Joyous Feast Day. My greetings to all of you
brothers and sisters on this important day. How
is it important? Imagine you have a beautiful
Rolls Royce. There's no oil, there's no gas,
and the battery's dead. Not much good, is it?
Remember, when Jesus rose from the dead, the
apostles hid themselves in that upper room because
they were still afraid. But on the day of Pentecost,
this is a feast they named after a number, 50
days after that Paschal event, after the resurrection,
the disciples became fearless, brave, and full
of faithfulness. They were sanctified. They spoke
in other languages. They weren't just babbling
on the ground, flailing away. They spoke in languages
people could understand. So Pentecost is the
day in which the resurrected life, we begin to
be equipped to live it, to proclaim it, and to
be transformed by it. There's gas, there's oil,
and the battery works. And now you have an amazing
vehicle. We heard this hymn last night. It's
one of my favorite hymns. It's important to me.
And it's important that we don't hear it just
as some kind of religious sounding language.
But we don't know what it means. We sang this.
We celebrate Pentecost. And the coming of the
Spirit. And the time. appointed for the promise
and the fulfillment of hope. What is this appointed
of the promise, this time appointed? What is
this fulfillment of hope? Do you feel that? Do
you sense there's something profound there? Of
course, the time appointed for the promise and
the fulfillment of hope has to do with those
words of Jesus being made real in us. He who
believes in me, out of his belly, his very essence,
the depths of his heart and soul, shall flow
rivers of living water that is the Holy Spirit.
Let me take you back to the celebration of Pentecost
in Jerusalem and what it was about. It was important
for the Jews. They gathered in massive numbers
for this festival. If you think back to the book
of Exodus, Moses goes to the mountain, and there
on the mountain, in the cloud of the Holy Spirit,
he receives, he is given by God, the law. Banish
from your mind this idea of Charlton Heston coming
down the mountain. I mean, for us old -timers,
we probably saw the movie. Some of you probably
haven't. Coming down from the mountain with these
tablets, you know, like on one side, like there's
five commandments. On the other side, there's
five more commandments. And you've got the Ten
Commandments, and you're good to go. But then,
of course, he has to break one because he's so
angry. There were two, and they were copies,
by the way, but that's another story. It wasn't
just ten. It was the whole covenant. It was God
saying, I took you out of the slavery of Egypt.
I made you free. I brought you here and fed you
with manna. You drank water from a rock. You
are a people now that were before not a people.
You were nobody. And I established a covenant
with you. And the terms of the covenant are this.
Yes, the Ten Commandments are part of that, but
it's the whole teaching of the Torah, the five
books. But this covenant tells the people, if
I'm your God, says the God Most High, then you
keep these terms. Keep away from sexual immorality.
Do not practice child sacrifice. Do not practice
cannibalism. Take care of the land and community
life and so on. There's so many of these rules.
But think. All these rules are somehow external
to the people. They're outside of them. They're
not a way to connect to God. They're a way to
follow commandments. which is good and was necessary
for the purification of those people. The fulfillment
of the hope, the time anticipated as that hymn
says that we sang last night, is that it's not
just Moses receiving a law, but all of the people
in the upper room calling upon God now receive.
in their hearts, in the form of tongues of fire.
The Holy Spirit himself and the heart becomes
the temple of God. God is no longer distant.
God is no longer separate. The people are sanctified.
They're united. They're deified. What does the
Holy Spirit do? Who is he? Not some kind of,
I don't know, impersonal power, but he's a person.
Listen to what St. Gregory the theologian says.
He is invisible. He is eternal, incomprehensible,
unchangeable, without quality, without quantity,
without form, impalpable, self -moving, eternally
moving, with free will, self -powerful, all -powerful.
Life and life giver, light and light giver, absolute
good, the spring of goodness, the right, the
princely spirit, the governing spirit, the Lord,
the sender, the separator, builder of his own
temple. That's you and me. Leading, working as
he wills, distributing his own gifts, the spirit
of adoption, which we become children of God.
The spirit of truth, of wisdom, the spirit of
understanding, the spirit of knowledge, of godliness,
of counsel, and of fear. By whom the Father is
known and by whom the Son is glorified, by whom
alone he is known, one class, one service, worship,
power, perfection, sanctification. And then St.
Gregory says, well, why make a long sermon of
it? All that the Father has? The Son has, except
being unbegotten. All that the Son has, the Spirit
has, except proceeding from the Father. And so,
today, we begin a new path, a renewal for ourselves
by God. This month is a month of sanctification.
It's a month of holiness. It's a month of glory
of the Church. We begin with Pentecost. And then
next week, All Saints. And the week after that,
All Saints of America and whatever land. And
then after that, St. John of Shanghai and San
Francisco. St. Columba of Iona. St. John the
Baptist. St. Peter and Paul. It's a torrent of
holiness poured out for our inspiration because
you and I, brothers and sisters, If we receive
the gift of the Spirit in the same way that the
people of Israel received the gift of the law
of God. In other words, to abide and live by
the Spirit and the freedom of the Spirit and
the holiness and the joy of the Spirit. Look
in your handouts today. There's a little article
about joy, Christian joy. Christians need to
be joyful because of what they have received,
the resurrection and the Holy Spirit. Saint Philaret
of Moscow, a 19th century saint, the Metropolitan,
said, what should we experience when we have
the Holy Spirit? He says, the Holy Spirit is
immaterial fire that acts in two ways, light
and warmth. The light of faith and faithfulness,
the warmth of love. Our task this month, if this
is truly sanctification month, holiness month,
if these words aren't just religious sounding
and empty, then our task this month is to acquire
the gifts of the Spirit since we have the gift
of the Spirit within us. And what are those things?
Who can quote Galatians chapter 5 for me? Love,
joy, peace. These are gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Long -suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self -control. Spend time. asking
the Holy Spirit, O Heavenly King, come and abide
in us, to grant you the path of those gifts.
Spend one week on one of those gifts. You've
got nine weeks ahead, and then start over. Even
Benjamin Franklin knew to do that, and he was
no Orthodox Christian. Brothers and sisters,
without this feast day and our celebration of
this feast day and our acquisition of the meaning
of this feast day, then Pascha remains just a
celebration in the middle of the night and we
have some great food and we're exhausted. And
the hymns are wonderful, but what's it all mean?
Today is what it all means. Acquire love, joy,
peace, long -suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness. Self -control. Be awakened. And let
the Spirit take up residence in your heart so
that you are indeed the temple of the living
God. Amen.