecost, which we will celebrate on Sunday. This was the day when Jesus' followers received the renewing, empowering gift of God's Spirit - to be able to continue God's mission of love to the world, given in and through Jesus. In John's Gospel, Jesus breathes the Spirit to his followers on Easter Day, not waiting 50 days for the gift to come, as in Luke's account, written in the Acts of the Apostles. Both are accounts of the 'breath of life' being given by God in a new act of creation, through Jesus. The word translated into English as 'holy spirit' means the breath of life, the creating spirit of God and also the spirit within creatures. The point of all these sacred times and seasons, with their stories of God creating and recreating, is to enable us to live in love, to follow in the loving way of Jesus empowered by the Spirit, to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
The Rev Gill Henwood, Priest in Charge, Parishes of St Oswald's, Grasmere and St Mary's, Rydal
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