Synaxarion for the Feast of Mid-Pentecost

On Wednesday of the paralytic, we celebrate the feast of the mid-point of Pentecost, to render honor to the two great feast days, of Pascha and of Pentecost, for it uniteth and joineth them.

Verse

In the middle of the feast, Christ the Messiah stood among the teachers, teaching.

Thus did it happen: After Christ worked a supernatural wonder upon the paralytic, the Jews took offense concerning the paralytic, for his healing was accomplished on the Sabbath; and they sought to kill Him. He then withdrew to Galilee, and abiding in the mountains there, worked the miracles of the five loaves and two fishes, feeding therewith five thousand men, apart from women and children. Afterwards, when the Feast of the Booths arrived, which was a great feast day of the Jews, He went up to Jerusalem, and went about in secret. Entering the Temple on the mid-point of this feast, He taught.

(The Temple was the habitation of the one God, where love and peace, faith and chastity abode. For this reason, when the high priest of God ministered unto God, it was fitting to be calm and meek, not given to theft, not false, not avaricious; that he might first bring God to dwell in his soul, and afterward might attract people by his manner and way of life. One might even call the soul of each believing person a temple previously cleansed; for, as saith the Lord, I shall walk where I dwell among you.)

And all marveled at His teaching, and those who envied Him said: “How knoweth this Man, having never studied the Scriptures?” But being the New Adam, He had knowledge as had the first Adam; and as God He was full of all wisdom. Again they all murmured against Him, and all strove to slay Him.

But Christ, using against them the complaints of them, as ones who contended concerning the Sabbath, said: “Why seek ye to slay Me?” And they said: “Thou art possessed! Who wisheth to slay Thee?” And he, turning again to the former, said: “Do ye contend concerning the Law, saying that ye are wroth with Me because I restored a man to full health on the Sabbath? Did Moses the Law-giver violate the Sabbath when he said to perform circumcision thereon?”

And He debated with them at length and showed Himself to be the Giver of the Law, and the peer of the Father; wherefore, on the final great day of the feast they cast stones at Him, but the stones did not touch Him. And when, passing from that place, he came upon a man who was blind from birth, He gave him eyes.

Know ye that among the Jews there are three major holidays. The first is Pascha, which is celebrated in the first month, which commemorateth the crossing of the Red Sea. The second is Pentecost, which commemorateth the sojourn in the desert, after the crossing of the Red Sea; for they remained in the desert fifty days, until they received the Law from Moses, and also out of respect for the number seven, which was an object of pious reverence among them. The third of these feasts, was the Setting Up of Booths, in commemoration of the tabernacle which Moses saw in the cloud on the mountain and which the first woodworker Bezaleel, setting up, erected.

This feast [the Setting Up of Booths] lasted seven days, commemorating the harvesting of fruits and the rest in the desert. It was at this time, while this feast was underway, that Jesus arose and cried out with a loud voice: “Let him who thirsteth come unto Me and drink!” Since in this teaching Christ revealed Himself as the Messiah, standing as a mediator and reconciler between us and His eternal Father, it is for this reason that, celebrating this feast and calling it the midfeast of Pentecost, we hymn Christ the Messiah and render honor to both of these two great feasts. It seemeth to me that it is for this reason that the commemoration of the Samaritan woman followeth after this, for it also presenteth much concerning Christ the Messiah, and, as with this present feast, also mentioneth water and thirst. Though the case of the blind man, according to the Evangelist John, containeth a stronger doctrine that the case of the Samaritan woman. In Thine incalculable mercy, O Christ our God, have mercy upon us. Amen.