Party for the Pentecost 2014

Last Sunday we followed through on our family mission to be more intentional about celebrating the gifts, promises, and just straight-up goodness of the Lord, Christ—and specifically last week, the Holy Spirit. Party for the Pentecost 2014 was a huge success. We capitalized on the intended purpose of being united under the fulfillment of divine promises.

We put our own little spin on the Feast of Pentecost. We invited a bunch of Jesus-lovers and asked them to bring a side dish that represented their backgrounds, where they came from, and/or their heritage. We unified under the language of food. I mean, who doesn’t fluently understand the language of food?

Nothing needed to make sense. Nothing needed to “go together.” The food was to serve as an avenue to show from where we have all come. The idea was to bring different people together and remind ourselves that we are all fighting the good fight together, with each other, and with the aid of the promised Holy Spirit. Folks, it was AWESOME-SAUCE!!

We ate internationally from Belgium to Germany, Poland to Italy, and Ireland to Scotland. We ate nationally from Michigan, to Iowa, to Georgia. We even drank locally with some iced-nettle-tea from “the swamp lands of Kankakee.”

For dessert we went a bit more in-your-face Holy Spirit with a “Pentecost Cake.” This cake was heavy on the symbolism and appealed to my inner yearning for tradition. The cake was entirely white and red, white to represent the dove and red for the tongues of fire. There was a larger central white candle for Jesus who promised the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Jesus candle was surrounded by twelve smaller white candles for the twelve apostles, so we lit them ablaze for the tongues of fire. The kids blew out the candles with a mighty rushing wind. (See what I did there?)

There were to be seven red hearts on the cake for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Though our cake only had six hearts (Ben says I would make a terrible Jew…), we’ll just say that our seventh heart was within each of us. You know that four-chambered muscle located in your thoracic cavity. Lastly, around the outside of the cake were twelve raspberries for the twelve fruits of the spirit.  #HollaPentecost!

Ben read an abbreviated Pentecost story from the Jesus Storybook Bible “for the kids.” The brevity was most due to the fact that the twelve apostles’ tongues of fire were rapidly melting Jesus and coating the cake in wax! Though what we lacked in completeness, we made up for in dramatic light effects.

Riveted...

Carrying the tongues of fire theme outdoors, we rounded the evening out with a fire in the pit. Good friends, good conversation, and laughter all around! I believe for the first time ever our children saw 11:00 pm as they shut their eyes for nocturnal rest! Oops, we had no idea… to much celebrating to remember to look at the clock!

Good times were had by all. Christ and the Holy Spirit were celebrated. Traditions were initiated. We hope it catches on. One of the goals in doing this will be to increase the diversity year after year. Let’s paint the town Pentecost in 2015!