Second Advent Pentecost (June 6, 2022)
On June 5, 2022, Second Advent Pentecost eve was observed with a banquet, followed by a celebration of Communion and Sunrise Divine Service at the Cathedral Church of the Americas at the Red Rock Consecrated Sanctuary on June 6th.
Pentecost in the Second Advent Church signifies that God has bestowed His Divine Presence upon The Community in Sanctuary — The Image and The Word that nurture the spirit and Soul with Life and Wisdom. The old First Dispensation Christian celebration commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Disciples seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus. In the old Hebrew calendar, Pentecost — Shavuot or the Festival of Weeks — commemorated the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. For the Essaei Community, the Festival of Weeks was the time to renew one’s vows and to review one’s place in the Order. In the Second Advent, New Laws were revealed at the Temple Mount for a New Age under God at the Second Coming. And this is the purpose of celebrating the date of June 6th in the Sacred Calendar of The Community.
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PENTECOST EVE BANQUET WELCOME
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Rectory-Abbey (Bishopstead)
Delivered by the Right Reverend Gene Savoy, Jr.
“Hello everybody, and welcome to the Rectory Abbey. This is the first time that we ever had a banquet gathering the evening prior to Pentecost. Most of you in the room know that according to our calendar, that we observe different days than the traditional churches. And because we are on a solar calendar, those days are fixed. So Pentecost is always on June 6th, no matter whether it is a Sunday or Monday. It’s always a fixed day, and there are reasons that under the solar calendar that days are fixed because they align with certain days of special blessing and great meaning.
“So we are doing this event for the first time, and we will now be doing it on an annual basis. So this is something new, and we have invited those of you who are members of our Community to join in this very special time of the year. We always gather around the Christmas-Epiphany Season, but this time of Pentecost is also very special because it falls 50 days from Second Advent Easter. And we can read from the books, and those of you who are new to this Community will be receiving the books so that you can better understand the very auspicious events that we observe, as well as the important messages that have been delivered on Easter and Pentecost at the Sanctuary. So we know from the old Jewish calendar that Pentecost comes from the Weeks of the Feast of the First Fruits, and this was incorporated by the first Christians under Jesus. However, we have done something new and profound in our very small Community.
“We know that the Essenes divided their year in the solar calendar. They divided their year into periods of seven weeks. This is an Essene concept, and thus we have Pentecost. The traditional churches neither understand nor recognize the true nature of Jesus Christ; the true universality of his message — which went far beyond Judaism — and who he actually was. In our Community, we are universal because we have the sun of our solar system and we also have the Sun of Righteousness. This is manifesting and forthcoming from the Worlds of Light, which has impregnated every star in the third dimension — not just stars in our sky and our sun. Every sun in the physical universe is being infused with Divine Power. But why is this? Why do we care? We care because what we call God – you can use whatever term you like – we use the term God – God as Divine Light, God as Divine Presence – wishes the return of His Creation to its Original State, which was that of Light. The entire third – all of the dimensions that we read about in Cosolargy – are either aberrations or subsets of the True State.
“This is something that everyone in the world can participate in. It is not restricted to nations; not restricted to any one people. It’s not reserved for a particular religion. So what we are doing in this Community, although we are very small, is very important. So we have come together this evening to renew our fellowship and to understand that there is a New Covenant that has been created from Above for those we call the Elect.
“We sometimes refer to them as the Preordained. These people — the Elect, the Preordained — are going to come from various nations, from various religions, from various cultures, who at one point in time had their roots in a solar teaching. That includes Christianity, parts of Japan, parts of Europe and Africa, and wherever – Mexico and Peru; Polynesia. There were roots that people had in solar traditions, and they’re all gone. The only people on the planet who continue a solar tradition are we – no one else is continuing a solar tradition on this land or anywhere else in the world – no one. People can go out and sun gaze. They can claim all kinds of things, but no one is doing what we are doing on our Community. They don’t understand the things we receive. No one. I am trying to explain why we are here. I could keep going on and on and on.
