Why Don’t More Christians Celebrate Pentecost?

It’s undeniable that most Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter. But why not Pentecost? What makes Pentecost so mysterious to most people?

What happened on the Day of Pentecost changed the world. Before then, the Holy Spirit did not permanently reside in the human heart. However, after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension to heaven, the Holy Spirit could come down and dwell with us!

So why not celebrate this more?

In order to really understand Pentecost, a person has to understand what a relationship with the Holy Spirit looks like. Perhaps many people have been too scared to really dig deep and know what this means. For some, a relationship with the Holy Spirit may appear to be too mystical on the outside. What it really comes down to is a misunderstanding of who the third person of the Godhead is.

I can say personally that if you would’ve asked me about Pentecost just a few years ago, I would’ve said it was a great event, but probably wouldn’t have dwelt too much on it. My faith in Jesus seemed strong and sturdy, and truthfully, I didn’t know enough about how a relationship with the Holy Spirit should look despite the instructions being right there in the middle of Scripture. I believe it is quite possible that there are plenty of other people out there like myself who simply just didn’t realize how important a relationship with the Holy Spirit is because they feel so secure in knowing what Christ did for them. However, the more I learned about Jesus, the more I found myself needing His Spirit. The more I read in Scripture, the more I saw that it is the power of the Holy Spirit which enables me to live according to my heavenly Father’s will. The more time I spent getting to know one member of the Godhead, the more I understood the other two and how they are all one. My faith didn’t develop overnight; it was a gradual process.

When you don’t understand who the Holy Spirit is, a first interaction with Him can seem incredibly scary and intimidating. This is something I personally went through. After receiving salvation in Christ in middle school. I would spend hour after hour writing prayers and listening to worship music. The way I felt when I did this was indescribable. I didn’t realize I was ministering to the Holy Spirit!

During this time period, I had my first experience of what most would consider the baptism of the Holy Spirit. However, I had never heard of this, and I was thrown completely off guard by it. I learned later that the Holy Spirit had simply become the One guiding my life! If someone has not experienced or known anything about the Father or the Son, it is hard to understand the Spirit without first knowing about these two. Perhaps that’s why the Old Testament introduced the Father before the Son and the Holy Spirit became present in the New Testament.

There’s a genuine misconception about the Holy Spirit’s presence in our life today. Many Christians live life as though the power of the Holy Spirit that helped Peter preach to the thousands and see salvations was only for his day and age. That is simply not true. If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, then that means that the Holy Spirit is the same God now as the God who helped the apostles. He has the same power and capability to give us the boldness and the heart to preach the gospel, to do His will and to see the lost saved that He gave to the disciples. Wouldn’t it be great if the church acted like the early Christians presented in the book of Acts?

Instead of looking at the Holy Spirit as some mystical power, we need to look at the plain, biblical text of the Holy Spirit’s power, presence and purpose for the life of the Christian. Perhaps if we took the time to know more of who He is, we could look at the day of Pentecost with a deeper sense of appreciation and gratitude.