Special Shabbat Devotional Shavuot – May 22, 2026
PENTECOST/ SHAVUOT🔥
FESTIVAL PORTION May 21, 2026 Shavuot
TORAH: Exodus 19:1-20:23
PROPHETS: Ezekiel 1:1-28, 3:12
GOSPEL: Acts 2:1-21
FESTIVAL PORTION May 22, 2026 Shavuot II (Shabbat)
TORAH: Deuteronomy 14:22-16:17
PROPHETS: Habakkuk 3:1-19
GOSPEL: Acts 2:21-42
As I reflected on Pentecost this morning, God reaffirmed the connection Christians share with our Jewish brothers and sisters. Understanding the Jewish context enriches our appreciation of Shavuot and Pentecost, showing that these events—and our faiths—are deeply connected.
In Leviticus 23, God established appointed festivals for Israel, including three pilgrimage feasts: Passover (Pesach), Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles). These were times to gather, worship, and bring offerings in response to God’s blessings. There are deep spiritual connections in each of these festivals but today, I want to focus on Shavuot.
In Luke 24:49, before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples to remain in Jerusalem and wait for “the promise of the Father.” This would not have seemed unusual, as they were already there for Shavuot. Jesus and His disciples were devout Jews, faithfully observing these festivals.
Acts 2:1 tells us that when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were gathered together. They would have been praying, studying the Torah, and celebrating the harvest, alongside Jews from many nations who had journeyed to Jerusalem.
Then, God moved powerfully:
“A sound like a mighty rushing wind… tongues of fire… and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:2–4).
This moment was not random—it echoed Mount Sinai. At Sinai, God descended in fire and gave the Torah (Exodus 19). But at Pentecost, He did something even greater:
He fulfilled His promise of a new covenant to Jeremiah the Prophet by giving the Holy Spirit—and writing His law on their hearts.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
The disciples would have understood this connection. On the very day the disciples understood that God gave them the Torah the receiving of the Law, they were given the Holy Spirit—the One who now guides and transforms us from within.
This reminds us of God’s beautiful, unified plan. From the beginning, He intended to include both Jews and Gentiles in His family. The first believers were Jewish men and women who received the Holy Spirit and then carried the message of salvation to others, (The Ethipoean Eunuch Acts 8 Cornelius Acts 10) including us the Gentiles. A powerful reminder of the inseparable connection of the two peoples and two separate events of Shavuot and Pentecost.
On Shavuot, Jews read the story of Ruth—a Gentile who embraced faith in God. The story is told because of its connection to the harvest time and in honoring the Moabite woman who embraced the Jewish faith in one God. Ruth became part of the lineage of King David, showing that God has always welcomed all people into His covenant family. Just another detail in the most beautiful story ever told, the story of the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles reckoning us to become one family.
What a powerful picture: one God, one plan, one family—uniting Jews and Gentiles through His covenant and His Spirit.