“The format for this evening is a little bit different than Epiphany. Epiphany is very festive. It’s the holiday season, and we also come together, we like to do fun things for the children. It’s not so much about the children, but it’s that they represent our future. These children that we have here are being trained to replace us in some point in time. That is a very important thing, and I cannot stress how important what we are doing is. And so we are going to sing grace, “Grant Life Unto Me.” We are going to allow you all to enter the dining room. There are no servers tonight. This is not like Epiphany. You may get up and go get whatever you want. After we eat, I will give another message and there will be a reading at the conclusion of the evening, but that is really why we are gathering here. A lot of you know about our Pannuches meal every seven weeks. At some point in the future, I don’t know when, this type of gathering should really be what we do every seven weeks, but we are not prepared to do something like that at this time. I remember when we did it in this house – we used to have all night vigils, and there would be a meal, and my father would read; various members of the Community would read. We were up all night until the sunrise. That we are not ready for. Plus we were all a lot younger then. Please feel free to converse with your fellow Brothers and Sisters in Light this evening — the Community members — and ask any questions you may have. We will now have the grace.”
Following the meal, the Reverend Amanda Buchanan read from the Book of God’s Revelation (pp 95-103) on the Seventh Message received by the Right Reverend Gene Savoy, Sr. as the Eighth Church — the True Church — being the Second Advent Church. Later, the Reverend Canon Robert Petrovich delivered a talk on the legacy of the Essenes related to the holiday of Pentecost.
PENTECOST AND THE LEGACY OF THE ESSENES
Delivered by the Reverend Canon Robert Petrovich
“I have been asked to say a few words about the holiday of Pentecost in relation to the legacy we have received from the Essenes, who gave us this holiday.
“What I have to say today on the date of Pentecost is a part of a wider discussion on the legacy of the Essenes which I will present at our Convocation and seminar this September. What I have for you today are some notes I put together this afternoon from my reading to clarify the continuity of the work and he Community that we are part of today.
“The date of Pentecost was known as a holy day before the Essenes took on an existence separate from the rest of the Hebrew people as a recognized holy order of True Israel.
“That legacy began even before Moses. It goes back to the time of Noah, as recorded in the Book of Jubilees, which claims to be the words received by Moses on Mount Sinai in the first year of the Exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt, in the third month, on the sixteenth day of the month. That date corresponds in the calendar to the day of Pentecost, the date of renewal of the Covenant.
“The opening words of the Book describes itself as ‘the history of the division of the days of the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of their weeks, of their Jubilees throughout all the years of the world, as the Lord spake to Moses on Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the tables of the law and of the commandment, according to the voice of God as he said unto him, “Go up to the top of the Mount.”‘
“Jubilees was widely used among the Essenes. Sixteen copies of the Book in Hebrew were found among the scrolls at Qumran. The book contains, among many other things, a description of the sacred solar calendar used by the Essenes, and calendrical holy days. One of those dates is what we now know as Pentecost. On that date it is said that Noah received his Covenant with God, and the seven laws that were given to Noah for all humanity to follow. And that Covenant was sealed, after the flood, with the sign of a rainbow.
“In the sixth chapter of Jubilees, it says:
‘God gave to Noah and his sons a sign that there should not again be a flood on the earth. He set His bow in the cloud for a sign of the eternal covenant that there should not again be a flood on the earth to destroy it all the days of the earth. For this reason it is ordained and written on the heavenly tablets, that they should celebrate the “Feast of Weeks” in this month once a year, to renew the covenant every year. And this whole festival was celebrated in heaven from the day of creation till the days of Noah and on to the time of Moses.’
“God then tells Moses to command the children of Yisrael to observe this festival in all their generations for one day in the year in this month. For it is the ‘Feast of Weeks’ and the ‘Feast of First Fruits.'”
“Now a few notes.
