The festival of Pentecost celebrates the birth of the church. The Holy Spirit came upon the faithful disciples of Jesus to inspire and energize them. They told the story of what God had done for them in Jesus; they preached, they baptized, they healed, they formed communities, they invited the world to join them. The spread of the early church throughout the Mediterranean regions in the generations following Jesus astonished the world.

The season following Pentecost is known as “ordinary time,” when green signifies the church’s continuing work. Discipleship is explored in all its manifestations: to go by faith, not sight; to dance with joy before the presence of God; to test the limits of a sacred boundary and explore the meaning of the Sabbath. The church tells the story, preaching, baptizing, and healing in Jesus’ name. We seek to encounter the passionate flames of the Spirit of Christ where they are to be found in the world: sometimes by comfortable hearths, rarely in burning bushes, often on the street around a makeshift fire. We search for the encounter wherever people gather in Jesus’ name to seek the warmth and light of a community fostering justice and love.

Red is the color given the festival of Pentecost: the red of the Spirit’s flames warming, illuminating, fueling the work of the church of Christ in the wide world.

taken from Imaging the WORD