Pentecost, Celebrating Three in One

I love Pentecost! The "birthday" of the church, the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell in all who believe, the beginning of the harvest of God's elect from among the Gentiles; it has so much to celebrate! Tying in the symbolism of the harvest festival and its joyous procession, we held the congregation in the lobby of the church until service time. The pastor then welcomed the people and our shofar was sounded. (The shofar is a ram's horn trumpet used from the days of the Hebrews to call the congregation to worship.) We entered the sanctuary in procession, singing "I Will Enter His Gates." The guitars and singers led and the congregation followed with small instruments of their choosing from the church's supply. The congregation moved through the sanctuary past three new cloth installations. Immediately upon entering they passed under a long, wide, blue cloth that represented the Holy Spirit. Taking a turn, they went up the side of the sanctuary past a kind of tabernacle made of white and purple cloths which represented the Father and High King. Across the front, they filed past a long piece of red cloth hanging and draped over a table representing Jesus, the sacrificial lamb of God and His cleansing and atoning blood. These were fairly simple installations, with the tabernacle the most complex. A seamstress in our congregation helped with each, especially making the tabernacle. The pastor explained each of them in our children's story time, leading the children from one to the other. So we tied liturgy, historic worship practices of the Hebrews (shofar, processions, tabernacles), the arts in cloth and particular music, and a creative use of our worship space (setting up "stations" of a sort and getting the people to move all over in the space), as well as time in asking them to wait in the lobby until all could enter together in joyful procession.

While this marked our celebration of Pentecost in 2011, each of the cloths has stayed in the sanctuary nearly all that time, by request of members of the congregation, though two have changed position. The tabernacle in particular has become a special place of prayer for many of our members.