“The liturgical calendar of the community, which is attested also in the Temple Scroll, divided the year into seven fifty-day periods – hence the name pentecontad calendar – each marked by a festival. A similar system is mentioned by Philo in connection with the Therapeutae in his book, ‘On the Contemplative Life’. One of the festivals Philo mentions, the Feast of the New Wheat, coincided with the Feast of Weeks and was for the Essenes/Therapeutae also the principal holy day of the year, that of the Renewal of the Covenant.
“An outline of the ceremony performed on this holy day, with its blessings and curses, is preserved in the Community Rule. The members of the Order assembled for the service in hierarchical order: the priests first, ranked in order of status, after them the Levites, and lastly ‘all the people one after another in their Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties and Tens, that every Israelite may know his place in the Community of God according to the everlasting design’. Blessing God, the priests recite his acts of loving-kindness to Israel and the Levites recall Israel’s rebellions against him. This recognition of guilt is followed by an act of public repentance.
“Both the celibate branch of the Essenes and the branch that married and had families were led in this assembly by Zadokite priests according to the Damascus Document and the Messianic Community Rule. Both groups convened yearly to review the order of precedence of their members after an inquiry into the conduct of each during the previous twelve months. In both cases, initiation into the order is preceded by entry into the Covenant, sworn by oath. Also present are new initiates. A passage of the Damascus Document outlines the procedure for the ‘assembly of all the camps’ and prescribes that the members were to be ‘inscribed by name’ in hierarchical rank. This clause corresponds exactly to the statute in the Community Rule ordaining a yearly ranking of the members of the community, with a solemn ritual for the Renewal of the Covenant.
“The Community Rule refers to this covenant renewal ceremony in a way that suggests the presence of women and children. The Rule explicitly states that ‘little children and women’ are within the congregation who hear the law, assembled ‘in thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens’ under the authority of various chiefs.
“In the Community Rule, the inclusivity of the covenant renewal ceremony, intended for all Israel, extends out to the Two Spirits treatise, in which all humanity is considered. It is stated that the rewards for those who follow light rather than darkness are for those who keep the covenant. The Two Spirits Treatise frames the entire covenant renewal ceremony. The Exhortation in that treatise is intended for delivery on this occasion to both married and celibate members of the sect; and its theme is perseverance in the Covenant. This instruction described in this treatise is to be delivered by the principal superior, the teacher and administrator of both branches, known by the title of mebaqqer, the master or overseer, who instructs all the sons and daughters of Light.
“Under Jesus, the Holy Spirit was renewed. And it was renewed again at Pentecost, fifty days after the day marking his spiritual resurrection, when the manifesting Image and Word was declared, not in human speech but in the language of Spirit incarnating in those renewed Souls gathered under the spiritual Sun. After that, for a second time, the Holy Spirit departed the land and its people. However, in accordance with the prophecy of Jesus, God’s Light would shine forth in the Advent of His Final Appearance in greater magnitude than it had before.
“That is occurring now in our time.
“Forty years ago, on April 18th, 1982, Rev. Gene received Revelations on the seven mounts of metal in the north Sanctuary. For the following forty days, he saw visions which no book could contain and no writing could describe that revealed the hidden meaning of the Revelation of John and showed to him and explained the visions of former prophets. He came to understand that the whole history of the Second Advent Church, as The Man had lived it, was contained in the former revelations.
“And on the fortieth day of these visions, The Word revealed to The Man that ten days later, at Pentecost, he was to go to the Temple Mount at the South Sanctuary and there await God’s Revelation from the rising of the sun to high noon. That event took place on June 6th, 1982, forty years ago tomorrow.
“Many of us here will still remember that day, because we were there, on that Sunday, waiting at the foot of the Temple Mount, where, on the top of the mountain, Rev. Gene waited to receive the promised revelations at noon on that day. What was revealed to him is written in the second book of The Book of God’s Revelation, which provides the readings we are hearing this evening.”
