But maybe we can get away with this discrepancy. Now I know some of you are using your fingers to count that one. And then there is the ten days between Ascension Day that counts Ascension Day as the first day, right? Nope! It actually counts it the way we would normally do it – it counts the next day as day one. And the same thing goes with Ascension Day – that counts Easter Sunday too in its 40 day calculation which makes it always fall on a Thursday. We can also say, as Pentecost is the 50th day of the Easter season, we would need to count Easter Sunday, of course. But it is good to go from Easter to another Sunday, and my research said that the Jewish people at that time counted the days that way, meaning they included the first day in the calculation. Well, if we didn’t count Easter Sunday in our 50 days – then today is the 49th day, and Pentecost should be tomorrow. Remember, I started this sermon with “teach us to count our days” well it’s not so easy!! Have you ever had a deadline that said you have 21 days or whatever to do something? Did you ever wonder if you counted the first day or the last day or both in your calculation? I have, and I always give myself the longest time, and do not count the day at the beginning. Whew, you say – I knew that 40 days featured somewhere in this Easter season! Okay, so it’s 40 days from Easter to Ascension Day, and 50 days from Easter to Pentecost, with ten days between them, right? Or is it? It’s Ascension Day, where Christ ascended to heaven having spent 40 days on earth following his resurrection on Easter Sunday. Pentecost is actually 50 days after Easter Sunday – with the tip being the “pente” meaning 5 (from the Greek) part of Pentecost. No, unfortunately christianity got that one wrong (maybe the name of the website should have been a clue here). Well, we know that 40 days is an important number in the bible, isn’t it, so I guess that makes sense. The first rather amusing thing I found is when you google: “How many days from Easter to Pentecost?” the third result, before Wikipedia, comes from who tell us: “Pentecost is a Christian holy day that celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit 40 days after Easter.”1 In fact, that sentence is often highlighted in the result without even having to open the website. The verse also came up for me this week when I was researching the subject of Pentecost (today is Pentecost Sunday), and all the numbers that seem to be related to our liturgical calendar around this time of year. Psalm 90:12 says: “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” I have always loved that verse as it says so much to me about making the most of each day, and really making each day “count” given so few we have, relatively speaking.
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