Christmas, Easter, Pentecost - the three great Feasts of the Church. Equal in stature, equal in importance, equal in theological and liturgical significance. But probably not equal in our hearts and minds. Christmas, arguably the most beloved of all, cherished by all people, including those who don't even go to church. Easter, more directly church-centered, but still a time of annual family gatherings, wonderful Easter dinners, and the joy and hope and happiness that is appropriate to The Resurrection. Pentecost, in our culture, in our memories, in our beloved holidays, is not I suspect, quite up to the other two. Technically Pentecost and Easter both are feasts kept widely by the Church quite some time before Christmas was brought so much to the fore.

Not quite sure why this starling imbalance among the three - one of the problems, though doubtless a side-issue and not central, is simply that the images, the amazing and stunning description of what was going on, when our Savior was born and when he dies, and rose from the dead . And let's face it - Christian imagery, when it gets in high gear, simply can't be beat:

Christmas, Easter: The manger, the shepherds, the wise men, the angels, the mother cradling her child and the Cross, the soldiers, the mother now cradling her dead adult son, the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, the Risen Lord appearing to Mary. This is compelling, absorbing imagery - stuff that just can't be matched, that has kept the world fascinated for 2000 years. Think of the art and the music and the prayer and poetry and the popular adulation that has gathered around the events of Christmas and Easter! Well, the Church has never been able to achieve that in regard to Pentecost, the Day of the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Look at the great, prevailing images - tiny flames alighting on the tops of people's heads or a dove coasting down from the sky - the world does not resonate to those images. Most of us don't, not like those images used by the other two great Feasts. We do not, I think, really cannot, embrace these odd Pentecost images - all really mere suggestions at best. We cannot treasure them, elaborate them in rich custom and tradition over centuries and hand them down generation after generation. How many old family Pentecost traditions do you have, ones you still lovingly observe today?

It's just not there.

Maybe it is because humans know birth, and humans know death, and when these very events happen to the Savior, we can imagine it, picture it, develop music and masterpieces. But the interior life of a life-giving Spirit? Can we picture it, visualize it, do we feel confident that we have experienced that time and again? The way we know birth and death, which all our lives we have seen all around us? The central reality of Pentecost we take on faith, without much human analogy, without much visual help, without many endearing images.

And yet, Pentecost should be one of the most user-friendly of all the Church's feasts. Mary, Joseph and silent animals saw the Birth, angels and shepherds and wise men arrive and behold it, true, but only two human witnesses saw it at first More women, more disciples, saw appearances of the Risen Christ, but no one saw the moment when the stone began rolling away and the Lord emerged from the depths of the grave into the brilliant sunlight of the garden - no one saw that at all. But Pentecost? It was widely, widely, experienced, at the very time is happened! It was witnessed by far more people than the original Christmas or Easter. Hundreds, apparently.

But that is no more than a side-issue, I think, the odd thing about Pentecost, of all the widely-beloved Feasts, is so that it is so ... feasible.

Advent Sunday bids me: "Put on the whole armor of God." I haven't a clue how to do that.

Our Lord in his Galilean Ministry, said to me, to you: "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." I haven't a prayer of being able to do that.

But at Pentecost Jesus simply says: "Receive the Holy Spirit." You know, I think I just might be able to do that.

As long as I don't have to earn it, or work for it, or strive to accomplish it, or understand it or facilitate it - if I just have to wait, receive, accept - I think I can do that.

And that may be the problem with Pentecost, why it is not more cherished. That's not very glamorous - something so quiet, so passive, so effortless. Receive the Holy Spirit. We really don't need to get prepared for it, or even heroically involved. We are not to grab the Holy Spirit as it passes by, or seek it, or pursue it, or perfect it, we are to sit there and receive it. We are not to seize an opportunity, but to await the giving of it. About as easy as it ever gets, in the Church, in fact in life generally. But hold on - the tougher part is coming. We do not need to do anything to achieve the Holy Spirit, it will be given, but once we've got it we are expected to do something. Really do something.

Just before our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, he spoke of this day, this Pentecost, and said to all those who would follow him:

"As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit."

He - and we, sent. "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you."

I find that a staggering directive.

He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, what he had accomplished in his earthly ministry. And when he prepared to rejoin the Father, he confidently commissioned us to do as he had done, directed us to continue on with his work - sent into the world by him as he had been sent into the world by his Father. And he offered us his Holy Spirit in order for us to be able to accomplish that mission.

Our Lord gathered about him a few followers and they in their turn, gathered about them a vast world, and set that world on fire with the love of God and belief in his Incarnate Word. And Pentecost reminds me that I am to continue on with just that work. No wonder I prefer Christmas carols.

We have been given the power to heal, the power to teach, the power to convert, and we are summoned to do that today. We have been given the power to proclaim to the world the Kingdom of God, and we are challenged to do that today, this day when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven.

Pentecost reminds us that we have that power, granted just plain given, but nonetheless, now we have it. And we are charged to make use of it to change our world, to heal, to save, to bring to new life all who are wandering and lost and looking for help.

What began as a gift, becomes a lifetime of labor and love and worship and service on his behalf, that now requires us to give all that we have and can do, in that effort. "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." I guess we should get on with it. In the power of the Holy Spirit.