By the Rev’d Lucy Nguyen

Season: Pentecost

Readings: Acts 2:1-21 | Romans 8:22-27 | John 14:8-17, (25-27)

Today Christians are celebrating The Pentecost.

It is 50 days after Easter.

It is also 50 days after Passover, and so once again we find our Christian roots in a Jewish tradition, For Jews it is Shavuot or the Festival of Weeks. Falling fifty days after Passover, Shavuot is a harvest festival and also commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

For Christians, Acts 2:1-21 tells us it is on this Jewish festival day that the followers of Jesus are “all together in one place” when the Spirit appears.

Some 2 thousand years later, we find ourselves once again at the other end of the arc that began weeks ago on Ash Wednesday.

Do you recall the words you heard or would have heard if you were able to attend an Ash Wednesday Service?

“Know that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.

I encourage you to set aside Feb 18, 2026, for attending an Ash Wednesday Service.

The embodied action of receiving ashes on our foreheads invites us into the dust of life and death.

All these weeks later, at the end of wilderness and death and resurrection, the day of Pentecost comes like an epilogue to show us that there is still more to know, and a purpose for knowing which lies beyond our individual lives.

Yes, we are dust, and we need to know that we are stardust!

There is light and fire in us! In every single person!

On the day of Pentecost, as the Spirit descends upon the gathered assembly, we see in the drama how the “knowing” that Christ gives us is not for ourselves alone: our understanding is not to be protected in our own spiritual bubble. It is for the life of the community and the life of the world.

And so we celebrate today, It’s a party day, a communal birthday.

But there’s a party trick to this celebration –

• Do you know the story of two groups of people, each celebrating a birthday in one restaurant.
• Both groups had ordered a huge cake, and both were presented with a large, delicious cake. However, the restaurant only gave them very long spoons, so long that they cannot reach their own mouths to feed themselves.
• One Group – left shortly after the cake was served in a foul unforgiving mood, the birthday spoiled because they could have their cake but couldn’t eat it.
• The other Group stayed long into the night celebrating and welcoming others to join their table, and the cake was enjoyed by all.
• What happened here with the second group?
• These individuals realize that they can use the long spoons to feed each other. By sharing and cooperating, they all become nourished and happy.
• What happened to the first group? …. They wouldn’t look after each other. They focused only their own needs. They left fighting and starving.

This is the party trick of Pentecost:

The focus after the Ascension is not on us as individuals or even simply as a small cluster but as –a full collection of stars – a galaxy!

When we understand that those who spoke in the Spirit did not recognize what they were saying but could be understood by others in the crowd, we are given a window of understanding that our own knowing and understanding is always incomplete without the presence of community.

Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit draws us together and gives us to one another so that we may hear and see and know with greater clarity.

This day challenges us to open ourselves beyond the limits of our individual lives to the Spirit who sets us ablaze for the healing of the world.

In the spirit of Pentecost, we are given some questions:

• Who is at your table?
• Who is waiting to be invited?
• And when your table is a table of one or only of “your own” – where do you go to hear and see what you cannot hear and see on your own or only with “your own”?
• When knowledge and wisdom come to you, how do you share them beyond yourself to help others flourish?

Where are you turning your ears, your eyes, your heart, your mind to perceive the presence of the Spirit and the path to which it is drawing you?

Take these question home with you to your time of prayer and meditation, to your coffee group, your garden group, your home group or just around the dining room table.

We are no longer simply a group of believers but rather pillars of stardust, a body that, enlivened by the Spirit, will endure and continue the work of Christ.

Did you know stars, during their lives and deaths, expel material into space, creating a cosmic “stardust” that later forms planets and life?

The celebration of Pentecost beckons us to keep sparkling into the chaos of the world in flames which heal, water which refreshes, wind which moves us and clouds of wisdom that emboldens us.

Pentecost challenges us to keep ourselves open to the Spirit who seeks us. To know hardship and the sweet mystery of life.

The Spirit that, in the beginning, brooded over the chaos and brought forth creation; the Spirit that drenched the community with fire and breath on the day of Pentecost: this same Spirit desires to dwell within us and among us bringing into fulfilment the body of Christ now and to come.

Blessings to you in these days of celebration. May you keep twinkling. May we blaze and may we share the cake!

Source and inspiration – check out for brilliant poetry and art work and wise words…

Jan Richards https://paintedprayerbook.com/2013/05/14/pentecost-when-we-breathetogether/